Institute of the Environment

‘Biofuels’ is a broad term that includes the lowest technology, older fuels as well as some of the newest, highest tech fuels. In contrast to “fossil fuels” that were created millions of years ago, biofuels are “contemporary” materials such as wood, charcoal, and crop and animal waste, all of which are in wide use today throughout the developing world, where they expose their users to highly elevated levels of indoor air pollution, and lead to hundreds of thousands of excess illnesses and deaths each year. In advanced societies, older biofuels, such as wood, have maintained a toe-hold in space heating applications, but the newer biofuels are used primarily in the transportation sector. This application has deep roots: the Ford Model T was a ‘flex fueled’ vehicle sold early in the last century, able to run on ethanol, which at that time was a farmproduced biofuel. In the intervening century, fossil fuels largely replaced biofuels in transportation applications. However, rising concerns about energy security and the environmental impacts of fossil fuel dependence has created a resurgence in interest in transportation biofuels.