Old Wine in New Bottles: The Technological Promise of Biorefinery In Historical Perspective

Biorefineries are often lauded as revolutionary, sustainable new sources of power. This article critically examines biorefineries from historical and environmentalist perspectives, highlighting flaws such narratives. It proposes an alternative to the biorefinery paradigm that draws on critical environmentalist scholarship, French political ecology and the German tradition of sanfte Chemie (soft chemistry). History, the article argues, is crucial for identifying technological dead ends.