Review Article
Towards Cellulosic Biofuels Evolution: Using the Petro-Industry Model
| Mariam B Sticklen1*, Hussien F Alameldin1 and Hesham F Oraby2 | ||
| 1Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA | ||
| 2Cellulosic Biofuel Network, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Québec, Québec, Canada; and Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University, Egypt | ||
| Corresponding Author : | Mariam B Sticklen Department of Crop and Soil Sciences Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Tel: 517-230-2929 E-mail: Stickle1@msu.edu |
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| Received August 20, 2013; Accepted May 29, 2014; Published May 31, 2014 | ||
| Citation: Sticklen MB, Alameldin HF, Oraby HF (2014) Towards Cellulosic Biofuels Evolution: Using the Petro-Industry Model. Adv Crop Sci Tech 2:131. doi: 10.4172/2329-8863.1000131 | ||
| Copyright: © 2014 Sticklen MB, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | ||
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Abstract
While the United States owns only three percent (3%) of the total world petro-oil reserves, it uses over twenty-five percent (25%) of its total global output on an annual basis. Furthermore, the US petro-oil consumption is expected to double by 2050. While the sources for US oil are innumerable, many of the countries which contribute vastly to the US oil supply are economically and politically unstable. This has led to concerns about the security of the US oil supply, since a major political disturbance could be devastating. This article describes a model for the production of affordable and renewable biofuels as well as recombinant high-value industrial co-products from crop residues—waste products in today’s farming environment without competition between commodities critical to global food and feed supplies. This model represents a uniquely attractive business case giving the environmental and economic advantage it would have over petro-oil derived fuels and byproducts. Moreover, it can assist the developed nations to reduce their dependence on imported petro-oil fuels as well as improves the lives of agriculture producers in developed and developing nations around the globe.
