Switchgrass Ethanol Yields Large Net Energy Gain (mentioned by Tony Snow)

Environment News Service ^ | 01/08/2008

[cogitator]

Marginal, highly erodible lands -- sounds like my yard qualifies.

Tony Snow, filling in for Paul Harvey, mentioned this study on the show today.

Another similar article, in case some people react negatively to "Environment News Service":

Biofuel: Major Net Energy Gain From Switchgrass-based Ethanol

The stuff apparently has no problems growing:

[stylin19a]

hey...I played that course. Lost a lotta balls in there.

[nhoward14]

I would much rather turn grass into fuel than corn, i.e. FOOD.

Of course, we’ll have to figure out how to stop college kids from trying to smoke the stuff.

[KarlInOhio]

Don't the recent ethanol laws require corn based ethanol? After all, this isn't about energy indepedence. It is about getting votes in the midwest.

[frogjerk]

If you have seen one of these brush fires, there’s a lot of energy there...

[edcoil]

maybe at today artificial high price. The issue is to create “cheap” fuel and that it does not do.

[MarkL]

I believe that switchgrass is also readily converted to butanol, which is much closer to gasoline, as far as potential energy goes, than ethanol.

Mark

[AU72]

Big Switchgrass!

[jjotto]

All fermentation for ethanol produces almost a pound of carbon dioxide (a supposed ‘greenhouse gas’) for every pound of ethanol.

[qam1]

And giving ADM it’s kickback

[twigs]

My husband teaches in an agricultural school and he has mentioned this is as a much better choice than corn.

[bereanway]

The thing that makes switchgrass so intriguing is the ability to produce the ethanol w/o large external energy inputs. The switchgrass byproducts (unlike corn) can be used as fuel instead of natgas for the conversion process. Also, a lot of marginal ground that’s not suitable for grain production can be used which includes the bulk of ag-ground in the US. Makes a lot more sense than corn based ethanol production.

[cogitator]

All fermentation for ethanol produces almost a pound of carbon dioxide (a supposed ‘greenhouse gas’) for every pound of ethanol.

But that CO2 is derived from the carbon in the feedstock, which removed the CO2 from the atmosphere to grow (photosynthesis) in the first place. Thus, little net contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere from this process.

[MplsSteve]

Renewable Energy PING?

[z3n]

I saw mention of co2 produced during fermentation, but It would be interesting to know how much oxygen is produced and co2 consumed by this stuff during it’s growth cycle.

[Navy Patriot]

You are both right, and add in MTBE. It is all about monopoly, subsidies and money.

Those factors must be removed and energy efficiency and market efficiency replace them.

[thackney]

Don't the recent ethanol laws require corn based ethanol?

No, they don't. The actually favor cellulosic ethanol by giving them extra credit in counting towards the total gallons required to be in our fuel system.

[polymuser]

DING DING DING!

[isaiah55version11_0]

bttt

[Cracker Jack]

From the article:

"Technology to convert biomass into cellulosic ethanol is now at the development stage. Six small commercial scale biorefineries are being built with scale-up support from the U.S. Department of Energy."

It remains to be seen how practical this will be, but it seems to me this sort of work needs to be done. If it works, we should get lots of good out of it.