Petroleum-based industrial products have gradually replaced products derived from biological materials. However, biologically based products are making a comebackâ€"because of a threefold increase in farm productivity and new technologies. Biobased Industrial Products envisions a biobased industrial future, where starch will be used to make biopolymers and vegetable oils will become a routine component in lubricants and detergents. Biobased Industrial Products overviews the U.S. land resources available for agricultural production, summarizes plant materials currently produced, and describes prospects for increasing varieties and yields. The committee discusses the concept of the biorefinery and outlines proven and potential thermal, mechanical, and chemical technologies for conversion of natural resources to industrial applications. The committee also illustrates the developmental dynamics of biobased products through existing examples, as well as products still on the drawing board, and it identifies priorities for research and development.

Mark W. Schwartz Soon after we came into extensive meadows: and I was assured that those meadows continue for a hundred and fifty miles. being in winter drowned lands and marshes. By the dryness of the season they were now beautiful pastures, and here presented itself one of the most delightful prospects I have ever beheld; all low grounds being meadow, and without wood, and all of the high grounds being covered with trees and appearing like islands: the whole scene seemed an elysium. Capt. Thomas Morris. 1791 I am sitting in a 60-mile-an-hour bus sailing over a highway originally laid out for horse and buggy. The ribbon of concrete has been widened and widened until the field fences threaten to topple into the road cuts. In the narrow thread of sod between the shaved banks and the toppling fences grow the relics of what once was Illinois: the prairie.

Strongly grounded in the scientific method and evidence, The Environment: Science, Issues, and Solutions presents an organized, accessible, building block approach that introduces the principles of ecology. This book examines the effects of technology use and the unprecedented economic growth and development that has tipped the natural balance of the environment, resulting in serious local, regional, and global environmental problems. This comprehensive text explores the need for interrelated long-term solutions for the prevention and mitigation of environmental problems.