Switchgrass-based ethanol may yield 540 percent more energy than needed to grow and produce
According to Ken Vogel, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service geneticist in UNL's agronomy and horticulture department, "Switchgrass is not only energy efficient, but can be used in a renewable biofuel economy to reduce reliance of fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance rural economies."
The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, as the latest and largest study to date on greenhouse gas emissions from cellulosic ethanol with a switchgrass biomass source were 94 percent lower than estimated greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline production and that 540 percent more energy was yielded than needed to grow, harvest and process it into cellulosic ethanol. Those are encouraging numbers. Alcohol-based fuels still have a ways to go to prove that they can be a viable alternative to gasoline, but it is encouraging when results such as these are recorded in studies. Ethanol still contains less energy per gallon than gasoline, though an engine designed to run solely on the fuel can make up for some of the lost energy output due to the higher octane rating. We look forward to seeing biofuels and electricity fight it out in the quest to end our addiction to oil.
[Source: The University of Nebraska via Science Daily]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 5:13PM (1/15/2008)
During the North American International Auto Show, (NAIAS) GM's Vice Chairman Bob Lutz joined a roundtable discussion with a group of online journalists including (but not limited to) Brian Dooley at HummerGuy.net, Lyle Dennis of GM-Volt.com, Joe LaMuraglia-Gaywheels.com, Vincent Nguyen at Slashgear.com, Paul Stamatiou, Gear Diary's David Goodspeed, Hybridcarblog's Chad Snyder, Hank Green of Ecogeek.org, Joel Williams of Lifegoggles.com, Alphamom's Isabel Kallman, Autowriter Matthew Keegan and Autopia's Marty Jerome
I believe the bloggers here would be interested in this video of the 21 minute Q&A. Play close attention to Mr. Lutz’s comments regarding ethanol.
http://www.podtech.net/home/4856/gms-bob-lutz-holds-court-at-naias
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1985 Gripen 5:56PM (1/15/2008)
I don't want to sound too "out there", but I've always wondered about ethanol derived from industrial (non-phychoactive) hemp. I mean, the stuff doesn't need fertilizer, doesn't require a lot of water, and grows like a weed because, well... it is one. You could get several crops a year from the same acre of land I would think growing industrial hemp. Has anyone studied cellulosic ethanol from hemp feedstock before?
Of course, growing hemp is illegal in the U.S. (because apparently the ATF can't tell the difference between hemp and its cousin marijuana), so the law would have to be amended. Currently all hemp used in products manufactured in the U.S. has to be imported from Canada or China. How stupid is that?
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fred schumacher 7:32PM (1/15/2008)
The first part of my comment refers to the Lutz interview posted in the first comment above. Interview is at http://www.podtech.net/home/4856/gms-bob-lutz-holds-court-at-naias
There's a hint here at one of the major problems with the auto industry today -- complexity. Lutz would like to see a little more parsimony from his engineers, but even he, with his position of power, can't change the paradigm the industry is trapped in.
Ratan Tata, however, was able to make his engineers stick to a parsimonious design brief to create the most revolutionary car since Alec Issigonis' Austin Mini.
The ethanol discussion shows that we are at the beginnings of a new technology and don't know yet what the best solutions will turn out to be. The greatest creativity happens at inception. (Take for example, a cultural phenomenon, rock and roll music. It can be argued that greatest creativity was 40 years ago and today's music is moribund.)
Basic morphology of automobiles had greater variation a century ago, and then stabilized into a few forms still in use today.
Ethanol has become a whipping boy recently, as Lutz mentioned, but don't write it off. There are many more tricks yet to be learned before it's mature technology.
In regard to the switchgrass story, Ken Vogel was one of my resource people when I was a native grass seed farmer in North Dakota. Switchgrass was one of my cash crops, so it's a plant I know well.
Switchgrass also has many more tricks it can show us. As Vogel noted, breeding work to date has been for forage quantity and quality, where dry matter digestability and crude protein are major selection parameters. The plants they worked with were not designed as biomass fuel crops, yet they still perform quite well in that role.
I had a conversation two years ago with Dwight Tober, USDA Plant Material Specialist for the Northern Plains based in Bismarck, North Dakota. He said that up to that point all requests for federal biomass plant breeding research funding had been rejected. Hopefully, since then they've been able to get some funding.
Perennial grasses are low fertility crops. They require very little input for cellulosic biomass production. They sequester carbon underground, they increase organic matter in the soil and build humus, they reduce soil erosion and increase soil A-horizon (topsoil), provide wildlife benefits (switchgrass provides fantastic upland gamebird habitat), and can form the feedstock for fuel and food. And we're only beginning.
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TimJ 8:39PM (9/18/2008)
Farmers in Northern New York State have also been exploring switchgrass as a source for pellet fuel. I think the cellulosic ethanol production process has a woody byproduct that could be made into pellets for biomass energy - http://www.nnyagdev.org/press-06-11-07.htm
And Gripen - CNN had an article a few months back where some North Dakota farmers were suing the DEA for permission to grow industrial hemp - http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/17/pip.hempregulation/ One of the uses listed in the article is ethanol production. Thanks to NAFTA, hemp is the only crop legal to import to the US, but illegal to grow here. Ironically, one of the reasons listed for the hemp market drying up 50 years ago was the introduction of petroleum-based synthetic fibers like nylon.
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john riley 7:01AM (1/16/2008)
Re pellets: Yes, I am wondering about just burning the switchgrass. Seems like I heard of an experimental power plant running on the stuff.
http://smokyhollow.blogspot.com/2007/07/power-plants-switch-to-switchgrass.html
To make ethanol, my impression is you first have to get microbes to convert the cellulose to sugar, and _then_ you make ethanol from that?
Maybe biodiesel from oil crops or algae is a more direct way to get auto fuel?
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Tim 11:26AM (1/16/2008)
There is still a lot of economic competition from petroleum.
Global Resource Corp's HAWK recycler extracts hydrocarbons (oil and gas) in seconds from most everyday objects like tires, plastics, as well as from shale, coal, and tar sands with specific microwaves at 20% the cost of thermal methods. http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Global_Resource_Corp:High-Frequency_Attenuating_Wave_Kinetics_or_HAWK
Fact #1: When an oil well “runs dry” because the easily extractable oil has been removed, over 66% of the oil still remains in the well. Fact #2: It costs an oil company about $30/bbl to refine crude oil into usable products.
The HAWK microwave technology can remove AND refine the residual 66% of oil from a formally “dry” well for less than $30/bbl. According to Global Resources and the DOE, this technology could give the US another 60 years of domestically produced petroleum products from dead oil wells alone.
HAWK also makes it extremely inexpensive to remove the oil from oil shale in the western US and tar sands in Canada AND it can also extract the hydrocarbons from waste plastics, tires etc. thus recycling approximately 60 MILLION barrels of oil & gas from the land fills instead of purchasing that oil abroad.
Oil will not go down without a HUGE economic fight.
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