Our laboratory research work and sustainability analyses are directed toward development of a mature, efficient economy based on renewable plant materials. We assume a mature biobased economy as the petroleum economy is mature today--and from that assumption we extrapolate likely features of the mature biobased economy. Among the technical, social and economic forces that will drive the mature biobased economy are:

• Gradual diversification of biobased products, probably starting with higher value chemical products and trending toward fuels over time.


• The great diversity of biomass resources combined with their considerable compositional similarity


• Possible/likely limits on agricultural productivity.


• Integration of biorefining and agricultural ecosystems in a local social and political context (the "all biomass is local" paradigm).


• The sustainability of the mature biobased economy and its most important underlying resource--productive soils
  Yield (using the whole "barrel of biomass")