Rising oil prices spur production of greener alternative

New York Times : As the price of oil continues to rise, one company, Gevo in Englewood, Colorado, is pursuing a greener alternative to the fossil fuel: It has just bought a plant that turns corn into ethanol—used as vehicle fuel—and plans to convert the plant to make a different chemical, isobutanol , which is a building block for many other chemicals. Isobutanol is easily converted to butanol, which can be used as fuel as well as in rubber and plastics. A green aspect of this process is that when making rubber and plastics, butanol not only replaces the oil but also becomes a “carbon sink,” a place where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, can be stored after it is pulled out of the atmosphere.