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The bioeconomy is a complex, multivariate, and interdisciplinary system that requires a comprehensive assessment of its independent parts if it is to be understood fully. Hence, this article presents a holistic perspective of industry, public policy, and education aspects of the US bioeconomy. It is premised on the idea that a successful bioeconomy industry relies on the balanced development of all stages of the supply chain. For this balance to be struck, a strong interdisciplinary workforce must find novel solutions to multifaceted problems across the entirety of the supply chain. These solutions require innovative technologies that can improve the climate benefit of bioproducts, decrease their production costs, and make them more economically competitive. Increasing consumer education and awareness about the bioeconomy goes hand in hand with the development of a robust market for bioproducts. To guide these interdependent efforts, public policies must encourage demand, support competitive markets, promote the entry of renewable options, and stimulate growth by reducing financial barriers. We contend that a combination of policies is likely to be more effective than any singular policy on its own. Supporting the bioeconomy also entails attending to an existing lack of public awareness as well as workforce‐ready professionals. To address these gaps, the USA must increase the intensity and intentionality of its efforts to educate students about the bioeconomy, particularly at the K‐12 level. Furthermore, these efforts should encompass both formal and informal learning contexts in order to meet the workforce challenges facing the bioeconomy now and in the future. © 2021 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining published by Society of Industrial Chemistry and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative emission technologies (NETs) are of growing importance for society to meet the atmospheric carbon levels required to maintain global temperatures under sustainable limits. A wide range of NETs have been proposed, but there are limited NET assessments that integrate life cycle analysis (LCA) and techno‐economic analysis (TEA). This Review gathers NET TEA/LCA findings and compares their costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Eight different NET‐producing transportation fuels and power‐generation technologies are considered: anaerobic digestion (lignocellulosic), fermentation, torrefaction, combustion, fast pyrolysis, gasification, and hydrothermal liquefaction. Most of these technologies sequester carbon either as carbon dioxide or as biochar. Some are carbon negative by virtue of avoided or displaced emissions. Overall, results indicate that NET energy production costs range between $20 and $80 GJ−1 and have emissions from −400 to 100 kg CO2,eq GJ−1. These results suggest that there are potential tradeoffs to consider when developing NETs. These results also show that future TEA/LCA studies of NETs are needed to decrease their uncertainty and improve their technology readiness level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry statistics indicate that technology-learning rates can dramatically reduce both feedstock and biofuel production costs. Both the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol and the United States corn ethanol industries exhibit drastic historical cost reductions that can be attributed to learning factors. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to estimate the potential impact of industry learning rates on the emerging advanced biofuel industry in the United States. Results from this study indicate that increasing biorefinery capital and feedstock learning rates could significantly reduce the optimal size and production costs of biorefineries. This analysis compares predictions of learning-based economies of scale, S-Curve, and Stanford-B models. The Stanford-B model predicts biofuel cost reductions of 55 to 73% compared to base case estimates. For example, optimal costs for Fischer-Tropsch diesel decrease from $4.42/gallon to $2.00/gallon. The optimal capacities range from small-scale (grain ethanol and fast pyrolysis) producing 16 million gallons per year to large-scale gasification facilities with 210 million gallons per year capacity. Sensitivity analysis shows that improving capital and feedstock delivery learning rates has a stronger impact on reducing costs than increasing industry experience suggesting that there is an economic incentive to invest in strategies that increase the learning rate for advanced biofuel production. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]