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Preface At the conclusion of the very long (albeit very productive) week (March 28-April 1, 2004) described in this volume, I found myself ahead of schedule for the shuttle to the airport. Nonetheless, the driver was happy to meet me first, as long as I had no objection to riding for a longer time in the shuttle to pick up the passengers on his list. Not surprisingly, some of the other riders were running a little late, resulting in more than one stop at the conference hotels until all the passengers were accounted for. To pass the time, I began to watch some of the stores that were on this circular route, and since our symposium was focused on renewables, I was paying particular attention to the California gasoline prices, among the highest in the nation. During our drive, we passed a gas station exhibiting a price of $2.05/gallon for regular. Over the next 20 minutes as we continued on our route, we picked up several additional riders, and then passed the same gas station. The price had risen to $2.09/gallon. O f course, this was simply an amusing coincidence, but it provided an exclamation point for the week's meeting and an opportunity for further discussion of renewables among the riders on the way to the airport. The period of time since this meeting has seen continuing price pressure on our most strategic import. At this writing (early 2005), oil and gasoline prices are approaching the record (when adjusted for inflation) high prices of the late 1970s, China and the third world are rapidly increasing their demand for oil, O P E C has made the ominous announcement that for the first time in their history, oil costs are outside of their control (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7190109/), and the U.S. Senate has narrowly approved drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. These occurrences are of particular interest when viewed in the context of Hubbert's curve, which projects a peak in world oil production in or around 2010. According to that model, global
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Bozell and Patel; Feedstocks for the Future ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2006.
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production will gradually decline, but it is unlikely that demand will decline i n parallel. Developing clean and sustainable alternative raw materials is thus increasingly vital to the world's economies. The chapters included in this American Chemical Society (ACS) Symposium Series volume present an overview of ongoing efforts to address these global challenges. As part of the spring 2004 A C S meeting, Martin Patel and I were asked by the A C S Division of Cellulose and Renewable Materials to organize a symposium entitled Feedstocks for the Future: Renewables for the Production of Chemicals and Materials. We received an excellent response: the symposium spanned all 5 days of the meeting in 12 sessions, and comprised 60 oral and more than 25 poster presentations. This volume presents a selected collection of these papers best representing the wide variety o f topics covered during the week. O f course, it is not our intent to position these examples as the last word in renewables development. Rather, we hope that these specific examples will spur others to think broadly about renewable feedstocks and to apply their own unique expertise and technology to the continued expansion and development of this field.
Joseph J. Bozell National Renewable Energy Laboratory 1617 Cole Boulevard Golden, C O 80401
Martin K. Patel Utrecht University Department of Science, Technology and Society (STS)/Copernicus Institute Heidelberglaan 2 NL-3584 CS Utrecht The Netherlands
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Feedstocks for the Future
Bozell and Patel; Feedstocks for the Future ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2006.
