Bioethanol and biodiesel produced from plants are looked upon as
possible alternatives to fossil fuels which would help decrease
worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. Currently bioethanol is mainly
produced from sugar cane, sugar beets, and corn starch, using yeasts.
In ethanol fermentation with yeast, sugar cane and sugar beets have
an advantage in that they contain directly fermentable sugars, i.e.,
sucrose, glucose, and fructose. However, as the use of these crops for
ethanol production would compete with their use as food sources, a
non-competitive crop, sweet sorghum, has recently come to be looked
upon as a promising source of bioethanol.