The great switch to grassy biofuels
One species of the most abundant plant on earth, grass, is under examination in a new US Department of Energy (DoE) test.
Switchgrass has been planted on 1,000 acres by researchers at the University of Tennessee to assess how improved varieties could lead to cheaper biofuels production.
The planting is part of a US DoE project aiming to make biofuels production more efficient, sustainable and cost-effective.
The University of Tennessee Biofuels Initiative is working with California firm Ceres and Illinois-based Dupont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol (DDCE) on the project, comparing the improved varieties with a different 1,000 acres planted with a standard switchgrass variety called Alamo.
In particular, they are testing the improved Alamo variety EG 1101 and the improved Kanlow variety EG 1102, both sold under Ceres’ Blade Energy Crops brand.
The Genera Energy/DDCE demonstration-scale biorefinery in Vonore, Tennessee, will process the energy crops into cellulosic ethanol.
The project takes in various farms in nine east Tennessee counties, which form part of the Biofuels Initiative’s farmer incentive programme, which now totals 6,000 acres of switchgrass.
‘We expect to make the same type of leaps in crop performance that seed companies have made in traditional crops. We’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible,’ Ceres sales director Frank Hardimon remarks.
The US will need 16 billion gallons of cellulosic or advanced biofuels each year to meet the terms of the Renewable Fuels Standard by 2022.
The University of Tennessee Biofuels Initiative believes farmers in Tennessee could produce enough switchgrass by 2025 to produce more than a billion gallons of ethanol each year, using 1 million acres of land without displacing food and fibre crops.
Source: BrighterEnergy.org
Switchgrass has been planted on 1,000 acres by researchers at the University of Tennessee to assess how improved varieties could lead to cheaper biofuels production.
The planting is part of a US DoE project aiming to make biofuels production more efficient, sustainable and cost-effective.
The University of Tennessee Biofuels Initiative is working with California firm Ceres and Illinois-based Dupont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol (DDCE) on the project, comparing the improved varieties with a different 1,000 acres planted with a standard switchgrass variety called Alamo.
In particular, they are testing the improved Alamo variety EG 1101 and the improved Kanlow variety EG 1102, both sold under Ceres’ Blade Energy Crops brand.
The Genera Energy/DDCE demonstration-scale biorefinery in Vonore, Tennessee, will process the energy crops into cellulosic ethanol.
The project takes in various farms in nine east Tennessee counties, which form part of the Biofuels Initiative’s farmer incentive programme, which now totals 6,000 acres of switchgrass.
‘We expect to make the same type of leaps in crop performance that seed companies have made in traditional crops. We’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible,’ Ceres sales director Frank Hardimon remarks.
The US will need 16 billion gallons of cellulosic or advanced biofuels each year to meet the terms of the Renewable Fuels Standard by 2022.
The University of Tennessee Biofuels Initiative believes farmers in Tennessee could produce enough switchgrass by 2025 to produce more than a billion gallons of ethanol each year, using 1 million acres of land without displacing food and fibre crops.
Source: BrighterEnergy.org
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