Hartwig said there is general agreement that 15 billion gallons a year is about the most ethanol that can be produced from grain with current technology without hurting grain markets. So he said it's important to develop other sources for the renewable fuel. Vogel said comparing the amount of ethanol produced by corn with the amount that could be produced by switch grass is a bit unfair because the method of converting switch grass to fuel is still being perfected. Last year, the Department of Energy announced plans to invest $385 million in six ethanol refineries across the country to jump-start ethanol production from cellulose-based sources, a process that has not yet been proven commercially viable. But Vogel and the other researchers did develop an estimate of how much energy switch grass would produce based on current conversion rates. Switch grass produces more than five times as much energy than the energy that's consumed by growing the crop and converting it to ethanol, according to the report. Vogel said this switch grass research is the most extensive to date. Vogel is a U.S. Department of Agriculture geneticist and a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor.
|
advertisement
Download Earth News At Bottom!
|
-
our sites
-
video
mobile
-
shop
-
stay connected
-
corporate
