LAUSR

Bioenergy research in 2017 2016 will be remembered as a year of global change both geopolitically and scientifically. From the point of view of bioenergy researchers, several events and continued economic trends will stand out. In July, the US Department of Energy (DOE) released the third ‘billion-ton study’. The analysis updated the roadside availability of biomass (wastes, bioenergy crops, and algae) as a function of price and location. The report indicated the likely availability of 1.5 billion tons of biomass that could be used to produce biofuels or other chemical products [1]. Unfortunately, recent economic factors have prevented wider use of these potential renewable resources. Energy prices remained low for the third straight year, providing a substantial barrier to commercial deployment of bioenergy technologies. This challenge has driven ‘biofuel’ companies to rebrand and/or target new opportunities in producing higher-value compounds [2] and potentially slowed the pace of technology development [3]. Despite the economic hurdles, research to improve biotechnological routes for producing energy continues in both academic and industrial circles. Continued interest is motivated by the need to address the sustainability of current fossil fuels and by the potential to use living biocatalysts to convert low-cost natural gas to higher-value compounds [4,5]. In April, world leaders agreed to plans to address the growing threat of climate change [6]. Given the massive contributions of transportation fuels and flaring of natural gas to greenhouse gas emissions, development of more sustainable bioenergy technologies is justified and essential to meeting established goals [7]. In this compendium, we will reexamine established bioenergy topics, hear from prominent bioenergy research centers about the lessons learned and opportunities identified over the past 10-years, and discuss promising new technologies for applying biotechnology for generating bioenergy. While this issue covers a range of topics, it is not close to a comprehensive list of the advancements in energy biotechnology. We admit that the issue undercovers natural gas as a biotechnology feedstock [4,5], engineering of terrestrial plants [8], in vitro synthetic biology for synthesizing fuels [9], and perspectives from non-academic points of view.