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In November 2003, the U.S. Department of Energy released the Roadmap for Agriculture Biomass Feedstock Supply in the United States. The Roadmap defines the research and development path to achieve a robust biorefinery industry that is supported by a consistent supply of high-quality, low-cost feedstock. It outlines the feedstock science and technology advances necessary to meet the goals established by the Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee in their Vision for Bioenergy & Biobased Products in the United States. The Vision set targets for the biomass industry and policymakers alike to increase the share of biomass power to 5 percent, transportation fuels to 20 percent, and biobased products to 25 percent of their respective markets by 2030.

The developers of the Feedstock Roadmap set further, feedstock-specific goals and R&D pathways that will be necessary to achieve the Committee's Vision. Specifically, it established the goal of reducing the cost of biomass feedstocks from a current estimate of $50-55/dry ton, to $30/dry ton delivered to the biorefinery. To accomplish this, the Feedstock Roadmap outlined four high level strategic goals:

• Biomass Availability - By 2030, 1 billion dry tons of lignocellulosic feedstock are needed annually to achieve the power, fuel, and chemical production goals set by the Advisory Committee.
• Sustainability - Production of the 1 billion dry tons annually must be conducted in a sustainable manner.
• Feedstock Infrastructure - An integrated feedstock supply system must be developed and implemented that can supply the feedstock needs of the biorefinery at the cost, quality, and consistency performance targets that have been set.
• System Profitability - Economic profitability and sustainability need to be assured for all required participants in the feedstock supply system.

To accomplish these goals, the Feedstock Roadmap outlines R&D strategies in the major areas of the feedstock supply chain. The following briefly describes Roadmap findings in each of these areas:

Production - Biomass now contributes about 200 million dry tons annually to the nation's energy supply, primarily from wood residues. Increasing the annual contribution to 1 billion dry tons will require new biomass supplies and new uses for existing biomass resources. The crop residues such as corn stover and cereal straw are the largest available feedstock resource. Researchers have concluded that, within limits, residue removal can be sustainable and crop residues could be an additional revenue source for farmers. As the use of crop residues helps the industry grow, more research will be put into dedicated feedstock crops. These crops will be produced and grown so that they are more uniform; produce higher product yields, and cost less. To significantly increase availability of low-costs feedstocks, major technical barriers will need to be overcome through research and analysis that leads to improved resource availability, the integration of sustainability concepts and full cost-benefit analysis into producer decision-making, and plant sciences that lead to improved profitability for producers. Specifically, analysis is needed to project the prices and quantities of biomass resources available to support biorefineries. Improved data are needed to enable life cycle assessments and to address sustainability in production systems. Finally, advances in plant sciences can increase plant varieties, improve technical understanding of plant biochemistry, and develop chemical/biological pathways to improve energy density and chemical characteristics of delivered feedstocks.

Harvest and Collection - Current methods of harvesting corn stover and cereal straw use a three-or four-step harvesting process which introduces significant quantities of dirt and rock contamination, compacts the soil thereby making no-till agronomic practices more difficult, and can be equipment and labor intensive. To decrease the cost of harvesting residues, industry is working towards a single-pass harvester. Along with the harvester, a new form of bulk harvesting and collection systems is needed. The use of bales brings too many drawbacks. In the future, the single-pass harvester and the bulk collection system are seen working hand and hand harvesting the biomass crop and then being able to deliver it to the biorefinery at a decreased cost. The goal of sustainable harvest for the biorefinery is to maximize the amount of residue that can be removed for use as biorefinery feedstocks while adhering to sustainability guidelines.

Storage - A biorefinery must process as much as one million tons of lignocellulosic biomass annually and may need to have an inventory of at least half that much. This is not possible with current production technologies and methods. Improvements are needed in the areas of feedstock quality and monitoring, dry storage systems, and wet storage systems. Specifically, the Feedstock Roadmap identifies priorities such as developing valuation parameters for biorefinery feedstocks as a commodity or based on fermentable carbohydrates, and developing analytical tools and sensors for real-time compositional analysis.

Preprocessing - Preprocessing treatments improve biomass handling, transport, and storability. Preprocessing can also add value by making biomass more fit for final conversion to fuels, power, and chemicals. Technical barriers such as low bulk density, combustibility, and variability in physical and chemical characteristics among others impede the ability to deliver high-quality, low-cost biomass to biorefineries. The industry must research preprocessing technologies/methods that will increase the understanding and control over biomass material properties, alter the physical state of the processed biomass to provide for optimal use in handling, storage, and use for fuels and chemicals, and improve methods of biomass bulk material handling.

System Integration - To meet the needs of the biorefinery, an integrated feedstock supply system must be developed. The Feedstock Roadmap provides a model for such a system, identifies near-term technology development needs in areas such as harvesting, and describes modeling and simulation tools that will be required to better optimize an integrated, low-cost biomass supply system. It also describes regulatory and market issues that will need to be addressed to enable effective systems integration, such as competition for land and biomass resources.

