The United States imports 60% of its oil, and about half of this comes from unstable parts of the world. A recent report released by the USDA and DOE suggests that the U.S. could produce 1.36 billion dry tons of biomass per year. If converted to ethanol, this could replace more than 50% of total annual gasoline consumption. Biomass crops are projected to play a major role in an attempt to achieve this goal. In particular, in the "Billion Ton Report" the USDA and DOE estimate that 368 million tons of biomass per year can be expected to come from forest resources, while 998 million tons can be expected from agricultural resources. Perennial biomass crops like switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) are projected to provide 377 million tons per year, or 27.6% of the total. This assumes that 55 million acres will be converted from traditional cropland, idle cropland and pasture, to production of perennial biomass crops, with an average yield of 6.7 dry tons per acre per year. Based on research with switchgrass and other potential biomass crops, these targets appear to be reasonable. Electric power production from biomass generally offers less economic incentive than ethanol. Several technologies for production of ethanol from biomass have been developed. These include acid or enzyme hydrolysis and fermentataion, and gasification followed by either biological or catalytic conversion of the resultant synthesis gas to ethanol. The gasification-based technologies have the advantage of being more flexible with respect to feedstock and are expected to provide higher yields of ethanol per ton (100+ gal.) than the hydrolysis-based technologies, at lower costs (< $1.00) per gal. than corn ethanol. Several companies have developed these technologies to the pilot plant scale and are poised to build the first commercial plants pending adequate funding.