There are two kinds of biofuel out there, but they are not produced in the same way. Ethanol is produced by a fermentation process where the fermentable sugars in the plant materials are converted to ethanol. Distillation is the process whereby the concentration of alcohol is increased. The problem with ethanol as a fuel additive/source, even the current E85, is that it cannot be pumped through pipelines like petroleum because it is corrosive to pipelines. Therefore it can only be transported in tanks.
The other biofuel out there is produced from algae. In this process high lipid content green algae are placed in a photo bioreactor with a growth medium (nutrient source). The biomass is increased through photosynthesis, which also consumes CO2 and produces oxygen. When the growth cycle ends the biomass is processed to extract the oily lipids which are then refined into a fuel that is similar to a light distillate fuel such as diesel or jet fuel. Virgin, the USAF and the Navy have all flown aircraft using biofuel. the advantage of this fuel is that it can readily be distributed and marketed using the infrastructure that is already in place.
Household garbage is not a particularly good source of material for fuel production. It needs to be sorted so that everything which cannot be fermented is removed. A better use of garbage might be as biochar. Biochar is charcoal produced by pyrolysis of biomass and is one approach to carbon sequestration, to produce negative carbon dioxide emissions. Biochar can be used to increase soil fertility and increase soil productivity. It may help mitigate global warming via carbon sequestration. It is a stable material that will is capable of enduring in soil for thousands of years.
Therefore, I think that algae based biofuels are probably the best candidate, as do the oil companies, who are already looking at ways to scale up the process to the point where it is a viable alternative. I don't believe that the oil companies have no interest in seeing biofuel be successful. On the contrary, as the cost of extracting fossil fuel increase, the cost gasoline and diesel will increase. I don't believe that the American consumer is prepared to pay what Europeans pay for fuel, so as the price of production increases, you'll begin to see the shift. The US Navy, the biggest consumer of fossil fuel in the government has already committed to congress to purchase more biofuel for ships and aircraft beginning with a 10 million gallon purchase in the next few years. Algae derived fuel is already produced and available in California.
The biofuel process that I was working on the environmental permitting for was a process that would use sanitary wastewater treatment plant effluent as the basic nutrient source to be augmented with CO2 gas. The byproducts were oxygen and clean water in addition to a lipid rich biomass. This process takes sanitary treatment plant wastewater which is otherwise discharged into our rivers and oceans as uses it as a nutrient source. CO2 gas that would normally be released to the atmosphere by certain industrial processes such as oil refineries, can instead be captured and injected into the photo bioreactor where it supports the photosynthesis process. The goal of this experiment was to take wastewater, waste CO2 out of the environment and produce clean fuel, freshwater, and oxygen. The best part of all, it works.
