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	Fueling up 1979	When fuel shortages and gas lines returned in the 1970s, "gasohol" -- a 10 percent blend of ethanol and gasoline -- seemed like a new concept.
	Exxon ad in farm magazine 1979	Once again, the oil industry fought it tooth and nail.
	Nebraska ethanol producers association put together an advertising campaign in the mid 1980s.	And once again, as they did in the 1930s , the farmers attempted to fight back against the oil industry. Because price competition was so steep, most of the farm scale operations went bankrupt in the 1980s.
	Gene Schroeder on the farm in southeastern Colorado.	Many farm-scale plants were relatively low-tech, but the farm movement had a spirited approach to competition with gasoline.
		Negative marketing hurt ethanol sales in the 1970s and 80s. (As it did in France in the 1930s in this second picture) After all, if there was no alcohol, maybe it was a good thing. Yet the oil industry never advertises the presence or absence of benzene, MMT, MTBE or other much more dangerous additives.
	Luke Staengl of the Floyd Agricultural Energy Co-op, 1985.	In 1985, Virginia had 15 alcohol fuel plants producing 50 million gallons of ethanol per year. By 1992 they were all bankrupt.
	Ethanol is back. And at less than $1.40 a gallon from Brazil, or $1.80 on the spot market, the economics of ethanol have caught up with the national security issue. How long that will last depends on how much influence the oil industry has over the US government.	The Midwest held on to its ethanol markets. By 2003, some 72 plants produced over three billion gallons of ethanol -- enough to raise octane in nearly one quarter of the nation's gasoline supply. By 2005 the total was closer to 6 billion gallons. The scale-up has been dramatic, partly because of the MTBE phaseout and partly because of foreign oil pressures on US prices.
	Archer Daniels Midland is the largest ethanol supplier in the US. A ruthless corporate competitor, ADM forced many smaller ethanol plants out of business in the 1980s and 90s.
In some places renewable energy is not just for octane boosting for gasoline, but is used as a pure fuel. In the US Midwest, in Sao Paulo, Brazil and in Germany, pure alcohol fuel pumps are becoming quite common.

Denver, Colorado (2004, AP)	Sao Paulo, Brazil (2005, Kovarik)	Germany -- Biodiesel pump, along with gasoline, plus, super, and diesel, on autobahn 2003. (USDA)
	Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva shows a 2004 Volkswagon commercial model powered by alcohol or gasoline. Although it says it also runs on natural gas, that's just the program. The actual car is not quite that flexible.	Brazil decided to invest heavily in sugar cane ethanol after the second oil crisis of 1979. Today, over 40 percent of Brazilian cars run on pure ethanol and the country is more or less energy independent, unlike the US, where over half our liquid energy comes from oil fields overseas.
	Alcohol fuel in Sao Paulo, in Oct. 2005, cost R1.24 per liter, or about $2.50 per gallon. Gasoline was double the cost. On the left, the only way you can tell an alcohol fueled car in Brazil (if you dont know the exact model type) is on the inside of the gas cap. This one says "alcool." Note that the pump in the background of the photo at right is a natural gas pump. Cars must be specially adapted to use pure natural gas.
	Novel permanemt crops like Jerusalem artichokes hold some promise of reducing soil erosion while supplying high yields per acre.	One troubling aspect of ethanol, biodiesel and other biofuels has always been the long term impact of corporate grain farming on soil. New crops and new types of fuels may be an important part of the switch to renewable fuels. Also important are cellulosic biomass crops.
	Diane Spinder of the National Renewable Energy Lab checks a test fermenter.	“Does the average citizen understand what this [oil shortage] means? In from 10 to 20 years this country will be dependent entirely upon outside sources for a supply of liquid fuels... paying out vast sums yearly in order to obtain supplies of crude oil from Mexico, Russia and Persia.” Chemists might be able to solve the problem by making ethanol from abundant cellulose waste – materials such as seaweed, sawdust, corn stalks and wheat straw. --Harold Hibbert, Yale University, SAE Journal, 1922.
	Tammy Kay Hayward and Jenny Hamilton work on cellulase enzymes atNREL Alternative Fuels User Facility (AFUF). The t. reesei breaks cellulose down into glucose.	While NREL continues, much of the basic research that has been going on for decades was sidetracked, scuttled or undermined during the recent petro-friendly administrations in the US.