Abstract : One of the greatest issues facing mankind is the development of economic and sustainable systems and processes to meet the growing demand for energy. The challenges are twofold: reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate global warming and finding a renewable replacement for fossil fuels that is being depleted at an increasing rate. Therefore the production of fuels from renewable resources is of great interest. In this talk, I will focus on the production of fuels form biomass or biomass derived raw materials using thermochemical processes which employ a variety of catalytic steps in converting the biomass to fuels. In this approach the biomass is first converted to syngas ( mixture of CO and H2) which then is converted to liquid hydrocarbon fuels using Fischer-Tropsch (FTS) catalysts. The challenges are economic in nature: how to convert the biomass on a small scale, while minimizing costs.