Ethanol—the primary renewable liquid fuel

Abstract

This perspective paper establishes that ethanol has a long history of very good performance as a renewable liquid fuel blended with gasoline and can be used in over 80% of the automobile and other light duty transportation vehicles. It fits very well into the future of the combination of electricity and renewable liquid fuel for such transportation. It has also been established that renewable biomass feedstock is highly oxygenated and ethanol can be produced with high yields and efficiency with some conversion technologies—particularly the ‘Hybrid’ of gasification with bioconversion—that have been developed to the commercial implementation stage. Recent major studies conducted by the USDA, DOE and major National Laboratories have projected that large and sustainable biomass feedstock supplies are available and are going to be available to efficiently produce this ethanol in very large quantities of around 340 billion liters per year in the USA. The experience gained over the past 70 years in the south-eastern USA has been summarized to further support the fact that efficient and sustainable biomass supply can be developed and maintained to support much increased usage. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry