Biofuels: Biotechnology, Chemistry, and Sustainable Development [Hardcover]

David M. Mousdale (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1420051245 | ISBN-13: 978-1420051247 | Publication Date: June 4, 2008 | Edition: 1

Evaluating a wealth of quantitative data, Biofuels: Biotechnology, Chemistry, and Sustainable Development discusses different types of biofuels, the science behind their production, the economics of their introduction to the marketplace, their environmental impacts, and their implications for world agriculture. It broadens the discussion on biofuels beyond bioethanol and biodiesel, taking into account the data, ideas, and bioproducts that have appeared over the last fifty years.

An Insider’s Look at the Biotech Industry

Written by a seasoned expert in the biotech industry, the book analyzes in detail the present status and future prospects of biofuels, from ethanol and biodiesel to biotechnological routes to biohydrogen. It emphasizes the ways biotechnology can improve process economics as well as facilitate sustainable agroindustries and crucial elements of a biobased economy. The author also explores the additional innovations required in microbial and plant biotechnology, metabolic engineering, bioreactor design, and the genetic manipulation of novel biomass species of plants, such as softwoods and algae.

The Role of Biofuels in the Future

With over 1,000 references and nearly 200 graphs and tables of data, this well-researched, comprehensive work examines the past and present of various biofuels while considering the future of a biocommodity economy.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: CRC Press; 1 edition (June 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1420051245
• ISBN-13: 978-1420051247
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,575,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David M. (Michael) Mousdale was born in England in 1951 and educated at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge (Ph.D., 1979) - always a winner (or never a loser) on Boat Race Day, therefore!

After a research career that moved from plant biochemistry to microbial physiology and biotechnology to industrial biomanufacturing, he became interested in the late 1990s in the then rapidly developing and increasingly publicized topic of biofuels. The book "Biofuels: Biotechnology,Chemistry, and Sustainable Development", first published in 2008, was written to explore if (as many claimed) biofuels would miraculously save the plant from global warming, greenhouse gases, and climate change. The answer was not to be found solely in science or technology but in a much broader sweep of environmental, policy and economic issues, inevitably tied up with plant biology, geography, climate, global resources, and mathematics.

The answer remains a highly qualified "maybe". Biofuels were, however, a first serious attempt to confront the bigger question: what happens if (or when) the oil runs out? Must humanity revert to a preindustrial state? Or even to the world of the Middle Ages, the Iron Age or the Bronze Age?

Such questions have long been the stock-in-trade of science fiction writers. The challenging agenda now (beyond the "Noughties") is for research scientists to offer realistic solutions to pressing practical problems beyond their laboratories and abstruse articles in peer-group journals.

Events have, as always, moved rapidly on, and the cosy consensus that ethanol manufactured from "biomass" (grasses and trees, mostly) would not only be sustainable but also greatly aid global carbon dioxide emissions was severely challenged in 2008 when the issue of Indirect Land Use (ILU) was raised. When land is cleared to make way for biofuels crops, the "slash and burn" approach would generate so much carbon dioxide that over a century of cellulosic ethanol production and use would be required just to break even.

"Introduction to Biofuels) will be published in 2010 by the Taylor & Francis group. This "second edition" will discuss ILU and other key topics in an updated and expanded monograph that aims to appeal to chemists as well as biologist, and students of economics and sustainable development as well as unrepentant scientists.