| Today?s modern industrial economies have been built on cheap crude oil, which has been converted easily into fuels, chemicals, fibres, fertilizers, pesticides etc. However, this energy capital is being depleted at such a rate that new discoveries are not keeping up with the depletion of reserves and most recent discoveries have been small fields of less than a billion barrels of oil. At some point in time, sooner than most oil industry executives will acknowledge, we will reach the point where it takes more energy to take out a barrel of oil from the ground than the energy contained in that barrel of oil. Oil supplies will run out! It is only a matter of time. It is imperative therefore that the world will have to develop alternatives, such as a shift from a hydrocarbon based economy to a carbohydrate based economy. This means the conversion of renewable biomass resources such as Cassava, grain crops wood, bagasse, straw, etc.into useful chemicals, and fuels. | 
