US President George W. Bush on January 31, in his State of the Union address to Congress, created a buzz around biofuels by announcing a fresh policy push to replace much of gasoline oil imports by bioethanol produced from agricultural waste. His new ‘Advanced Energy Initiative’ should help make it possible to cut American oil imports from the Middle East by 75% in 2025, in part by making fuel from biorefineries “practical and competitive within six years.”
Apart from funding research into hybrid, electric and hydrogen-fueled cars, the president asked Congress to increase its budget for biorefineries that turn cellulosic materials into bioethanol from $90 million this year to $150 million in 2007.
Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, in a statement, applauded Bush’s words, saying the US “could produce 25% of [its] transportation fuel need by 2015 if we dramatically ramp up biorefinery development.”
Jeff Passmore, executive vice president at enzyme and ethanol production company Iogen in Ottawa, Ontario, says the additional money would be best spent on speeding up the commercialization of technology rather than on additional research.
“We’re ready to go,” Passmore says, calling lenders’ unease with investing in unproven technologies the most important bottleneck in trying to get the company’s first $350-million biorefinery near Idaho Falls off the ground.
doi:10.1038/nbt0306-233