What is Digg?114 Comments
- inactive, on 01/08/2008, -4/+20Awesome... I knew Kansas plains were good for something. (I know it's about Nebraska) but it's the same crappy grass everywhere. It's funny though, the similarities between the usefulness of switchgrass and Marijuana. :D
- abran1984, on 01/08/2008, -4/+19Wait, didn't Bush say something about this like six years ago and get ridiculed by...everyone?
- reparsed, on 01/08/2008, -0/+12The "extra" energy comes from the sun and is stored in the plants.
- jull1234, on 01/08/2008, -0/+11I really REALLY hope the corn lobby (well, Congress actually) doesn't ***** us over on this stuff. Its time to get rid of the corn for ethanol subsidies.
- xptoast, on 01/08/2008, -3/+14When politicians quit being retards.
- ejgesqiii, on 01/08/2008, -4/+15A fabulous article. The potential of switchgrass as an energy source is pretty tight.
Also I must agree with you webaddict: When will people start researching Marijana as an alternative fuel resource?!? - CrypticSkeptic, on 01/08/2008, -0/+11The simple answer is that alternative fuels are not being researched to solely benefit the environment. Rather, they simply provide an ALTERNATIVE to the main energy source of today, that being petroleum products. Has more to do with economics than with ideals.
- prisoner24601, on 01/08/2008, -2/+11Seriously, if we start making massive amounts of ethanol and using less oil, that only drops the price of oil that Saudis will then sell to the developing world. I'm getting concerned that we aren't focusing on the reality that without energy solutions orders-of-magnitude cheaper than oil, someone somewhere is still going to pump out every last drop of oil and burn it.
I'm not trying to be doom-and-gloom here, but I'm really wondering if we are approaching the environmental problems wisely. If all we do is make oil cheaper (by reducing our consumption) then how does it help if the third world buys it and burns it anyway? - SiNN4R, on 01/08/2008, -1/+10As soon as they stop smoking it.
- h3smith, on 01/08/2008, -1/+10Switchgrass is probably the best hope for a "biofuel" there is. It is pretty efficient and cheap
Too bad the corn industry gets insane subsidies for ethanol, which is highly inefficient and expensive. Ethanol mandates have driven up costs of everything: Gas, Food, Ect.
Once again, logic and the United States Government ***** everything up. I don't understand how people want more government in everything in their lives. - dcmjzero, on 01/08/2008, -0/+9From the article: "After crunching the numbers, Vogel and his colleagues found that ethanol produced from switchgrass yields 540% of the energy used to grow, harvest, and process it into ethanol."
Reading comprehension- learn it. - dcmjzero, on 01/08/2008, -0/+8so what is your point? sugar cane will not grow well in kansas. trees don't grow well up there. the only thing that does is grass.
- dcmjzero, on 01/08/2008, -0/+8how? the sun is a very large input...
- spamthecatcher, on 01/08/2008, -0/+7From the article:
"After crunching the numbers, Vogel and his colleagues found that ethanol produced from switchgrass yields 540% of the energy used to grow, harvest, and process it into ethanol."
That "ethanol" thing they're talking about here is the same as that "usable fuel" thing you just mentioned. Note the word, "process". That's the "convert the crop" step that you asked for. - MacEnvy, on 01/08/2008, -1/+8Environmental cat is environmentaling
- CraigJ, on 01/08/2008, -1/+7Oh, so never then.
- kaelyiesta, on 01/08/2008, -0/+6I bet that number could be reduced even more as development scales up. Certain costs would remain roughly constant (or at least less than linear) with respect to the size of the fields, if done right.
- 0crabby0, on 01/08/2008, -0/+6Tennessee hosts U.S. first switchgrass ethanol plant
http://www.energycurrent.com/index.php?id=3&storyi ... - EricAnderton, on 01/08/2008, -0/+5The article did mention that switchgrass is viable on marginal land - corn and other foods typically aren't. This means that using switchgrass would only result in a scaling up of agriculture (i.e. more farming going on) due to the use of unused land, *without* necessarily impacting existing farmland.
- MarsSentinel, on 01/08/2008, -0/+5no. solar energy is where the payback comes from. solar energy is processed and stored in the grass and released when it is converted and burned. what we really need is a way to recapture the energy without burning the grass. mr. fusion anyone?
- BoneheadFarker, on 01/08/2008, -1/+6Q: When will people start researching Marijana as an alternative fuel resource?
A: When it's legal.
Q: When will marijuana be legal?
A: When there is someone willing to spend more money lobbying for legalization than the current levels being spent lobbying to keep it illegal... - pilahakasutta, on 01/08/2008, -1/+6So, global warming is causing deep-ocean earthquakes now, too. I give as much credit to global warming as anybody, but that's a bit of a stretch.
- YojimboJango, on 01/08/2008, -2/+7Quiet you.
- 0crabby0, on 01/08/2008, -0/+5If you reduce the US subsidies that oil producers and refiners get.
Plus, get all of the farmer's subsidies removed(since they get paid for not growing corn).
It might make switchgrass and certain biofuels economical. - axiomflash, on 01/08/2008, -0/+5its interesting to see a field planted with grass similar to what used to be there before the land was plowed under for monoculture. now if you just mix in a variety of native grasses we'd be onto something ecological too.
- Buelldozer, on 01/08/2008, -0/+4Yes and they require LOTS of water.
