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The "Next Step" for energy is non-food biomass. Biomass such as corn stover and wood residue is abundant, environmentally sound, and free from political controversy.
The USDA estimates that the U.S. can produce at least 1.3 billion dry tons of cellulosic biomass a year without affecting our food supply or soil quality. That's enough biomass to meet more than half of America's transportation fuel needs, or generate about half of our electricity.
But, today's biomass industry is not yet up to the task of helping America realize energy independence. There are too many operational gaps between the biomass in our fields and forests, and the fuel in our tanks or the electricity in our homes. That's why Next Step is building a sophisticated, cost-effective, reliable biomass supply chain.
Next Step knows that, how biomass is grown, harvested, processed, stored, and transported is integral to how it's economically converted into useable energy. At the heart of Next Step's solution is the humble – but reinvented – pellet.
Next Step's unique, proprietary PowerPellets™ are dense, dry, and free of binders. They can be directly substituted for coal in generating electricity, or they can be specifically formulated as feedstock for cellulosic biofuels or bio-chemicals (green, petro-chemical substitutes). PowerPellets™ don't require any new transportation or storage infrastructure because they ship and store exactly like grain. And, PowerPellets™ can be made from corn stover, wood residue, and many other forms of agri-industrial wastes.
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