Grasstopia: The USDA Regional Biofuels Roadmap – will it work?

Biofuels Journal
June 28, 2010 Jim Lane

A few days have now passed since the USDA released its “Regional Roadmap,” outlining a plan to meet the biofuels goals in the Renewable Fuels Standard by 2022.

Industry reaction has been, to date, tepid, to what has been dubbed the “Grasstopia” envisioned in the USDA plan.

First of all — the good news, which is to say generally positive reaction to the idea that the USDA has undertaken a more detailed study of the target at all.

A general criticism is that the plan’s weakness is that it could have been written in 2007, given that it focuses almost exclusively on cellulosic ethanol from energy grasses. Algae as a feedstock, biobutanol or drop-in fuels as products, were left out of the targets – though nearly 75 percent of planned advanced biofuels production is in these forms.

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