Interest in ethanol, biodiesel, jatropha, and biofuels wanes in 2009, but algae and advanced biofuels up: Google reports

8 March, 2010

In Florida, web search trend charts from Google show that interest in “ethanol”, “biodiesel”, “biofuels” and “jatropha” waned in 2009, but interest in “algae biofuels” and “advanced biofuels” spiked during the year, with “advanced biofuels” tying for the fastest-growing search term associated with “biofuels” during the past 12 months, with a growth rate of 120 percent for March 2010 compared to March 2009.

Overall results are:

Ethanol - down 70 percent from a high point realized in 2006, and showing a decline in 2009 despite a slight surge in the second half of the year.

Biodiesel is down nearly 80 percent since a high realized in 2005, and interest in the search term declined throughout the year.

Interest in “Algae biofuels” peaked in the summer of 2008, but after declining almost half by the summer of 2009, experienced a surge of interest in the “Summer of algae” that brought it nearly back to pre-global financial crisis highs.

Interest in “biofuels” peaked in the late spring of 2008 and dropped by around 70 percent by the end of 2009, but recovered with a spike in early 2010 around the time of the announcements of DOE’s Integrated Bioenergy grant recipients.


Jatropha peaked in the summer of 2008, after steady growth 2004-2008, and has declined about 60 percent from that high point, including a steady decline throughout 2009.

Advanced Biofuels peaked in 2010, after first appearing on the search radar in early 2007. The term “advanced biofuels” stated to achieve steady traction in 2008 and grew steadily throughout early 2009 before dipping significantly in the fall and being subject to a huge spike during the winter of 2009-10 that drove it to all time highs.

“Food vs fuel” did not record enough interest to be trackable in Goole — surprisingly — but “food fuel” did track, and reached a peak in spring 2008 after first appearing in 2009. Interest in the term declined to just under half of its 2008 peak, by early 2010, but has been relatively stable since early 2009.

Ethanol remains the king of bioenergy search terms with 8.4 times as much interest in the term compared to biofuels, although the disparity has narrowed considerably since 2006, and is much more narrow in English language searches.

Google trends are searchable here.

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