I have been looking at US Department of Energy documents for a while now. The newest is "Biomass: "Multi-Year Program Plan," March 2008. This report was completed to support of Pres. Bush's challenge in the 2007 State of the Union address: "20% reduction in gasoline consumption in 10 years (20 in 10). Along with increasing vehicle efficiency through higher CAFE requirements, we must produce 36 billion gallons per year of transportation fuels from renewable sources by 2017 to achieve the goal. The Biomass Program report details technology developments required to achieve the 20 in 10 goal. As a key strategy for attaining the Presidential and DOE goal, the DOE
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE’s) Biomass Program is focused on
developing biofuel, bioproduct and biopower technologies in partnership with other government
agencies, industry and academia.

The Biomass Program supports four key priorities of the EERE Strategic Plan:
• Dramatically reduce dependence on foreign oil
• Promote the use of diverse, domestic and sustainable energy resources
• Reduce carbon emissions from energy production and consumption
• Establish a domestic bioindustry
Biomass is the single renewable resource that has the potential to supplant our use of liquid
transportation fuels now and help create a more stable energy future. Using our indigenous
biomass resources, we can potentially fuel our cars and provide new economic opportunities across the nation.

In the context of the report, Biomass includes: agricultural
and forestry residues, perennial grasses, woody energy crops, and wastes (municipal solid waste, urban
wood waste, and food waste). Biomass is unique among renewable energy resources in that it can be
converted to carbon-based fuels and chemicals, also to electric power.

All the promises of the Biomass Program are very exciting and laudable. Fulfillment of the program goals
will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create a new industry for American workers.

Unfortunately, the pace of progress within our government agencies is too slow to excite the critical mass
of entrepreneurs and investors. Anyone old enough to remember the "Synfuels" programs of the 80'S,
during the last energy crisis will also remember that much of the government sponsored work was focused
on attempting to make fuel out of coal, a poorly thought out idea pushed forward by coal-state congressmen.

It always easy to be critical, but in the Biomass Program plan, the focus is totally on cellulosic fuels. More
thought should be given to bridging the cellulosic gap (about five years) with other US grown feed stocks,
such as the sugar beet and the Jerusalem artichoke, available today and not directly competing with the food chain.

Richard Griffith
Independent Energy Consultant
rfgriffith@visi.com

Have you written any research that you can share here? I'm impressed by your interest and acumen.

The winner is Cellulosic Ethanol. Now that oil has risen to $140 per barrel, cellulosic ethanol is profitable and will move forward.

In the mean time, other feed stocks should have been explored. Other than corn, which is an important food stock, Producers of ethanol fuels should be using sugars, which are plentiful in the world and are not good food stocks. For example, a Minnesota sugar producer has offered to supply 65%-70% "Thick Juice" to ethanol makers without any takers (as of this date). This is a sugar product that is ideal for ethanol production, and can be sold by the sugar producer at costs below that of sugar, because the purification and crystallization costs are not included. Sugar producers have been plowing under about 10% of the sugar beets, to maintain supply and demand balance. They need another product and ethanol producers need another feed stock...

Richard Griffith
An Independent Energy Consultant
952-941-3738