LIQUID FUEL from Nonpetroleum Sources

Abstract

THE recent approval by the Congress and the President of a major research and development program of the Bureau of Mines looking toward the development of alternative sources of liquid fuels, together with numerous other suggestions regarding government coordination or regulation of research, makes it particularly timely and pertinent to attempt to analyze the proper functions and cooperative relationships between government and private research in an economy such as ours. Too much of the recent discussions of this problem has been in the fields of theory or of politico-economic controversy in which the writer does not care to participate. It does seem, however, that a serious attempt to analyze a concrete problem such as the production of motor fuel and other liquid fuels from sources other than petroleum, in which the public interest is great but its reliable information is inadequate, would be of value to both the scientific world and the public generally. ...