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individual aind business entrepreneurs are the key innovators in our 

 economy. However, they often need assistance in transferring 

 promising ideas into commercial products. 



BACKGROUND . 



One hundred fifty years ago, most of our non-food consumer 

 products and industrial raw materials were derived from plant 

 matter in all its forms - fruits, vegetables, grains, grasses, 

 bushes, and trees. The rest came from animal matter, and from 

 inorgamic (noncarbon-based) minerals like sand, iron, and other 

 metal ores. Then came the discovery of fossil fuels, whose name 

 derives from the fact that they are the fossilized remains of 

 living matter. Like living matter, fossil fuels are organic 

 (carbon-based) materials; they are composed primarily of 

 hydrocarbons. But because they are dead matter, fossil fuels are 

 called minerals: organic minerals. 



In the mid-nineteenth century, hydrocarbons began to vie for 

 industrial supremacy with carbohydrates from farm and forest 

 materials. Coal, and later to a much greater extent petroleum, 

 beceune the basic raw material of industry. Industrial uses of 

 plant and amimal matter stagnated. 



Fossil fuels replaced renewable materials because they offered 

 definite advantages. As fuels, they contain more energy by weight 

 and volume, making them easier to transport and store. The liquid 

 nature of petroleum, and the ease of liquefying natural gas, allow 



