Miscanthus for Bioenergy Production

"The book Miscanthus for Bioenergy Production provides an accessible succinct summary of a large body of research over three decades that started in the late 80s in Denmark and Germany. Mike Jones, one of the scientists involved in the conception of several key EU projects in the 1990s, is a global authority on C4 photosynthesis in perennial grasses. He was part of the delegation in the early 2000s that helped kick-start the large public and private programmes in the US. The chapters in the book progress from the global needs for biomass, the basic biology of Miscanthus and its productive potential and environmental sustainability. Recent developments in breeding and commercial deployment are reviewed with the latest literature and draw also on his personal interactions with those in the global community performing experiments at the different scales to develop the technology pipelines. In the preface he wrote, ‘as scientists we are increasingly encouraged to engage productively with people that make policy’. The final chapter discusses the complex policy choices needed to ensure the markets are developed and concludes with future prospects for making a significant biomass contribution to greenhouse gas mitigation in a time when urgent action on climate change is imperative to avert disaster."
John Clifton-Brown, Professor, Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University