The agricultural and forestry resources that have been the traditional sources of raw materials for bioenergy and bioproducts will continue to play a major role in the emerging biobased industry. However, a number of new crops are currently being examined as potential feedstocks. Bioenergy and bioproducts produced from these new crops can confer different performance characteristics and potentially provide an improved environmental footprint relative to their petroleum derived counterparts. The new crops also offer added crop production options for farmers and can potentially create new rural jobs when used for industrial products. The new crops being explored include oilseeds, rubber/resin crops, non-wood fiber crops, herbaceous grasses, and fast growing wood crops.
The new oilseed crops and rubber/resin crops are of interest because of the unique chemical compounds they produce, which provide different performance characteristics than many of their existing (often petroleum derived) counterparts. Some can also be potential sources for biodiesel. The new fiber and short rotation wood crops can be used as new sources for traditional fiber uses as well as new composite materials, but because of their high biomass production and fast growth characteristics, they also could become cellulose feedstocks for bioenergy and bioproducts. The herbaceous grasses can be used as forage crops for livestock, but are also being developed as cellulose feedstocks.
The list of new bioenergy and bioproduct crops that could be potentially developed is large. In 1956, the U.S. Department of Agriculture undertook a systematic effort to identify potential new crops which could be produced in the U.S., many with industrial applications. Several promising candidates were identified. Since then, research has been conducted on a number of these crops. Resources devoted to this effort have been limited and often sporadic, resulting in stops and starts. Therefore, the crops described in this section are either not yet commercially produced, or are so only on small numbers of acres. However, these crops have received sufficient research and development efforts (both genetic and agronomics) to be candidates for near term (next decade) commercialization, at least at a regional level. The list is not exhaustive, but rather provides a flavor of the breadth of new crops that could become commercial bioenergy and bioproduct crops.