It is my firm conviction that investing in the whole value chain of bioenergy, par­ticularly biofuels and biomass, is one of the best investment opportunities today. This means investments right at the source to produce plants and biomass. I visit numerous conferences, and talk to many scientists and end-users of renewable energy, but literally 99% of all the stakeholders forget that without investments at the source the value chain from plant to biofuel does not exist. I argue, if this apathy or unwillingness to invest in cultivating feedstock continues, a structural shortage of biofuels and biomass will continue to exist in the foreseeable future. Those com­panies and investors who secure a value chain by buying land, a plantation, long­term off-take agreements, or subsequently a woodpellet or agripellet plant and transportation to the end customer will be the big winners.

Those companies, like mining, power, cement, and chemical companies, that remain passive and do not act will be forced in a few years to pay a hefty premium for biofuels or biomass and eventually a substantial carbon bill from Brussels on top.

Twenty years ago most of us were living without the internet, without Google, Facebook, without BlackBerrys, smart phones, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Today we cannot imagine life without the software and hardware in this information age. In terms of energy, we are in the first stage of a transformation towards a low — carbon society, even a zero-waste society. In the future, we will be driving in electric cars, or cars running on biodiesel, planes will fly on biokerosene, and we can build and live in houses that deliver so much power that we can sell it back to the grid. Silicon Valley is already changing from a computer hard — and software center into a renewable energy valley, full of starts-ups experimenting with algae, enzymes, and so on. It should now be called Biomass Valley.

Second Generation Biofuels and Biomass: Essential Guide for Investors, Scientists and Decision Makers, First Edition. Roland A. Jansen. r 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Published 2013 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

I do not believe that airplanes will fly on battery power in the coming 25 years. Batteries do not store enough energy to let a plane fly for 5000 km. Thus, planes will rely on liquid fuels for the time to come. The Swiss scientist Bertrand Picard has flown a plane using solar panels and plans to fly around the world with it (www. solar- impulse. com). He will prove it can be done, but we are still far away from commercial flights with 300 passengers on board, powered by solar or hydrogen energy.

Investment opportunities in biofuels and biomass are so obvious, because certainly in Europe and lately also in Australia, governments are imposing new laws that makes emitting carbon dioxide very expensive. This accelerates massively the demand for clean energy and clean fuels. On my travels throughout Eastern Europe and Asia, CEOs of big mining and utility companies have revealed what their purchase needs are in the coming 5 years for woodpellets, woodchips, palm kernel shells, olive oil seedcake, or any biomass with a good calorific value expressed in gigajoule per tonne. If they do not buy it and if they do not cogenerate fossil fuels with clean energy to lower their carbon dioxide output, they are going to pay substantial penalties for their extra carbon dioxide emissions, which for big com­panies can run into hundreds of millions of euros. Thus, the discrepancy between exponentially rising demand and a moderate supply of biofuels and biomass is, in a nutshell, a great business opportunity. The demand floodgates for biomass feedstock like Jatropha, Pongamia, algae, sugarcane, Napier grass, waste, animal fats, and used cooking oil are opening up.

In general, biokerosene can be derived from the world’s three existing sources — petroleum, plants, and animal fats.

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