Forest-based biomass supply curves for the U.S.

Abstract. Nationwide county-level supply curves have been estimated for forest-based biomass in order to help evaluate their potential contributions to producing biofuels. This paper builds on the estimates of potential supply in the USDA / DOE Billion Ton supply (BTS) study. Forest biomass sources include logging residue, thinnings, other removals, unused mill residue, urban wood waste and conventional sourced wood (pulpwood size material). To make the estimates it is assumed that lower cost forest biomass will be supplied from integrated harvesting operations which also remove sawlogs and pulpwood. It is assumed that such removals can be estimated at the county level in two steps. First as a portion of recent estimates of logging residues and second by simulated thinning operations that use tops, branches and small trees for biomass. Supply from thinning dense forest stands is assumed to occur over 30 years as in the original Billion Ton Supply Study. Harvest and stumpage costs are estimated for each of these methods. Final supply estimates for each county assume supply that is half way between the two estimates. Preliminary forest and agricultural biomass supply estimates have been used to indicate that for a marginal cost of $44 per oven dry ton (odt) at forest roadside or farm gate forest and agricultural feedstocks could produce 20 billion gallons of advanced biofuels as called for under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. Forests could provide about 40 million odt of biomass per year at about$44 per odt to produce 4 billion gallons and agricultural feedstocks could provide about 200 million odt and produce 20 billion gallons of biofuel

Immunogenicity of RNA Replicons Encoding HIV Env Immunogens Designed for Self-Assembly into Nanoparticles

Self-replicating RNAs derived from alphaviruses have high potential for vaccine applications. Utilizing lipid nanoparticle-formulated RNA replicons as a vaccine platform to deliver self-assembling protein immunogens, Melo et al. demonstrate robust anti-HIV Env antibody production and significantly improved antigen-specific B cell activation in vaccinated mice when compared with protein immunization.NIAID (Awards UM1AI100663, AI104715, EB025854 and AI048240)National Cancer Institute (Grant P30-CA14051