NEWBIO: NORTHEAST WOODY/WARM-SEASON BIOMASS CONSORTIUM

The Northeast has substantial demand for transportation fuels, an educated and capable rural workforce, and over 3 million acres of marginal, degraded and abandoned land that could become productive, profitable sources of biomass with improved management. Under-utilized agricultural land that can be used to grow short-rotation woody crops and perennial grasses can play important, complementary, co-evolving roles in creating a sustainable, reliable, and affordable feedstock supply for biofuels, bioenergy, and biomaterials production for the region. The NorthEast Woody/warm-season BIOmass (NEWBio) Consortium will design, implement, analyze, and evaluate robust, scalable, and sustainable value chains for biomass feedstocks from New England to the West Virginia. NEWBio is a unique collaborative network of public and private universities, businesses, non-profit organizations, and government agencies organized around a set of four large-scale demonstration sites, each forming the basis of a 500 to 1200 ton/day supply chain of lignocellulosic biomass suitable for advanced transportation fuels. Each demonstration is stakeholder driven, with commercial collaborators committed to feedstock production, logistics, preprocessing and conversion. These demonstration sites will provide a real-world focus for our team's research, extension, and educational efforts in three technical thrusts: human systems; plant production and genetics; harvest, preprocessing, and logistics; with four integrating themes: sustainability systems; safety and health; extension; education; and leadership. Through an intensive program of stakeholder engagement NEWBio will 1) provide the scientific and practical knowledge needed to overcome current barriers, 2) educate the entrepreneurs, employees, and citizens who will translate that knowledge into action, and 3) realize a sustainable bioenergy future.