Disruptive Civil Technologies: Potential Impacts on US interests out to 2025

Six civil technologies offer the potential to enhance or degrade US power over the next fifteen years according to National Intelligence Council (NIC) sponsored contractor research.

(pg 11) Biofuels and bio-based chemicals production technologies have the only potential near-term capability to provide alternatives to conventional gasoline and diesel-fuel and petrochemical feedstocks. Oil-importing regions

A large-scale move to energy-efficient biofuels could increase US energy security and ease international competition for world oil supplies and reserves. Conversely, if the United States does not develop a strong bio-based economy, the country would become increasingly dependent upon less-than-friendly OPEC countries for a critical energy resource. The need for a transition could become essential before 2025.

Many analysts believe that worldwide production of conventional crude oil will reach a peak in this time frame, which could precipitate a major oil crisis and cause oil prices to reach $100 per barrel or higher. A broader move to biofuels may also be geopolitically essential for governments to satisfy international and national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions