Cellulosic bioethanol is a bad idea although 10 times better than corn ethanol. The simple truth is that as a solar energy conversion process, crops to fermented alcohol has less than .5% (in the case of corn ethanol .05% ) of the efficiency of solar panels. It is also immoral to use productive food crop agricultural land for the production of fuel, especially when you consider that the water required for plant growth is in short supply, a problem that equals the Energy/CO2 problem in the world. The real advantage of biomass, is that plants are the best way we know to fix carbon out of the atmosphere. And the fact is, for us to make liquid fuel substitutes for petroleum products, notably alcohols, we need carbon. Therefore, if you want to make those liquid fuels CO2 neutral you want to use either carbon removed from the atmosphere or waste CO2 from industrial process. So to use biomass efficiently you must transfer 100% of the plant carbon to liquid fuel carbon, not a small fraction of it, as in fermentation methods.

This indicates that the best way to produce fuel is by using waste CO2 or biomass carbon, and surplus or remote green energy. The Fischer Tropsch process can convert the biomass to Syngas, which can then be converted most cheaply to methanol (also ethanol but more expensive) with added energy. This method makes alcohol fuel which is CO2 neutral.

The added energy needed to convert CO2 or Biomass to alcohols could be obtained from remote coastal automated hydro or tidal power installations, with Plants that receive liquid waste CO2 by tanker, and return with alcohol in the same tanker. Also locations such as Iceland which has huge geothermal power resources. And transporting alcohol or CO2 by tanker is safe & environmentally low risk, unlike the dangerous transport of LNG or Petroleum. There is a big debate on the transport of Natural Gas from the huge reserves on the Canadian Mackenzie Delta, cheaper to ship by LNG than to build the >$20 billion pipeline, but LNG is extremely dangerous to ship, especially in iceberg infested waters. Simple solution: convert the natural gas to methanol and ship the environmentally friendly methanol by tanker. Exxon Valdez type event, no problem, the methanol will dissipate harmlessly into the environment.

Another example would be Wind Farms in areas like Western Alberta, which cannot deliver peak energy to the grid, so why not convert surplus wind energy plus biomass carbon to methanol or ethanol. See:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=7235a029-e0cb-479d-aeb6-ef19c4fc32f5

A good analysis of the terrible energy efficiency of plant solar energy conversion is found at:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog1/index.php?p=22&js_enabled=1

Andrey, my analysis suggests that the "huge amounts" of agricultural & forestry waste are prime candidates for energy production. However, by far and away, the most effective use of biomass is as a means to produce CO2 neutral liquid fuels. The energy content of the biomass is much less significant, as there are much more superior ways to get energy, including GenIV nuclear reactors, in particular the thorium cycle & the IFR, nuclear fusion, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, wave, tidal etc. Many of these energy production methods would be particularly suitable to combine with biomass as a means of storing peak energy as well as producing carbon neutral liquid fuels.