With our addiction to oil growing every year, what can we do to become less dependent on fossil fuels? It’s a shame that most of North America’s energy press from 2011 centred on the Canadian tar sands and Keystone XL pipeline project. Is this supposed to be a sustainable solution to the skyrocketing global demand for energy? Can we end our “so-called “oil addiction” by building more infrastructure? No, buying a faster delivery system won’t help end our addiction. Quite the opposite—it will deepen it. It is certainly an understandable political play for our continent, which is struggling to survive a global economic collapse that was spurred, in large part, byThe last oil price spike. But what do lobbyists and politicians suggest we do for an encore, and what will be the potential consequences for future generations? It is reasonable to ask: Should we restrain bioenergy deployment policies until economics are more favourable? This is the issue that arose during a fractious Proposition 23 campaign in California in 2010. The oil industry promoted the position that California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act (passed in 2006 and due to begin enforcement in 2012) would be too costly to implement. They claimed that the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) emissions cap and trade provisions would lead to more expensive energy and cost industry jobs. Opponents disagreed and defeated Proposition 23 by a whopping 23% margin.Fossil industry jobs are, in fact, temporary and will only serve to further entrench our dependence on oil and coal. The problem isn’t simply that we are dependent on fossil fuels, it’s that the dependence is getting stronger while worldwide demand for energy is rapidly increasing, particularly in Asia. Meanwhile, the number of “clean” energy jobs in California has increased 36% between 1995 and 2008. The profusion of print and online publications like Canadian Biomass, Biofuels Digest, and BBI magazines, coupled with almost weekly industry conferences and webinars, gives strong testimony to the strength of our continent’s desire for tackling energy demands using bioenergy converted from low-value biomass. There are many terrific examples of cross-border bioenergy collaboration that together make a compelling case for longterm sustainability. • Plasco municipal waste-to-energy plasma technology from Ottawa is undergoing project development in Salinas, California. • Montreal’s Enerkem green was teto- biofuels process has been green-lighted for installation in Pontotoc, Mississippi. • Pellet production from bug-infested wood in British Columbia, as well as fuel wood in Georgia, is destined for European bio-power projects. • Torrefied wood conversion is being developed in Europe and the Carolinas so Alberta can one day Satisfy their aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standards through cofiring with coal. These technologies are criticized as costly and too small-scale to make any substantial difference. Individual emerging technologies usually are small, but unless we invest in them now, we won’t have any scalable alternatives for later. North America needs to conduct carbon accounting comparisons between biogenic solutions and the status quo fossil fuel paradigm that predict decade- and century-long consequences. We need to insist on holistic economic comparisons against the costs of doing nothing. We need stable energy policies that inspire investor confidence for funding the scale-up of emerging technologies. Some of these deployments may fail but they will nevertheless move us closer to a sustainable energy future. C. Scott Miller, MBA, is a bioenergy marketing/communications consultant based in Los Angeles, California. He is president of the Victory Plant initiative for stimulating the buildout of promising biorefinery projects in North America. He works as a woody biomass aggregation consultant, social media strategist and member of the American Council on Renewable Energy. He can be reached through his company website at www.millerdewulf.com.