The contributors to the Feedstock Roadmap recognized the importance of transportation as a key segment of the biomass feedstock supply system but also recognized the fact that the biomass industries will be constrained to the existing transportation network and cannot significantly alter transportation technologies or modes. The industry must take advantage of and optimize the use of the diversity of existing transportation options that might be locally available.

The Roadmap for Agriculture Biomass Feedstock Supply in the United States outlines specific strategies to help reduce the cost and increase the availability of biomass feedstocks. It represents a next step -- the level of detail necessary -- to achieving the goals and implementing the R&D strategies established by the Biomass R&D Technical Advisory Committee in their Vision and subsequent Roadmap.

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In 2000, the State of Georgia consumed nearly 2770 trillion BTUs of energy.¹ Petroleum accounted for about 37 percent of total consumption, with coal providing another 29 percent of total consumption. Other major energy sources were natural gas and nuclear, which accounted for approximately 14 and 12 percent of the state's total energy consumption, respectively. Biomass supplied over 197 trillion Btus, or a little more than 7 percent of Georgia's total consumption. ² Biomass combustion in Georgia primarily comes from pulp and paper manufacturing facilities. Other biomass power comes from the combustion of landfill and wastewater treatment biogas.³

It has been estimated that Georgia has the potential to generate up to 23.4 billion kWh of electricity using renewable biomass fuels - enough to supply the annual needs of 2,344,000 average homes, or 64 percent of the residential electricity use in Georgia.⁴ Wood products and forestry industry in Georgia alone generate more than two million tons of unused wood waste energy year, most of which ends up in landfills.⁵

With all this potential, there is a growing movement in Georgia to use biomass to make transportation fuels, electricity, and even natural gas. For example, the Bioconversion Research and Education Center located at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia will be the site of a biomass-to-hydrogen R&D project funded by U.S. DOE Phase III research on the pilot-scale production unit will examine the generation of 25 kg of hydrogen per day from catalytically reformed biomass pyrolysis vapor in a 1,000 hour run. The project will be completed in 2004 in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Clark Atlanta University, Eprida Scientific Carbons, Inc., Enviro-Tech, Inc. and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The University of Georgia is also researching the effects of blending and storing petroleum diesel with liquid biofuels for use in industrial boilers. The project, funded by the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association's Poultry Protein and Fat Council, is examining the effects of temperature, blends, and time on the physical and chemical characteristics of these fuels. The results will provide guidance to managers on using fats, oils, and grease from biological sources as fuel to produce heat and steam.

The Black Liquor Gasification (BLG) program at the Institute of Paper Science and Technology (IPST) at Georgia Tech is working to make BLG, and BLG with combined cycle power generation, a commercially viable process in accordance with the industry's vision of becoming independent of fossil fuels and ultimately a net exporter of electrical power. The US DOE shares this vision and is partnering with industry to resolve the remaining technological issues.⁶ The adoption of BLG with combined cycle power generation offers a number of potential benefits to paper mills, including increased pulp yields, increased power generation, and direct and autocausticization (by adding a chemical agent to the black liquor, the causticizing process can be accomplished within the gasifier, thus eliminating the need for the conventional lime cycle).

Additional research is needed to realize each of the above incentives. There are also unanswered questions surrounding tar formation, reaction kinetics, fluid dynamics, gasifier modeling, and materials of construction. IPST's BLG program, funded by a consortium of nine IPST member companies, the U.S. DOE, and the Sloan Foundation, is addressing several of these issues.

Some private companies, such as Earth Resources, Inc., located in Carnesville, Georgia, and Atlanta-based Biomass Gas and Electric (BG&E) are in the process of developing large-scale biomass gasification plants that can serve commercial customers. In 2003, the US DOE and USDA issued a joint biomass R&D solicitation from which Earth Resources, Inc., was awarded $1,136,936 to fund their project, "Animal Waste Management-Chicken Litter to Energy." Georgia is the country's largest source of poultry manure, generating 1.5 million tons a year. This level of production makes poultry manure of particular interest in Georgia because the manure is rich in phosphorous and nitrogen, which are linked to water pollution. Earth Resources, Inc. is partnering with the University of Georgia and the Gas Technology Institute, Des Plaines, IL, for R&D in gasification technology to facilitate animal waste management. The 3-year project will focus on converting broiler poultry litter to energy.

Although there are no large-scale ethanol or biodiesel production facilities currently in Georgia, feasibility studies are being conducted to explore this. In August 2003, Georgia's Environmental Facilities Authority organized a Biodiesel Summit in Plains, Georgia that brought together State Legislators with interested parties as a means to identify the incentives or policies needed to encourage industry development. Former President Jimmy Carter hosted the event and gave remarks in strong support of the creation of a biodiesel industry in Georgia. Jill Stuckey, with the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority, and Clint Thompson of Thompson, Hoffman, & Company, were instrumental in that effort.

One way to ensure future industry development is to establish a vision and roadmap - which is exactly what the State of Georgia has done. The Georgia Industrial Technology Partnership (GITP) funded initially by DOE and located on the University of Georgia campus, has developed through the participation and guidance of Georgia's biomass industries, a Vision and research Roadmap for the future of the biomass industry in Georgia. The Vision and Roadmap will be presented in early 2004.

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