21st Century Agricultural Biomass and Feedstock Supply USDA and Energy Department Material- 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 (DOE) Biomass Program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture with detailed information about the bioenergy vision and agricultural feedstocks needed to make that vision a reality in the coming decades. Contents include:

ROADMAP FOR AGRICULTURE BIOMASS FEEDSTOCK SUPPLY IN THE UNITED STATES (11/2003) - Executive Summary * Roadmap Background and Overview * Stakeholder Involvement and Benefit * United States Bioenergy Vision and Feedstock Supply * Strategic Goals and Associated Industry Performance Targets * Roadmap Organization and Top Priority R&D Needs * Key Partners for Feedstock Goals Include USDA and DOE * Harvesting and Collection * Storage * Current Technical Situation * Performance Targets * Technical Barriers * Research and Development Needs * Research and Development Priorities * Preprocessing * System Integration * Transportation * Grouped Colloquies R&D Need Statements * Grouped Sustainability Workshop R&D Need Statements * FACA Roadmap R&D Need Statements

"Biomass is a sustainable feedstock for energy products that could potentially enrich the future of the United States and the world. This roadmap focuses on the feedstock supply of lignocellulosic biomass, such as corn stover, straw, or wood, that can be converted into energy products (i.e., fuels, chemicals, and power) through sugar or syngas platforms. These products have traditionally been produced from petroleum. Lignocellulosic biomass is the nonstarch, fibrous part of plant material that is inherently moist and lightweight. The sugar platform hydrolyzes biomass into its component sugar molecules and then ferments the sugars into energy products; the syngas platform breaks down biomass into carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen elements and then uses basic chemistry to synthesize these elements into energy products. Although some biorefinery processes, such as paper and corn mills, already use biomass rather than petroleum feedstocks, there is currently no guarantee they will ma! intain sustainability nor benefit all stakeholders. Yet if sustainability issues are addressed, the benefits of collecting, storing, and transporting biomass to processing facilities, as well as using biorefinery co-products such as feeds and fertilizers in the agricultural system, will have positive economic, environmental, and social impacts. These benefits include a decreased demand for imported oil, additional revenue for the depressed agriculture industry, new jobs, and revitalized rural economies In order for a lignocellulosic biomass refining industry to be successful, the biorefinery and the associated feedstock supply system must be more sustainable than the fossil fuel based energy system it is replacing. Such sustainability is comprised of three components: Economic viability for all participants in the value chain; Acceptable environmental impact of the products from cradle to grave; Positive social impact of the product and its production. The purposes of this r! oadmap are to define a research and development (R&D) path forward and to express the methods and infrastructure necessary to supply agricultural lignocellulosic feedstocks to biorefineries for producing

What is a Biorefinery? A biorefinery processes biomass into value added product streams. These can range from biomaterials to fuels such as ethanol and fuel gases, or key intermediates for the production of chemicals and other materials. Biorefineries are based on a number of processing platforms using mechanical, thermal, chemical, and biochemical processes.

PLANT AND CROP BASED RENEWABLE RESOURCES 2020 REPORT – Current status of plant and crop-based resources as feedstocks, supply and quality, segment potentials, waste streams and by-products, existing and dedicated crops, modified genetics, potential impact of biotechnology.

TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP FOR PLANT AND CROP BASED RENEWABLE RESOURCES 2020 REPORT – Research priori