Biomass Feedstock Productions – Challenges and Opportunities

Advances in biomass feedstock production are extremely important. These advances have the potential for reducing the final cost of biofuels, power, and products. In addition, advances will allow the production of plants, trees, and residues with characteristics increasingly well suited for feedstocks. For example, genetically engineered plants feedstocks may allow higher yields of usable biomass per acre for fuel and other uses. New methods in erosion control, fertilization, and pre-processing can result in improved life cycle performance, sustainable practices, and enhanced feedstock production.

Biomass feedstock production faces a number of challenges that currently hinder the ability of biomass communities to achieve vision goals. The main challenges are:

1. A better understanding of plant biochemistry and enzymes is needed;

2. Scientific methods to product and prepare plants and residues so that they meet specifications for end-use applications are needed; and,

3. Agronomic practices must be improved to increase efficiency and reduce the cost of biomass feedstock production and delivery, and to ensure crop sustainability.

Achieving the Biomass vision goals will require a change in the entire biomass production system including new and better methods for crop growth and management, harvesting, densification, transportation, storage, and pre-processing. It will require both small, more localized processing plants and/or larger scale ones that take advantage of economies of scale.

Advances in R&D can help to improve storage methods, expand the growth of crops for energy and other products, and assure the quality of feedstocks. At the same time, research into the agronomic, economic, and environmental impacts of harvesting lignocellulosic material must be established to ensure that these materials have beneficial life-cycle impacts.

Basic research can help to address broad needs for improving development of a number of feedstocks that can ultimately be used as biomass resources for a wide range of biobased applications. At the same time, however, a better definition of high priority applications/products is needed to help growers and the research community focus more applied research in feedstock production.

Finally, continued advances in biomass feedstock production research will face the special challenge of public acceptance. Improved methods for verifying the safety as well as the society and environmental benefits of genetically engineered plants are needed. Resulting data should be used to engage in broad, multi-party stakeholder dialogue to determine whether to and/or how best to commercialize these technologies. Regarding genetically engineered plants, coordinated leadership from key federal providers of R&D, such as the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will be critical to making these scientific advances, validating their success and safety, and improving public acceptance through dialogue and stakeholder engagement.

Achieving vision goals for biomass technologies will require significant advances in biomass feedstock production. Ultimately, it will require an increased scientific understanding of methods for high yield, low input targeted crops produced in a sustainable and environmentally sound manner. The specific R&D objectives for feedstock production research are also identifies the Key Outcomes of the research and the potential impact in each of the three areas covered in this roadmap (Biofuels, Biopower, and Bioproducts).

Feedstock research should focus on a representative cross-section of biomass resources including: corn stover, dry land crops such as oilseeds, dedicated energy crops, and plant, animal, and other organic waste-based residues. Target crops should include oil and cellulose-producing crops that can provide optimal energy content and usable plant components. Key outcomes of advanced feedstock production research should produce several important results for the biomass communities. Examples include:

• Increased yield per acre
• Lower cost per ton of feedstock at plant gate
• Increased value for the outputs of biomass feedstocks
• Reasonable profit for growers, and
• Environmentally sound production of biomass feedstock.