The U.S. transportation sector consumes about 14 million barrels of oil per day, 9 million of which are used in light-duty vehicles. Total U.S. oil consumption is 20 million barrels per day, 12 million of which are imported. The nation can reduce its dependence on imported oil, increase its energy security, and potentially reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by producing alternative liquid transportation fuels from domestically available resources to replace gasoline and diesel. Two abundant domestic resources with potential for producing liquid fuels are biomass and coal. Although abundant supplies of biomass and coal can be produced, each resource has its own set of limitations and challenges. Unlike liquid fuels from biomass, liquid fuels from coal cannot, even with the use of carbon capture and storage, offer any greenhouse-gas benefit relative to gasoline. However, liquid fuels from coal are probably less expensive than those from biomass unless the costs of greenhouse-gas emissions are included. A robust set of conversion technologies needs to be developed or demonstrated immediately and driven to commercial readiness to enable the use of the abundant biomass and coal in the development of suitable liquid transportation fuels. SBE's Bioenergy Symposium at the 2009 AIChE Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN brought together four of the authors of the report of the America's Energy Future Panel on Alternative Liquid Transportation Fuels addresses technological readiness for producing liquid fuels from coal and biomass, their life-cycle costs, and environmental impacts. 

Speakers included:
Michael Ramage (ExxonMobil retired) (Chair of the session)
James Katzer (Exxon Mobil-retired, Affiliate Professor, Chem Eng., Iowa State University)
Gregory Stephanopoulos (MIT)
James Sweeney (Stanford University)

To read the press release and full NRC report click here.

Presentations (you must log-in to access): 

Biomass Supply and Costs
Michael P. Ramage

Fuels From Bioconversion of Biomass
Gregory N. Stephanopoulos

Fuels From Thermoconversion of Biomass and Coal
James Katzer 

Fuels Lifecycle Supply, Costs, CO2 Impact, and Barriers
James L. Sweeney