Once you know what biomass is chemically composed of you can see clear differences with oil. Its is also important that you know that the O’s stand for oxygen and the C’s stand for carbon.

The biggest difference between them is that oil chemicals are large straight lines while the biomass chemicals are small, circular and full of O’s. They look very different and this means that to turn one into the other we have to do a lot of work and spend a lot of money. We have actually been turning oil chemicals into biomass chemicals for a very long time at considerable cost, so it is ironic that we are now trying to turn biomass chemicals into oil chemicals at considerable cost.

If you are interested in receiving the written slide notes for each lecture, please contact the USDA supported Advanced Hardwood Biofuels Northwest project at; [email protected]

An associated online E-campus course is also offered at Oregon State University; ecampus.oregonstate.edu/soc/ecatalog/ecoursedetail.htm?subject=BRR&coursenumber=350&termcode=all

Advanced Hardwood Biofuels Northwest is supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Competitive Grant no. 2011-68005-30407 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)

1. Early Bioenergy History
2. Recent Bioenergy History
3. Feedstocks Fossil Fuels
4. Feedstocks Forest & Field Biomass Sources
5. Feedstocks Aquatic Biomass & Urban Wastes
6. Carbon Feedstock Comparisons
7. Biomass Chemistry
8. Fuel Chemistry
9. Bioenergy Industry Overview
10. Mechanical Conversions Oil Extraction & Size Reduction
11. Mechanical Conversions Drying & Densification
12. Combustion & Gasification
13. Pyrolysis & Liquefaction
14. Biomass to Parts
15. Biomass Parts to Products
16. Oil Conversions & Syngas Conversions
17. Fermentations
18. Photosynthetic Organisms and Animals
19. Integrated Biorefineries
20. Biorefining in North America
21. USA Fuel Paradigm
22. Renewable Energy and Fuel Policy
23. Basic Energy Economics
24. Process Analysis with LCA and TEA
25. Emissions and Sustainability Considerations

This series contains 25 short lectures, each between 10 and 15 minutes long. The content in these lectures is flexible and can be used in a variety of ways to communicate bioenergy concepts to audiences from diverse backgrounds. An important objective of this series is to present facts about bioenergy and biofuels, and use them to explore misconceptions.