Biofuel industry grows deep roots on Vermont farms

February 9, 2012

Consumers are adopting increasing amounts of biofuel for tasks from home heating equipment to on / off road diesel, as Vermonters find financial and environmental benefits compared to pure fossil fuel consumption.

To meet the growing demand, projects like the Vermont Bioenergy Initiative (VBI), a nonprofit group based in Montpelier, have been offering training and incentives to farmers, entrepreneurs and educators.

People who enter the field can diversify their agricultural operations, support rural job growth, foster self-sufficiency in local communities and help the state mitigate the effects of climate change, the organization says.

As experts continue their efforts to develop a biomass-to-biofuels industry, they are working to overcome challenges such as developing advanced biofuel feedstocks and finding additional financing for production facilities.

That campaign got a boost from lawmakers last week when U.S. Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware addressed the American Chemical Society.

"Sustainable biofuels production is essential in my view for our economy and our future," Coons said. "As we all know, there are a number of environmental and socio-economic and other policy challenges we have to face, and this [briefing] was a great starting point as a concrete forum to look at how we begin to move forward towards workable solutions that will require cooperation from many public and private interests to be able to move from the field to the filling station in the future."