Disruptive Technology Meets The Biofuels Industry

We have analyzed and synthesized the historical trends and the global economic implications of Biofuels from 1859 to present. From Edwin Drake in 1859 who developed Biofuels as an alternative fuel for petroleum to the current blending of ethanol, we used statistical and empirical studies to explain the costs and benefits of using disruptive technologies for Biofuels. We disserted expert’s opinions and controversies surrounding the costs, benefits, crops (first and second generation) materials used for Biofuels, and also the social and ecological implications of using Biofuels as an alternative energy (Christensen, Johnson & Rigby, 2002; Christensen, Anthony & Roth, 2004; Songstad, Lakshmanan, Chen, & Gibbons, 2009; Kovarik, 1998). We have traversed Brazil, China, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and other countries to analyze these costs and benefits economically and socially as they affect human kind.

We discovered that various leadership styles and political considerations are inextricably intertwined with the success and failures of implementing Biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels from proposal to fruition.  From the United States to other European nations and back to the developing nations, political considerations and the type of leadership styles ensconced in the system enhanced or inhibited the introduction of disruptive technologies that expedites the use of Biofuels (Aluya, 2009; Corrin, 2008; Kovac, 2006; Peter, 2007; Moresco, 2008; Ngo, 2007). For example, in Brazil, China, Japan, India, Nigeria and the Netherlands, we examined various statistical models to explain this phenomenon of the costs and benefits generated through these various leadership styles. We explained that over 95% of the world population used some form of oil generated from Biofuels either for cooking, and  for other usage, however, concerted efforts have been made by the stakeholders in the fossil fuels industry to ensure the costs of producing Biofuels outweigh the benefits. Leadership and the political consideration of subsidizing the cost of Biofuels by various national leaders and asking the incumbent fossil fuels industry to disrupt itself has yet to produce any tangible results. One of the challenges we encountered during this study is how do you ask an industry using the incumbent fossil fuel technologies to disrupt itself and compete with itself using a disruptive technology such as Biofuels. This question, although simplistic, layers of elements and components using various studies made it difficult to answer. Interestingly, globally, leaders of various nations are willing to give subsidies on the disruptive technologies (i.e. Biofuels) to incumbent technology leaders so that these incumbents can compete with themselves in the energy sector of the market.