Growing willows as biofuel

DemocratandChronicle.com
Jane Milliman • January 1, 2011

Normally the word "willow" brings to mind those huge weepers that hug stream banks or the sticks with big fuzzy buds you can harvest in the early spring. But here in upstate New York we have something called the Willow Biomass Project, which takes shrub willows out of the ornamentals (or weeds) realm and instead treats them as a renewable raw material for heat, biofuels and biodegradable polymers. The project, headed up at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, has been operating quietly for almost 20 years.

Read more