HISTORY of biofuels

Solid biomass fuels such as wood or dried waste have been used since man learned to control fire.

Liquid biofuels for industrial applications have been used since the early days of the car industry. Nikolaus August Otto, the German inventor of the combustion engine, conceived his invention to run on ethanol. Rudolf Diesel, the German inventor of the Diesel engine, conceived it to run on peanut oil. Henry Ford originally had designed the Ford Model T, a car produced from 1903 to 1926, to run completely on ethanol, after surreptitious efforts^{[citation needed]} were successful at thwarting Ford's desires to mass produce electric cars. However, when crude oil was cheaply extracted from deeper in the soil (thanks to oil reserves discovered in Pennsylvania and Texas), cars began using fuels from oil.

Nevertheless, before World War II, biofuels were seen as providing an alternative to imported oil in countries such as Germany, which sold a blend of gasoline with alcohol fermented from potatoes, called Reichskraftsprit. In Britain, grain alcohol was blended with petrol by the Distillers Company Limited under the name Discol and marketed through Esso's affiliate Cleveland.

After the war, cheap Middle Eastern oil lessened interest in biofuels. But the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 increased interest from governments and academics. The counter-shock of 1986 again reduced oil prices and interest. In the United States since 1988 all cars are required to use at least E20 fuel and with minor modification can use E85 fuel. But since about 2000, rising oil prices, concerns over the potential oil peak, greenhouse gas emissions (global warming), and instability in the Middle East are pushing renewed interest in biofuels. Government officials have made statements and given aid in favour of biofuels. For example, US president George W. Bush said in his 2006 State of the Union speech that he wants the US to replace 75% of the oil it imports from the Middle East by biofuels by 2025.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy has awarded $375 million for bioenergy research centers. Cellulose ethanol is one of the goals for a fourfold improvement over ethanol from corn. The cellulose is in fast growing grasses and non-edible parts of edible plants so it does not compete for food.