Hello everyone and hope 2013 has been off to a great start for everyone. Strategic Biomass Solutions has a new, simpler URL: www.biomass.ms, which I hope is easy to remember. We are also embarking up on our second year of this newsletter and now have over 2,600 subscribers! Our regular readers will instantly notice a new look of the newsletter with different color coded blocks. By doing this, our goal is to present information broken out into various themes such as policy, technology and research, business and markets, funding opportunities and upcoming events. We will continue with our tradition of bringing a unique and exclusive interview with experts that covers one these topical themes each month. I invite our readers to give us feedback on the new format for this newsletter, so please take a few seconds and click on this survey link.

Strategic Biomass Solutions was invited to serve on the host committee for the 7th Environmental and Clean Energy Inaugural Ball held Monday, January 21, 2013. This bi-partisan celebration has become a Washington, D.C. tradition over the past 24 years as the environmental and clean energy communities gather to welcome the incoming administration and make headway towards a more sustainable future. We heard President Obama specifically mention climate change in his inaugural address and the need for the United States of America to become a world leader in developing new clean energy technologies.  While there is still debate on "why" the climate is changing or what may cause sea levels to rise in the future, scientific data show that some change is taking place and we already see that manifested in the severity of the storms and wildfires over the last decade. The real question is not how we stop such planetary phenomenon, but how we learn to adapt to these changes. In other words, how do we build our cities smarter, manage our forests and other natural resources better, and invest in research for developing new technologies that will complement each other to provide us with secure and reliable energy supplies for the foreseeable future. There are enough fossil fuels reserves - coal, natural gas and oil combined - to supply our needs for the next 300 - 400 years, but the days of cheap energy are gone. Once natural gas markets become global in scale over the next several years like the oil markets are, the price of natural gas will be subject to greater volatility as well.  

Renewable energy has a distinct role to play in the energy mix, and major corporations like Apple and Google are recognizing this. Check out the stories in this newsletter to see how Apple is inventing new ways to harness wind energy and Google is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy generation and smart grid technologies. Unfortunately, the policy side continues to be a mixed bag in the New Year - while the United States Congress extended the Production Tax Credits (PTCs), a court decided that the cellulosic ethanol mandate is not functioning in its current form. The Renewable Fuels Standard or RFS2 as it is commonly known, was put in place by President George W. Bush and is by far the strongest policy instrument that is spurring the growth of the advanced biofuels industry, which is still very much in its infancy. According to a report by BP, renewables will be the fastest growing energy sector through 2030.

Strategic Biomass Solutions is proud to serve as a supporting organization for the upcoming 2nd Annual Southeast Clean Power Summit in New Orleans February 20-21, 2013. Please see the events section for your discount code. On a personal note, I am honored to be a part of the 2013 class of Leadership Mississippi, and hope to work on number of issues that are important for the economic development of our state. Also, I welcome our new outreach intern, Claire Sojourner. Claire recently completed her bachelor's degree in psychology from Millsaps College.

I hope you enjoy going through this newsletter, but just in case you find yourself getting really bored, check out this fascinating video on some amazing facts about our sun. Climate change will be a moot point a billion years from now!