 The use of biomass as a renewable energy resource depends on creating a value chain. We need to produce biomass material that could be agricultural residues, forest wastes, or purpose grown crops. As the biomass comes in, it gets transformed into a slate of products. One of them being fuels, maybe chemicals, bioplastics. There's a whole suite of things that could be made, and we need to find the mix that makes the economic sense. We want to be able to understand how elements present in the plant partition and how we can manage them, to understand how they behave under conversion conditions. Then that can be a resource for industry, trying to develop larger scale production. One of our current projects is funded by the Federal Aviation Administration, exploring pathways for tropical biomass resources to be used for alternative jet fuel production. We are collaborating with Washington State University, MIT, Purdue, Penn State, and University of Tennessee. The resources for alternative jet fuel production are diverse, ranging from oil seeds from the Ponga Mia tree to urban wood wastes coming from the construction and demolition industry. Air transport is important to Hawaii's economy, and it doesn't lend itself to electrification. Alternative jet fuels then become very desirable. Depending on the location and the plant material, less than 10,000 acres could produce enough material to service a single conversion facility. In the case of electricity, sufficient to support perhaps 10% of Maui's electricity grid, biomass is one of the renewable energy resources that will really help to contribute toward a cleaner energy future that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.