In addition to being a resource for energy generation, lignocellulosic biomass has potential to serve for multiple purposes. There is not necessarily a concurrence of various options. Highest value can be achieved by diverting individual components to optimum routes, thus aiming to achieve complete valorization of the material. Among possible target utilization options are to be mentioned in particular: (i) electricity and fuel generation; (ii) production of chemicals; (iii) precursors for industrial products such as biodegradable plastics; (iv) utilization as soil amendment.

The idea of so-called biorefineries is to process bioresources such as agricultural or forest biomass to produce energy and a wide variety of precursor chemicals and bio-based materials (Sigrid and Morar, 2009). Petroleum refineries are already built, and use of this existing infra­structure for the production of biofuels requires little capital investment (Marinangeli et al.,

2006) . Furthermore, the infrastructure for blending fuels as well as their testing and dis­tribution is already in place at oil refineries. Three options are available for using petroleum refineries to convert biomass-derived feedstocks into fuels and chemicals: (i) fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), (ii) hydrotreating-hydrocracking, and (iii) utilization of biomass-derived synthesis gas (syngas) or hydrogen.

Cofeeding biomass-derived molecules into a petroleum refinery could rapidly decrease our dependence on petroleum feedstocks. Petroleum-derived feedstocks are chemically dif­ferent than biomass-derived feedstocks; therefore a new paradigm in how to operate and manage a petroleum refinery is required. Another improvement toward the production of biofuels in a petroleum refinery would be if governments were to offer tax exemptions and subsidies to all types of biofuels, and not only for selected biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. As the price of petroleum continues to increase, we project that refining tech­nology will be developed to allow the coproduction of bio — and petroleum-based fuels in the same (petroleum) refinery and even using the same reactors. A realistic practical sce­nario will be one in which both industries cooperate, with one producing the biofuel precursors and the other processing and converting them into valuable fuels (Huber and Corma, 2007).