Biofuels from Non-Food Biomass
Dec 10, 2008 – Chemical & Engineering News published by the American Chemical Society has an interesting cover story titled “Genes to Gasoline: Genomics strategies provide clues for unraveling cellulosic biomass,” by Stephen K. Ritter in its December 8, 2008 issue. If you are interested in the technical details presented to a professional audience visit the C&EN link. The US DOE estimates that biofuels could be produced from about 1 billion tons of cellulosic biomass each year. If 100% of this material was converted into transportation fuels [unlikely] that would equal about 1/3 of US transportation fuel in 2030 & 50% in 2050. The problem is that many types of biomass are built strong and thus they are hard to break down physically and chemically. Lignocellulose is made that way so that trees don’t topple. Three laboratories each have received $125 million in funding for a 5-year program. They are the DOE’s BioEnergy Science Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in partnership with Michigan State University; and the Joint BioEnergy Institute at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
