21st Century Biofuels and Biomass Digest Background Data on Renewable Energy, Department of Energy Biomass Programs Series on Renewable Energy, Biofuels, Bioenergy, and Biobased Products (Ringbound)

This is a great collection of documents and publications from the U.S. Department of Energy Biomass Program and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) useful to anyone wishing to learn the basics of biofuels and biomass. Contents include:

ABC of Biofuels - Biofuels for Transportation; Bioethanol Feedstocks; Bioethanol Production; Biodiesel Feedstocks; Biodiesel Production; Biofuels and the Environment

Bioenergy: An Overview; Biopower, direct combustion, cofiring, gasification, Pyrolysis, modular systems, ethanol, biodiesel, Biobased products; Biorefineries; what lies ahead; Glossary; understanding biomass as a source of sugars and energy; enzymatic hydrolysis; biological conversion

Biomass FAQs - What is renewable energy? What is biomass? What are energy crops? Where are biomass resources located? How much biomass is used for energy today? What is the difference between biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts? What is bioethanol? What is renewable diesel? What is biomass power? What are bioproducts? Are biofuels available today? If we already make ethanol from corn and corn is a surplus crop, why do we need to make it from cellulose and hemicellulose? What is keeping cellulosic ethanol from commercial availability? Can I produce my own biofuels? What are biomass gasifiers? What are anaerobic digesters? What incentives are or could be made available for using biomass to produce fuels, power, chemicals, materials, and other value added products? Can you suggest contacts to help me build an ethanol or biodiesel plant or undertake another biomass project?

Department of Energy Biomass Program Factsheets: Feedstock interface R&D, Sugars R&D, Thermochemical R&D, Integrated Biorefineries R&D, Bioproducts R&D.

Renewable energy is derived from resources that are regenerative or for all practical purposes can not be depleted. Types of renewable energy resources include moving water (hydro, tidal and wave power), thermal gradients in ocean water, biomass, geothermal energy, solar energy, and wind energy. Municipal solid waste (MSW) is also considered to be a renewable energy resource.

"The Biomass Program is a comprehensive federally funded research, development, and deployment effort. It focuses on science and technology that will establish biomass as a significant source of sustainable fuels, heat, power, chemicals, and materials. Biomass is unique among all the options for renewable resources because it is the only single resource that by itself can serve as a sustainable supply of all of the following: food, fiber, heat, power, and carbon-based fuels and chemicals. The Biomass Program is managed by the Office of the Biomass Program (OBP), within the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). OBP is one of eleven offices responsible for the development of a portfolio of sustainable energy technologies. The overarching goals of the Biomass Program are to dramatically reduce or even end our dependence on foreign oil and to create a bioenergy industry in the United States. The Biomass Program has five area! s that fall into two categories: 1) core research and development (R&D) that emphasizes enabling technology for biorefineries and 2) integrated biorefinery development activities that pull together all the pieces of core technology for a specific commercial biorefinery scenario. As research moves from core R&D to integrated validation and demonstration of biorefinery technology, the lead in the work shifts from the public sector to the private sector. This organization of the work allows the Program to allocate its federal funding resources toward pre-commercial enabling technology development that can lay the groundwork for future commercialization without competing with or duplicating work in the private sector. The precommercial "core program R&D" falls into four main categories: Feedstock Interface core R&D; Sugar Platform core R&D; Thermochemical Platform co