Plants for fuel
There was an article this morning on DC's Fox 5 news station from Nat'l Arboretum about 'power plants' for fuel. Besides the corn for ethanol, the switchgrass seems more promising because it is a perennial plant, so do not need to be replanted each year. The scientist claims it also takes less work to develop/convert, etc, in comparison to the amount of energy it can produce. There is more info available at their website: http://www.usna.usda.gov/
Tags: plant
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jose Serrano on -
Actually, the United States Department of Energy says that if we replaced all of the petroleum fuel we are using with algae fuel, we would require roughly 15,000 square miles (9.6 million acres) of land mass to grow the algae http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2... . According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, we used 72.7 million acres to grow corn in 2000 http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropmajor.html . According to these numbers, we can grow all of the fuel we need, on 1/7th the amount of land mass as is required to grow all of the corn we produce. You can read more about this in my blog: http://push.pickensplan.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2187034%3ABlogPos...
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Permalink Reply by KD Blew on -
Thanks for the response, Jose! The thing I like most about the algae is that it does not compete with food products.When the local ethanol plant began production, it caused a surge in corn andbean prices, which was good for grain prices, but hard on hog and beef producers. Some of these farmers could build some greenhouses on a relatively small portion of their farms. It could operate like the old milk parlors that so many farms had when I was a kid. Regional production via cooperatives would deplete a dependency on foreign/BIG oil. Speculators would have a tougher time manipulating the market, too.
I am online right now looking at the cost of installing a biodiesel operation sufficient to handle our small community.
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Permalink Reply by David M. Ellis on -
Look,
Harvest the mesquite and mitigate the harvest with new plantation of mesquite and or establish native prairie grasses. 1,000 gallons per acre is a bit much, 3 to 5 tons is the amount we can produce per acre per year and harvest need to be biannual to not adversely effect the conservation aspects of native prairies. Point being reforest or restore the land and harvest in rotations that do not create erosion, loss of habitat etc.
David - the tree planter - www.renewforest.com
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Permalink Reply by Debbie on -
The issue isn't just a matter of replanting, but more importantly, it is the adverse impact (e.g. emissions such as carbon dioxide) that biomass burning has on the environment/global warming. The following EPA article is just one example of the harmful effects of biomass burnings:
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/biomass_burn/globe_impact.html
If there's a way to "harvest" without burning, okay. But the commenter indicated that Texas's current method for 'harvesting' the mesquite trees was via burning which is counter to any tree-hugging philosophy.
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Permalink Reply by Colt Lewis on -
How many pine trees have you cut down babe? Screw the EPA, how easy is it for me to cut them down, very easy, with very little use of fuel. Especially compared to something that must be harvested yearly.
Of course any plan of using trees would involve a centralized processing facility. To cut down on the transportation costs.
Currently in Florida when pines are cut down the residues (tree tops and roots) are burned. The reason they are burned is because letting them rot causes methane gas to be released which is more harmful than the result of burning them. If we could burn them and capture the gas, that would be called gasification and that is what I am a major fan of.
I'm not a tree hugger, but I think like one sometimes!
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Permalink Reply by Colt Lewis on
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A 20 year crop rotation of Pine trees should allow for animals to thrive as long as neighboring pines are on a different cycle.
I agree that cutting down the forest could be a bad idea; however if common sense prevails there should be no problem with the deer hunters.
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Permalink Reply by shadetree25 on -
David, The Ethanol plant in Hamlin Texas will replant the trees with a new breed of mesquite developed at A&M.
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Permalink Reply by Colt Lewis on
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How do you think we make paper, we cut down 1 million acres of trees. Guess what the state of florida is full of?? all of the trees that were not cut down to make paper!! That is what we down here in the south call a feedstock.
How can a pine tree magically produce more CO2 than was taken to grow it?
So we have CLEAN technology that makes syngas from wood. Now we can make ethanol, diesel, and gasoline from syngas.
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Permalink Reply by KENN DRESCHER on -
1 of the best is a fiberous plant used by Man for eyons: HEMP!
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Permalink Reply by shadetree25 on
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It may not replace fossil fuel but, along with other alternates it would make some difference. At least it would be better than using food to make fuel. Mix all of them together and we could cut down on foreign oil.
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Permalink Reply by Tim D. X. on -
Mix all together - thats the answer.
Heres the plan-
Replace 30% of our gas with CNG (Pickens Plan)
then out of the next 70% replace 20% of that with Ethanol
Use Ethanol in LOCAL MARKETS ONLY (need more FFV)
-Use corn including biomas corn stalk in: Nebraska-Iowa, Minn, S.D. Wisc, Ind, Ill, Ohio ONLY
-Switchgras biomass in Kentucky-Tennese-Mizzou only
-Brazil sugar ethanol in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, LA, Texas, N/S Carolina
-Peru/Chile/Hawaii/Philipp sugar ethanol in California, Oregon, Wash
-Texas/N.Mex mesquite biomass ethanol
*use algae wherever we can
-allow individual community distillers making very local E85
-make all E85 vehicles hybrid electrics, and hec, why not Hybrid electric, E85, CNG
be good stewards of the land and sensitive to world food prices
if this can NOT be done, which may be the case considering biomass is not commercially proven yet, then sign up as 11B Infantryman US Army and help invade Saudi Arabia
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