Biomass use for food, clothing, shelter, and fuel of course dates to man's earliest years. Intensive fossil fuel use greatly expanded man's use of energy, fostering the Industrial Revolution and much of modern technology and lifestyle. But the finite supply of fossil is rapidly diminishing and its use carries a price in economic and security concerns, pollution, and global warming. Biomass technology today already serves many markets that were developed with fossil fuels and modestly reduces their use. These uses include industrial process heat and steam, electrical power generation, transportation fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, and valuable chemicals and products that would otherwise likely be made from oil or gas.

The primary focus of the Biomass Program and this Web site is to dramatically expand the use of biomass by developing advanced technologies such as making ethanol and valuable chemicals from cellulosic biomass instead of grains and gasifying or liquefying biomass for more efficient power production or for catalytic conversion to valuable products. The program foresees a future in which biorefineries would convert biomass into a variety of fuels, chemicals, materials and power, much as petrochemical refineries do with oil and gas. To foster that future, the Biomass Program focuses on two "platform technologies" by which biomass would be converted to base platform chemicals from which this variety of products could be made.

Sugar platform technology breaks cellulose and hemicellulose (the bulk of most plant material) down into their component sugars so that those sugars can be fermented or otherwise converted to valuable fuels and chemicals. Thermochemical platform technology transforms solid biomass to gas or liquid by heating it with limited oxygen. The intermediate synthesis gas or pyrolysis oil can then be more efficiently and cleanly combusted or converted to valuable chemicals or materials.

The Biomass Program looks to industry to apply a wide range of technologies to develop products from sugars, lignin, synthesis gas, pyrolysis oils, and other intermediate chemicals developed with these platform technologies. While the program is focusing on these two most promising technology areas, there are also a variety of other platforms with potential for supporting large-scale biomass technology development.

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