Biofuels have been promoted since the 1980s as a potential solution to a variety of problems: from oil dependency to the structural transformation of agriculture and climate change. Against the backdrop of the erratic and sometimes contradictory development of German biofuel policy, Thomas Vogelpohl analytically traces the social construction of biofuels over the past thirty years and their reflection in political decisions. He examines how biofuels have gained and maintained recognition as a political solution in Germany and how this complex social construction process can be understood in light of the historically specific political-institutional and paradigmatic conditions.