Getting Off Oil

How Can We Get Off of Oil?

Using flex-fuel vehicles, Brazil today uses ethanol from sugarcane to replace 40% of its gasoline. In the U.S., Cellulosic biofuels can replace 60% of our gasoline use in 10 years. And not just gasoline. Technology exists today to convert sugar from biomass to biojetfuel and green diesel which are drop-in compatible with their polluting fossil predecessors. The difference is that the carbon in biofuels comes from the air. Plants absorb CO2 and solar energy to make sugar, a clean, renewable source of hydrocarbons which can power cars, trucks, ships and jet aircraft, without oil.

Are We Running Out of Oil?
We're definitely running out of cheap oil. That's why people are drilling for oil at unsafe depths. Oil causes economic as well as environmental problems.The reason is that the growing gap between world supply and demand will drive the price of oil to levels which people cannot afford. But our whole transportation infrastructure depends on oil. What to do? Develop cellulosic biofuels.

Note the widening gap between supply and demand in this Energy Information Administration graph. EIA refers to this gap as 'Unidentified Projects', i.e., nobody knows.

What is General Biomass Doing?

We develop advanced cellulase enzymes to convert cellulosic biomass feedstocks to biosugars, which are the only feasible substitute for oil. Cellulosic biofuels are the cheapest, fastest way to make renewable liquid fuels which can drop into our existing transportation infrastructure and start getting us off of oil.