Ethanol, the Next Generation: Why Corn Is Out and Cellulose Is In

AOL Daily Finance
By CHRISTOPHER FAILLE
Posted 1:30 PM 02/02/11

Since the 1970s, the U.S. has subsidized ethanol produced from food crops, especially from corn, thus providing a homegrown, alternative fuel source for our automobiles. But for multiple reasons, from its environmental impacts to its effect on world food prices, the "first-generation" process of using corn to make fuel has drawn a lot of opposition in recent years.

So, entrepreneurs have focused on new, "second-generation" methods for making ethanol from such sources as wood chips, grasses, weeds or algae.

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Biofuels: The next generation

The Stanly News and Press
Published: September 09, 2009 09:47 am
By Jennifer Woodford

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 — Boldly going where no state has gone before, North Carolina is moving its biofuels industry from first generation to second generation technologies and a more affordable and available source of fuel for the nation.

First generation biofuels are dependent on sugars, starches, vegetable oil and animal fats as feedstock to produce biodiesel and ethanol.

Second generation technologies are based on biomass such as agricultural waste. This is important because second-generation feedstocks, the raw materials that biofuels are produced from, are expected, as manufacturing processes advance, to provide a renewable source for fuel, at more competitive prices and in a more environmentally friendly manner.

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Brazil to Start Producing Second-Generation Ethanol in September

Brazil Magazine (Los Angeles)
Written by Isaura Daniel
Tuesday, 02 June 2009

Brazilian president's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's Chief of Staff Dilma Roussef stated that Brazil intends to continue its global leadership in the second-generation ethanol, made from cellulose. Rousseff talked about this at the opening of the 2nd Ethanol Summit, a meeting at Sheraton Hotel, in São Paulo, that brings together professionals in the chain in Brazil and abroad.

The event should end on Wednesday, June 3. According to the ministers, who represented president Lula at the meeting, apart from maintaining global leadership in ethanol, the government is also prepared to reach ethanol production from lignocellulose.

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