Overview

Section 9006 of the 2002 Farm Bill created the Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements Program. A particular area of interest to both USDA and DOE is the biorefinery concept of energy and industrial material production.  March 2009 ... Bioreactors


Other Links

• Beginner's Guide to Biogas, University of Adelaide, Australia - If you are new to biogas/biofuel and anaerobic digestion for waste treatment or fuel production, these pages will assist you. If you only need some simple information, the first couple of links will be most useful, while the later pages are to help those considering starting a digester project.
• Bioindustry: A Brighter Shade of Green, Municipal Solid Waste Management magazine, 2001  - Biomass has the potential to become the universal 21st-century feedstock.
• Biological Ways of Producing Ethanol, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2000.
• Biomass Research and Development Initiative - The Biomass Initiative is the multi-agency effort to coordinate and accelerate all Federal bio-based products and bioenergy research and development.
• Bioreactor Applications for Landfills and Solid Wastes, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
• Developing Switchgrass as a Bioenergy Crop, Purdue University, 2001.
• Economics of Enzymatic Hydrolysis, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 1988 - The system is to produce high yields of sugars for fermentation to fuel ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass. However, these systems have been plagued. Abstract of a technical report on why yields, product concentrations and reaction rates tend to be far below those that are theoretically possible.
• Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Straw and Grass, North Carolina State University, 2002 - Summary of a project on the enzymatic hydrolysis of rye straw and bermudagrass for ethanol production.
• Renewable Biological Systems for Alternative Sustainable Energy Production, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations (UN), 1997.
• Science and Engineering for Bio-based Industries and Economy - Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, where science and engineering faculty from many land-grant universities worked to develop regional proposals to address the following areas: bioreactor analysis and design, modeling of bioreactor processes and related topics. Transcripts of several talks are available online and lists of researchers.
• Sustainable Dimensions: Biogas Technology, FAO, UN, 1996 - Overview of biogas systems for developing nations.
• What is a Biorefinery?, National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), U.S. DOE - The biorefinery concept is analogous to today's petroleum refineries, which produce multiple fuels and products from petroleum. Industrial biorefineries have been identified as the most promising route to the creation of a new domestic biobased industry. A biorefinery can take advantage of the differences in biomass components and intermediates and maximize the value derived from the biomass feedstock.

 Links checked January 2010.