- YojimboJango, on 01/08/2008, -2/+6Previous studies on switchgrass plots suggested that ethanol made from the plant would yield anywhere from 343% to 700% of the energy put into growing the crop and processing it into biofuel. But these studies were based on lab-scale plots of about 5 square meters. So 6 years ago, Kenneth Vogel, a geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Lincoln, Nebraska, and colleagues set out to enlist farmers for a much larger evaluation. Farmers planted switchgrass on 10 farms, each of which was between 3 and 9 hectares. They then tracked the inputs they used--diesel for farm equipment and transporting the harvested grasses, for example--as well as the amount of grass they raised over a 5-year period. After crunching the numbers, Vogel and his colleagues found that ethanol produced from switchgrass yields 540% of the energy used to grow, harvest, and process it into ethanol.
You need to shut up and read the article. - Ninnux, on 01/08/2008, -0/+4@prisoner24601 :: Hubbert's peak oil hypothesis predicts we'll never really run out of oil...it's just that the remaining oil becomes so cost prohibitive that it's not worth going after. Free market theory predicts that alternative fuel sources then become possible for a given price point. This is good news for Mother Earth.
- krnldmp, on 01/08/2008, -0/+4Yeah I was really going for broke there. I just got done reading about a squirt gun inventor who made a heat engine that almost beats theoretically possible efficiency.
- catalysis, on 01/08/2008, -1/+53 2 1 comments getting old in 3...2...1...
- davidemm, on 01/08/2008, -1/+5Who said this was for the environment? For the environment, I ride my bike, but when I want to go someplace far, I just want cheap gas.
- crenshawj, on 01/08/2008, -3/+6How bout dem Huskers?!
- BoneheadFarker, on 01/08/2008, -1/+4Pharmacutical companies...chemical manufacturers...lumber dealers...the same people that pushed for it's criminalization in the first place.
- Shadowtheweak, on 01/08/2008, -1/+4You're probably thinking hemp.... marijuana and hemp are cousins in the plant kingdom, only you can't get high off of hemp
- MindTrigger, on 01/08/2008, -0/+3Not similar enough, unfortunately. "Do you know the street value of this plain??"
- inactive, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Yes he also mentioned "human animal hybrids" whereever the ***** that came from. I can't wait to see what ***** thing he's going to say this year. Perhaps he'll still be obsessing over steroids.
- Lowrads, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2I am concerned about the reliance upon artificial petroleum derived fertilizers to maintain cellulosic hydrocarbon output. Is there any longterm study of monocrop switchgrass, or mixed crops that demonstrate long term soil fertility and depth? Is soil humus continously formed, maintained, or eroded? How useful is the switchgrass bulk byproduct in composting. I imagine it would tip the carbonaceous:nitrogeneous ratios towards the carbon. Nitrogenous material needs to be between 0.5-4% for a reasonable rate of bacterial processing of organic materials without offensive odors.
If they're just burning the residual bulk switchgrass, then the soil will surely be depleted of minerals and humus within a short space of time. Alternatively, it would probably complement bulk carbons used in processing "nightsoils" or human and animal waste. - ZebZ, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Switchgrass is pretty much a weed. It grows on its own if left alone. That's the beauty part.
- mrremy, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Sounds good, lets hope a lot more research is put into this!
- Evildudetx, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2You can grow sugar beets ANYWHERE. They produce the same amount of biofuel output as sugar cane.
- JDRay, on 01/08/2008, -1/+3This is bad. On the surface, it seems good, but when the market goes up for a high energy yield crop like this, and farmers start planting this new wonder crop, who grows the food? Pretty soon you're going to see government subsidies for not growing switchgrass, at which point farmers will find the most economical thing to do is let their land run fallow.
- Lotheron, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2basically what they said is that while it grows by itself, it can just be helped and the help works wonders
- pilahakasutta, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2This is way more promising than the corn-based nonsense.
Now someone needs to do a study of how much cropland we need to feed our population and then figure out how much can be converted to farming switchgrass. I'd like to know how much of a dent it'll put in our oil imports before we get too optimistic and start subsidizing this too.
Last time I read up on it, it takes 1 barrel of oil to find, extract, and transport 5 barrels of oil (sorry, can't find the source), so a 500% positive return from switchgrass is competitive, it just might not have the scale necessary to make a difference. And unfortunately it would probably cause food prices to go up significantly, just like corn-based ethanol due to the displacement of food crops. - mos6507, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Trust me. Nobody's thinking this through to that extent. They just aren't that smart.
- mos6507, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2How about birth control first? Solves the rest (eventually).
- jull1234, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Yep, cause they can grow sugarcane effectively there.
- rizzo2008, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Maybe we should take the initiative. Ethanol isn't the best solution though since it is highly corrosive and requires and huge amount of water and land to produce
- wheaty, on 01/08/2008, -1/+3Yep, I stand corrected gentlemen. It shows a great deal about your character that you were all so kind while pointing out my shortsightedness.
- EricAnderton, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2"I don't understand how people want more government in everything in their lives."
They don't - your elected representatives do. Look at it this way: when you get to sign off on a bill that has a bottom line of "lower prices at the grocery store *and* at the pump", you're pretty much set for the next term. It generates a kind of public myopia that makes it easy to forget that you've already paid the difference on your 1040. - rlpatton, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Actually the number is supposed to increase. It is an ROI indicator. It pretty much equates to a yield of 5.4 barrels of oil output for every 1 barrel of oil used in the production process of switchgrass ethanol. To make a comparison, a barrel of Saudi crude oil has an ROI of about 30 (ie you use 1 barrel of oil for every 30 you procure from a well when you include inputs like transportation, diesel for equipment, etc.).
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