Sam W. Jackson

Genera Energy Inc, U. S.A.

18.1 Overview

In the United States during the mid-1970s, numerous cellulosic bioenergy research and development activities were conducted by U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and engineers, as well as many private sector companies and investors. Unfortunately, most of those efforts waned because obstacles to commercialization were not overcome. This chapter provides a perspective on devel­opments since that time from the viewpoint of an active biomass conversion facility and examines five major challenges facing the emerging bioenergy industry. These include land availability, crop selection, financing, agronomic challenges, and risk management. Despite these challenges, it appears that public interest, political will, engineering and agronomic advances have now achieved a level where successful commercial operations can be developed.

18.2 Introduction

The processes and technologies required for producing, handling, and converting lignocel — lulosic biomass to energy have been key focus areas for research and development activities throughout the last decade. Universities, federal agencies and laboratories, private compa­nies and foundations have all invested heavily to bring a biomass-based energy sector to reality for the United States. Early on, research focused on processes by which biomass could be converted to energy. Success was achieved utilizing both biochemical and ther­mochemical pathways. The next stage in the development of the industry focused on the

Cellulosic Energy Cropping Systems, First Edition. Edited by Douglas L. Karlen. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

development and production of a variety of biomass sources. From crop residues to dedi­cated energy crops, agricultural and forest-based biomass resources have been identified as the primary source of these materials. Biomass development and production research has focused on utilization of biotechnology and traditional plant breeding to improve existing crops with increased yield and conversion efficiencies, introduction of exotic plant species (e. g., Miscanthus giganteus), and development of appropriate agronomic production prac­tices for each of the differing types of systems. Additional efforts have been directed toward development of logistical systems associated with moving, handling, and storing large volumes of biomass for energy production.

All of these efforts have significantly advanced the developing biofuels industry. Increased biomass yield per acre, decreased cost per ton at the farm gate, and increased gallons of ethanol, butanol or other fuel per ton of biomass have all improved when com­pared to their baseline values [1,2]. As conversion technologies near commercialization, increased emphasis has been placed on commercial scale biomass production. Producing hundreds of thousands of tons of a given crop for a single facility is an industrial sup­ply chain challenge that involves many players, including landowners, farmers, harvesting equipment manufacturers, truckers and logistical firms. All are dealing with a product that is different than any traditional agriculture or forest product, both in format and scale. Therefore, to be successful, commercial scale biomass supply chains must achieve a sus­tainable environmental and economic balance while overcoming several logistic and other obstacles. This chapter highlights five key areas of concern when commercializing dedi­cated energy crop biomass supply chains. Regardless of the scale of the required biomass production, many of these issues remain key.