Ethanol’s most recent breakthrough in the United States: A case of socio-technical transition

Applying insights from the field of science and technology studies (STS), this paper helps explain the meteoric rise of ethanol in recent years in the United States. The term socio-technical system is a conceptual reminder that technologies affect and are an effect of their broader infrastructural, organizational, regulatory, and symbolic environments. As explained, there was no single “cause” driving this transition. Rather, dynamics at different levels came together and reinforced each other. When taken together, these transitions had the cumulative effect of propelling the ethanol juggernaut to the heights of today. The author analytically breaks down the automobile socio-technical system and examines transitions that occurred in its various dimensions. While not predictive, the socio-technical framework reminds us of influential path-dependent logics. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of where, in light of these realities, the biofuels trajectory may be headed in the not-too-distant future.