Food or Fuel? Maybe We Can Have Both.

Coskata, which has attracted huge investments from such companies as General Motors, specializes in turning waste products, "biomass," into ethanol.

"We're talking about the next generation of ethanol," said William J. Roe, Coskata's president and chief executive. "We're talking about ethanol that is not reliant on food sources."

Simply described, Coskata employs a three-part process to turn biomass into biofuel. First, the material is placed into a what the company calls a "gassifier," in which quick, high heat turns the biomass into synthetic gas. The synthetic gas then goes to a fermentation unit where patented microorganisms consume the gas and excrete the results as ethanol, which is then recovered through vaporization.

Coskata says its process, now in place at a demonstration plant in Madison, Wis., can produce ethanol for about $1 a gallon. That does not include retail expenses such as packaging, marketing and transportation to sales outlets.

Citing research from Argonne National Laboratory, Coskata executives say their process is energy efficient, delivering 7.7 units of energy for every unit invested. They argue that it is environmentally useful, having the ability to turn trash into energy as opposed to more deposits into landfills, and that it has the potential to remove the automobile from the environmental equation, at least in terms of fossil-fuel consumption and its enormous carbon footprint.

Roe says his company will open its first full-production plants within two years.

It isn't wishful thinking, he said. "It's not a dream. We can do this," he said. "We can prove that it does not have to be either-or when it comes to ethanol and food."