Clean and pure

In Wisconsin, just off the main road, lies a lone silver structure surrounded by green pastures.
That structure houses the fictitious Ethanol Ltd, a mid-sized ethanol manufacturing plant.
It operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, delivering over 50 million gallons of pure ethanol a year to its consumers.
An attractive candidate
As concern over climate change continues to grow, ethanol has received global attention as a suitable alternative to petroleum-based fuels.
One of the major contributors to the planet’s increasing temperatures is transport pollution, which releases large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.
This greenhouse gas (GHG), traps infrared radiation from the sun and emits it back on to the earth’s surface, warming it up.
Renewable energy sources are being explored as viable alternatives for reducing CO2 emissions.
Biofuels, such as ethanol, can help to achieve this goal. First generation bioethanol is manufactured from living crops, usually by fermentation and distillation while second generation is produced from non-edible agricultural residues, lignocellulosic...