Developing countries with characteristically weak economies and insuf­ficient industrial infrastructures have been more seriously hurt by the energy crises. To fully exploit the potential of available fossil-based fuels and other alternative renewable resources, significantly large capital funds, which developing countries may be lacking in, are required. The trend has thus been shifted toward the small-scale or localized utilization of energy resources. One potentially promising area where developing countries can achieve relatively quick success is the supplementing of their fossil fuel sup­plies with alternative renewable fuels derived from food and agricultural
crops such as sugarcane, cassava, maize, and sorghum. This option is also viable for developed economies.

Focused primarily upon petroleum as a primary source of transportation fuels, ethanol has garnered a great deal of attention as a liquid fuel source alternative to gasoline or as a gasoline blend to reduce the consumption of conventional gasoline. The ethanol alternative fuel program has been most seriously pursued by Brazil and the United States. In Brazil, all cars are run on either gasohol (a 22 vol% mixture of ethanol with gasoline, or E22, man­dated in 1993; a 25% blend, or E25, mandated since 2007) or pure ethanol (E100). In Brazil, the National Program of Alcohol, PROALCOOL, started in November 1975, was created in response to the first oil crisis of 1973. This program effectively changed the consumption profile of transportation fuels in the country. In 1998, these ethanol-powered cars consumed about 2 billion gallons of ethanol per year and about 1.4 billion gallons of ethanol were addi­tionally used for producing gasohol (E22, i. e., 22 vol% ethanol and 78 vol% gasoline) for other cars [7]. In March 2010, a milestone of 10 million flex-fuel ethanol-powered vehicles produced in Brazil was achieved. The Brazilian program has successfully demonstrated large-scale production of ethanol from sugarcane and the use of ethanol as a sustainable motor fuel. In 2010, Brazil produced about 6.92 billion gallons [8] of ethanol, whereas the United States produced just over 13.2 billion gallons; 2010 U. S. production was more than two times greater than that of 2007 (6.5 billion gallons) and about eight times greater than that of 2000 (1.62 billion gallons). As shown, ethanol has been the fastest growing chemical in the United States for the past decade. These two countries alone were responsible for about 90% of the world’s industrial ethanol production in 2010.

Regarding the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs), the National Research Council (NRC), responding to a request from Congress and with funding from the U. S. Department of Energy, emphasizes the need for substantially more research and development on renewable energy sources, improved methods of utilizing fossil fuels, energy conservation, and energy-efficient technologies. The Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 1992 was passed by the U. S. Congress to reduce the nation’s dependence on imported petroleum by requiring certain fleets to acquire alternative fuel vehicles, which are capable of operating on nonpetroleum fuels. Alternative fuels for vehicular purposes, as defined by the Energy Policy Act, include ethanol, natural gas, propane, hydrogen, biodiesel, electricity, methanol, and p-series fuels. P-Series fuels are a family of renewable fuels that can substitute for gasoline. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed U. S. energy policy by pro­viding tax incentives and loan guarantees for energy production of various types, which included tax reductions for alternative motor vehicles and fuels including bioethanol [9].

The United States does not suffer from a lack of energy resources (it has plenty of coal and oil shale reserves), but it is in need of conventional liquid transportation fuels. The market for transportation fuels has been dominated by petroleum-based fuels and that trend is expected to continue for a while. A great many researchers of the world have worked on the biological pro­duction of liquid fuels from biomass and coal [10]. They have found micro­organisms that can produce ethanol from biomass, convert natural gas into ethanol, and convert syngas derived from coal gasification into liquid fuels. These micro-organisms are found to be energy efficient and promising for industrial production. The microbial process works at ordinary temperature and pressure and offers significant advantages over chemical processes, such as direct coal liquefaction and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, which oper­ate under severe conditions to produce liquid fuels from coal.

Researchers have focused on using lignin as a renewable source to derive traditional liquid fuel. Lignins are produced in large quantities in the United States as by-products of the paper and pulp industry. As a consequence, the prices of some lignin products, such as lignosulfonates or sulfonated lignins, are relatively low. Lignosulfonates are used mainly as plasticizers in making concrete and also used in the production of plasterboard. Global production of lignin for various industrial applications is estimated to be quite high, even though reliable statistical data are unavailable. In China, the national lignin production has grown from 32 million metric tons in 2006 to 45 mil­lion metric tons in 2010, at a relatively fast growth rate.