Ethanol

As a student of history, I appreciate irony. For instance, our nation's addiction to oil began in the early 1900s when scientests found blending lead with gasoline was less expensive than ethanol, now touted by many (this blogger included) as part of the answer to our current problem. Another irony is that ethanol production is facing the same critical obstacle now that it did back then.
See, most ethanol in the U.S. is made by corn, though some is also made by waste from the beverage and cheese industries as well as sugar beets and sugar cane. These sources, or feedstocks, are starches that are easily broken down into sugars to be fermented but there is a lot of biomass (stalks, leaves, etc) that is not able to be used because it contains cellulosic carbohydrates.
Right now, I don't know much of the science behind this, but from what I've read in numerous scientific reports (works cited below) cellulose is a more complex carbohydrate and requires a different enzyme to catalyze fermentation. This enzyme, from what I understand, can be manufactured, which is where the irony lay: it is the same enzyme that was put on the shelf in the 1920's! Scientists then were trying to find a way to mass produce this enzyme just as scientists are trying to do the same thing today!
The beauty of unlocking cellulosic ethanol is the regenerating supply of feedstocks. Things like paper, paper pulp, paper sludge, municipal waste, forest residue, corn stalks, cotton gin residues, the cane in sugar cane, and dedicated crops like fast growing poplar trees, switch grass, prarie grass, even hemp; the list goes on. There's one company, Arkenol Fuels in Orange County, CA, that estimates as much as 70% of what ends up in landfills is useful to making ethanol! Imagine what would happen if we could harness such a large source of material!
Ethanol and other biofuels are practical, efficient, and clean sources of energy. Our nation’s future health and safety demand that we find alternatives to fossil fuels and the time has come for citizens everywhere to examine what can be done to develop them.