Is Making Chemicals and Industrial Materials from Plant Matter the Real Issue?

Filed in archive Biomass on September 25, 2006

I would like to thank my readers again for suggesting topics that have high levels of ecological significance. This one is from Wendy Jedlicka of o2umw.org.

According to Wendy, a study made by David Morris and Irshad Ahmed entitled The Carbohydrate Economy: Making Chemicals and Industrial Materials from Plant Matter said that much of our petroleum needs could be covered with non-food plant matter or residuals. Residuals include less intensive crops or residues from agricultural production.

I think we have come to the point where the technology is on the upswing of the learning curve. In the next few years, we will see technological heaps (cellulosic ethanol production for example, is believed to be years ahead of current ethanol distilling technologies) that will enable us to utilize residual agricultural products. But then technology does not really answer all our concerns, does it? There is a problem with resource, with trading off which for what, of addressing other pressing global issues.

At the end of Wendy's short note, she said that the real challenge is in avoiding the myopic approach to biofuel development. I agree with her fully. Narrow minded-ness will never get us anywhere. While we are looking at the future technology, let us also look at a systematic way of making that technology work on a human scale. Let that technology add to the systematic approach of solving global problems, not a showcase of advancement that people will put on a shelf and forget.