Confessions of a bioenergy advocate

Feedstocks that deserve serious consideration for fuels and chemicals are sugarcane, corn, trees and algae. Commercialization of biomass refining is imminent but the wild claims of those who think that bioenergy can replace much of our dependence on foreign oil are appalling. It is naive to view biomass as the panacea for the coming energy crisis because there is not enough in practical locations and the costs involved in retrieving and refining it will be relatively high. The world will not run out of energy, but cheap energy might disappear, with its economics clouded by a myriad of subsidies for the competing energy sources and by world politics. This assessment of biomass supply and conversion technologies provides global perspectives and exposes some alternatives to be so impractical that they are almost fraudulent.