No sugar rush [Power Biofuels]

The success of biofuels depends on creating a non-food feedstock that produces the right sugar for conversion into fuel. The basic feedstocks for the production of first-generation biofuels are products that would normally enter the animal or human food-chain such as seeds, or grains such as wheat. These crops yield starch that is fermented into bioethanol. The drive is therefore to develop second and third-generation biofuels. Second generation biofuels present the short term solution, and are made up of biofuels derived from feedstock outside the food chain. In the UK the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) collaborates to carry out a variety of research to speed up the adoption of second-generation biofuels along the biofuels supply chain.