Reprinted from ENS http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-31-091.asp

CHAMPAIGN, Illinois, July 31, 2008 (ENS) – A giant perennial grass that tolerates poor soils, uses less acreage and produces more biofuel than either corn or switchgrass – it sounds too good to be true. But researchers at the University of Illinois have demonstrated that the the grass, Miscanthus x giganteus, outperforms current biofuels sources by a long shot.

Corn, switchgrass and Miscanthus have been grown side by side in experimental plots in Urbana, Illinois since 2005 in the largest field trials of their kind in the United States.

“What we’ve found with Miscanthus is that the amount of biomass generated each year would allow us to produce about two and a half times the amount of ethanol we can produce per acre of corn,” said University of Illinois crop sciences professor Stephen Long, who led the study.

University of Illinois crop sciences professor Stephen Long stands in a Miscanthus field. (Photo by Don Hamerman courtesy U. of I.)

Long is the deputy director of the BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute, a multi-year, multi-institutional initiative aimed at finding low carbon or carbon neutral alternatives to petroleum fuels.

Using corn or switchgrass to produce enough ethanol to offset 20 percent of gasoline use – a current White House goal – would take 25 percent of current U.S. cropland out of food production, the researchers report.

Getting the same amount of ethanol from Miscanthus would require only 9.3 percent of current agricultural acreage.

In field trials in Illinois, researchers grew Miscanthus and switchgrass in adjoining plots. Miscanthus proved to be at least twice as productive as switchgrass.

In trials across Illinois, switchgrass, a perennial grass which, like Miscanthus, requires fewer chemical and mechanical inputs than corn, produced only about as much ethanol feedstock per acre as corn, Long said.

“It wasn’t that we didn’t know how to grow switchgrass because the yields we obtained were actually equal to the best yields that had been obtained elsewhere with switchgrass,” he said. Corn yields in Illinois are also among the best in the nation.

“One reason why Miscanthus yields more biomass than corn is that it produces green leaves about six weeks earlier in the growing season,” Long said. Miscanthus also stays green until late October in Illinois, while corn leaves wither at the end of August, he said.

The growing season for switchgrass is comparable to that of Miscanthus, but that grass is not nearly as efficient at converting sunlight to biomass as Miscanthus, found Frank Dohleman, a graduate student and co-author of the study.

“One of the criticisms of using any biomass as a biofuel source is it has been claimed that plants are not very efficient – about 0.1 percent efficiency of conversion of sunlight into biomass,” Long said. “What we show here is, on average, Miscanthus is in fact about one percent efficient, so about one percent of sunlight ends up as biomass.”

“Keep in mind that when we consider our energy use, a few hours of solar energy falling on the Earth are equal to all the energy that people use over a whole year, so you don’t really need that high an efficiency to be able to capture that in plant material and make use of it as a biofuel source,” he said.

The field trials also showed that Miscanthus is tolerant of poor soil quality, Long said.

“Our highest productivity is actually occurring in the south, on the poorest soils in the state,” he said. “So that also shows us that this type of crop may be very good for marginal land or land that is not even being used for crop production.”

Because Miscanthus is a perennial grass, it also accumulates much more carbon in the soil than an annual crop such as corn or soybeans, Long said.

“In the context of global climate change, that’s important because it means that by producing a biofuel on that land you’re taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the soil,” he said.

Using Miscanthus in an agricultural setting has not been without its challenges, explained Long. Because it is a sterile hybrid, it must be propagated by planting underground stems, called rhizomes.

This was initially a laborious process, Long said, but mechanization allows the team to plant about 15 acres a day.

In Europe, where Miscanthus has been grown for more than a decade, patented farm equipment can plant about 50 acres of Miscanthus rhizomes a day, he said.

Once established, Miscanthus returns annually without need for replanting. If harvested in December or January, after nutrients have returned to the soil, it requires little fertilizer.

This sterile form of Miscanthus has not been found to be invasive in Europe or the United States, Long said.

There are at least a dozen companies building or operating plants in the United States to produce ethanol from the non-edible parts of plants, called lignocellulosic feedstocks, and companies are propagating Miscanthus rhizomes for commercial sale, Long said.

Although research has led to improvements in productivity and growers are poised to begin using it as a biofuels crop on a large scale, Miscanthus is in its infancy as an agricultural product, Long said.

“Keep in mind that this Miscanthus is completely unimproved, so if we were to do the sorts of things that we’ve managed to do with corn, where we’ve increased its yield threefold over the last 50 years, then it’s not unreal to think that we could use even less than 10 percent of the available agricultural land,” Long said. “And if you can actually grow it on non-cropland that would be even better.”

