Genetically engineered organisms can more efficiently produce ethanol from cheap and abundant sources of biomass, such as agricultural waste. It could make ethanol cost competitive.
On January 31, Ari Patrinos was sitting in his living room in Rockville, MD, listening to the State of the Union speech and slowly nodding off. Suddenly, he was jolted awake.
"We'll also fund additional research for cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol," President Bush was saying on the television, "not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switchgrass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years."
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Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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