The production of biomass crops, such as shrub willow, will become a major source of renewable energy within the next few decades. Petroleum based energy is becoming more unattractive due to high prices, environmental concerns, and decreasing domestic oil supplies. Locally grown “green-energy”, in the form of shrub willow, in the Northeastern United States is a potential solution to help alleviate these problems. While producing a cellulosic feedstock, willow biomass cropping systems simultaneously produce valuable environmental and social benefits. These include reduced SO2 and NOx power plant emissions when used as a fuel for cofiring with coal, no net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere when used to generate electricity, sequestration of carbon in soil, reduced soil erosion and non-point source pollution from agricultural land, and enhanced agricultural landscape diversity. Willow biomass has the potential to play a crucial role in revitalizing the economy of rural communities by making productive use of under utilized cropland…

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