The time for modern biomass has come. It has long been overshadowed by other, more widely-publicized renewable energy technologies such as wind, solar and hydro, and still retains an outmoded image in comparison to its apparently more attractive cousins. The potential for biomass to act as a store of solar energy, and yet to be converted efficiently when required into heat, power, transport fuels and even substitutes for plastics and petrochemicals, is not widely appreciated. The increasing abundance of well-designed, successful bioenergy projects around the world is creating new interest in...