One of the highlights of the oil conference was a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) about the progress being made on producing liquid fuels from renewable biomass. For those not familiar with the concept, fuels and chemicals can be made from trees, grasses, agricultural crops, animal and human wastes, and algae.
Recently, research has focused on using enzymes to convert non-edible plants such as trees and grasses into ethanol. Studies have shown that some 1 billion tons of lignocellulosic biomass (trees, grasses, etc.) could be grown in the US each year. The NREL believes the conversion of this amount of renewable grass and trees to liquid fuels could supply 50-70 percent of the US ’s requirements.
New sources of biomass, along with increased use of conventional biodiesel and ethanol produced from soybean and corns as gasoline substitutes, suggests the future for the farmer and the agriculture industry in general looks brighter than it has for decades. Indeed, if a significant part of liquid fuel production becomes the responsibility of farmers, we could see a conflict between food and biomass-for-fuel production that would drive food prices significantly higher.
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