Researchers at the University of Illinois are exploring all aspects of biofuels production, from the development of feedstocks such as Miscanthus, to planting, harvest, storage, transport, conversion to biofuels and carbon sequestration.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.

Let the market work. At least American companies are investing and learning in this technology, despite our government’s position.

http://earth2tech.com/2008/05/07/primer-brazilian-biofuels/

Problem: Why is this difficult ? Farm lobbies, congress and others are getting in the way of the logical conclusion that energy from a food source is not as preferable as energy from a material grown for energy production.

Ethanol based on corn is not only inefficient in terms of net energy produced but also drives up corn prices, which drive up livestock feed prices, which drive up beef prices , which …you get the idea. Most U.S.-produced ethanol is now made from ground corn in a process that has been faulted as inefficient. Corn yields less sugar per acre than sugar cane, and the refining uses substantial amounts of energy. To keep ethanol competitive with gasoline, major refiners such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. have relied since the 1970s on a tax subsidy, now 51 cents a gallon. Wrong incentives Mr Congress !

Isn’t there a better way? Brazil has made huge progress on ethanol from sugar, some 30% of all fuel for automobiles contains ethanol vs 3%in the United States. Corn yields less sugar per acre than sugar cane, and the refining uses substantial amounts of energy. I have seen estimates of sugar being 3 times more efficient per acre.

In the United States, the sugar-cane industry has had little incentive to diversify into ethanol production because import quotas support U.S. sugar prices far above world levels. Expansion of sugar cane acreage beyond Hawaii, Florida and the Gulf Coast is limited by the need for a long, frost-free growing season.

The United States also imposes a stiff tariff on imported ethanol. Wrong again Congress ! All this talk of free trade and we don’t let US businesses invest in the Brazilian refining plants and import the energy to the USA. Companies are finding work arounds, like Cargill Inc., the third-largest U.S. ethanol refiner, announced plans last year to refine Brazilian ethanol in El Salvador and export it to the United States duty-free under provisions of the Caribbean Basin Initiative. Seems like a lot of work. Let’s learn from Brazil.

But again why ethanol from a food source. Aren’t there more efficient ways?

Why not switchgrass? This is the celluose based approach. I believe President Bush even mentioned in a state of the union address. As usual things mentioned there mean little, other than that it is now an officially recognized alternative. Where is the money to investigate this alternative? There has been a test underway for a couple of years in Ottumwa, Iowa called the Chariton Valley Biomass Project http://www.iowaswitchgrass.com . This project was considered a successful test. I wouldn’t consider it the ideal test, but it used existing infrastructure and made it work. The program tested 1.) Growing switchgrass in four counties of Iowa 2.) Packaging and distribution issues with switchgrass 3.) Storage of the product 4.) Use within an existing coal-fired plant as a supplement fuel source.

Some learnings; Weed control of initial fields is crucial, fields take two years to mature and to increase production. 2 tons per acre was a break-even from a cash standpoint for farmers, some of the best numbers were 6 ton averages per acre. Already the universities are investigating how they can genetically formulate a better seed source, as there was wide variation in production amongst the seeds used.

Existing haying equipment and flatbed trucks deliver the product to the power plant. Storage of the product will require large storage buildings. Special equipment was put in place to process the bales, so that it could be blown into the coal fired burners, thereby reducing the coal needed to produce energy.

From my readings, some benefits of switchgrass over corn and sugar based energy;

• Energy from a non food source
• Switchgrass is a native grass which can be grown from canada to mexico (more farmers benefit)
• Once established, switchgrass is a crop that keeps on giving: It’s a perennial, so it can be harvested for decades without replanting, dramatically reducing the amount of energy needed to grow it, compared to corn.
• Limited fertilization needed, if any (again weed control important up front)
• Harvesting done with existing farm equipment
• Switchgrass is great at capturing carbon dioxide and trapping it underground with its three-metre deep roots, thus acting against the gas which is produced by burning fossil fuels and which many scientists say is the main reason for global warming.
• More efficient production - The energy ratings rank how much energy is contained in a fuel product per unit of fossil fuel used in its production. Ordinary gasoline has a 0.8 fossil energy balance rating; ethanol from corn, 1.5; ethanol from sugar cane, 8; and cellulosic ethanol, such as that from switchgrass, a range from 2 to 36, based on current experiments.

Bottom line – Congress, set aside a few dollars from the billions in farm subsidies to continue the research in switchgrass. Provide incentives to farmers and power plants to try this as a supplement to their existing fuel source and lastly remove barriers to importing other forms of energy from countries like Brazil. Lose the ‘not invented here’ mentality and learn about ethanol production from Brazil, tidal power from Netherlands, Geothermal from Iceland, Solar and Conservation approaches from Germany and Wind from many countries including Scotland.