|
|
Denouncing the Cars of Old: Marketing Ethanol Driven Cars in the Case of Biofuel Region in Sweden
| The history of biotechnology bears witness to a longstanding belief in it as a revolutionary technology. The ‘future fuels’ of today, hence rely on a 100-year-old biotechnological expectation of turning ordinary alcohol into a valuable replacement for oil. This presentation will focus on a study conducted within a project called The Fuel of the Future – a Research Programme on the Science, Technology and Selling of Biofuels. The study aims at looking into a contemporary effort to infuse biofuel implementation with new life, using Biofuel Region as an empirical case study. Biofuel region (BFR), a non-profit organisation in combination with a company) was initiated in 2002, and brings together a diverse set of actors from two northern counties of Sweden, ranging from car and forest industries, universities, governmental agencies, to municipalities and county councils. A visionary goal is self-sufficiency in terms of transport fuels by 2030. Of specific interest for this study is BFR’s engagement in public learning activities (e.g. through the use of so called ‘study circles’), marketing strategies, as well as its reliance on new biotechnological knowledge. In the effort to communicate the benefits of using ethanol as a car fuel, Biofuel Region has had to distance itself from what it is meant to replace, petrol. The ethanol driven car is contrasted to the petrol driven car, and hailed as a solution to the problem of oil dependence and a strategy in the overall political reorganisation towards ‘sustainable development’. But at the same time it illustrates how historically resonant discourses of potential benefits and uses, threats and fears, forms an integral part of the efforts to establish ethanol as a ‘fuel of the future’, now as well as before.
|
|
