Renewable Fuels

Renewable fuels are alternative fuel sources such as ethanol and biodiesel (e.g. soy, vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled restaurant greases), in constrast to alternative fuels such as natural gas, propane and hydrogen. Renewable fuels became particularly newsworthy with the signing of the Energy Bill on August 8, 2005 which expanded the current use of renewable fuels in the United States. The Bill called for a minimum of 4 billion U.S. gallons (15 million m³) of renewable fuels to be used in 2006, only to increase to 7.5 billon US gallons [28 million m³] by 2012.

The passage of the energy bill was motivated by a number of factors, including existing U.S. agricultural subsidies, a powerful farm lobby, as well as the desire for independence from Middle Eastern oil. Other factors such as planetary warming due to an increasing greenhouse effects and the gas emission standard required by the Kyoto Protocol were additional factors. Pollution, and injury to our fragile environment is a signficant factor. Unlike fossil fuel combustion, which unlocks carbon that has been stored for millions of years, use of ethanol results in low increases to the carbon cycle.

Thanks to advances in biotechnology, researchers - to borrow an analogy from the Grimm Brothers' Rumpelstiltskin - can now transform ethanol, straw, and other plant wastes, into "green gold" or cellulosic ethanol while simulteneously replacing "black gold" or oil with a sustainable, domestically produced biofuel. The environmental, financial, and geo-political ramifications of this endeavor are staggering, particularly in an industrialized economy that is energy dependent, and in which energy is the most significant unit of wealth that drives money in a world-wide economy.