The rush toward a biofueled future based on ethanol made from corn has raised the specter of a food vs. fuel battle. Many — including economists, scientists and ethicists — have concluded that generating biofuels may not be a viable means to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and to curb the effects of global warming.

In Georgia, however, we recognize that we can't stake bioenergy's future on food crops. Corn can't be the only, or even the primary, solution. In addition to driving up food prices, it requires frequent applications of pesticides, large quantities of nitrogen and constant irrigation during our hot and frequently rainless summers — environmentally unfriendly practices that drive up production costs.

Our scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are developing technologies to use biomass wastes, trees and grasses and nonfood crops to produce not only fuels, but also power and chemicals.

The state of Georgia is a virtual Saudi Arabia of biomass. That's right, the American South, home not only to peanuts, corn, pecans and cotton, but also pine trees and poultry farms, has huge biomass "reserves" that are among the most significant bioenergy sources in the United States.

Agriculture and forestry together in Georgia annually generate more than 18 million tons of byproduct biomass ranging from pecan hulls and poultry litter to cotton gin trash and pine tree harvest residues. Pine forests cover two-thirds of our state, and sustainable forestry practices in Georgia annually generate 10 tons of treetops, tree limbs and other waste per acre of land — a massive feedstock that can be burned directly in power plants or refined to produce biofuels. And, as the poultry capital of the country, we annually produce 1 billion pounds of fats and oils from processing chickens and 9 million tons of soiled litter.

What began in 1982 at the University of Georgia with two engineers pioneering bioenergy research has exploded into an interdisciplinary group of 80 scientists, engineers, and economists working to make biofuels production an economically viable and environmentally sound alternative to oil.

A team of UGA scientists, part of a $135 million Department of Energy bioenergy science center, is challenged with finding bioenergy breakthroughs that will make cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2013. In collaboration with other institutions and industry, its researchers conduct fundamental science that bridges the gap between the potential of cellulose-based fuels and their reality. Their goal: to find the plants, microbes and enzymes that enable biomass to release their energy stores easily.

In addition, as a land-grant institution with a mission to serve the people, University of Georgia scientists and engineers put new technologies to work. In 1982, the campus buses ran on peanut oil, and in the winter of 2002, the campus was heated with chicken fats and grease. Today, the campus buses — the largest university fleet in the nation — run on biodiesel.

Beyond the campus, industry is adopting these technologies. In North Georgia, poultry litter, which can cause stream pollution, is supplying electricity to homes. Gordon, a rural and economically depressed community in Middle Georgia, boasts a biodiesel facility promising new life and fuel to its citizens. U.S. Biofuels opened a plant in Rome in 2004 that converts chicken fat and soy oil into biodiesel. The first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the country, financed by visionary entrepreneur Vinod Khosla, is rising amid the pine forests in Soperton, in South Georgia, using wood residues from timber harvesting.

In the bioenergy arena, Georgia, with its abundant and varied biomass coupled with scientists and engineers deeply engaged in research and its application for bioenergy, is responsibly and quickly moving to a biofueled future. With oil topping more than $120 a barrel, the nation needs to look closely at Georgia as a model for the new energy economy.