Quick Guide to Biofuels: When the Oil Runs Out

Biofuels today power Indy cars and airplanes as well as cars, trucks and buses. They are hotly debated in international conferences and generate as many arguments as they offer routes to energy independence and security.

Do biofuels help slow global warming or contribute to atmospheric CO2? Will biofuels give a sustainable future or snatch food from the mouths of the world s poor as staple food crops are pushed aside in favor of bioenergy crops? Are rainforests being decimated so that plantations destined for biofuels reduce global biodiversity? Can we even afford biofuels?

One answer is very easy: plants (biomass) are an alternative to the world s unhealthy addiction to fossil fuels, and especially to oil. Modern life depends on the products of the petrochemical industry, but the timeline of oil depletion be dangerously short. Mankind needs solutions for when the oil runs out as it eventually will - within three decades or three centuries. Of those two extreme scenarios, the longer may prove catastrophic if global warming follows its relentless course.

The shorter concentrates the mind but with the knowledge that biotechnological solutions exist now.

This book's ten chapters explain how to best use that important know how. This is a concise and uncomplicated history, status and outlook for the biofuels agenda that is applicable for layman as well as the industry insider. The information presented here on this imperative topic is beneficial to everyone, whether you ll be financing biofuels, producing it or just pumping it into your fuel tank.