http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/1403 Best Crop Yet for Biofuels?
Submitted by Editor on Fri, 08/08/2008 - 11:23am.In Field Trials, Miscanthus Beats Corn, Switchgrass for Ethanol Production
URBANA, Ill. — In the largest field trial of its kind in the United States, researchers have determined that the giant perennial grass Miscanthus x giganteus outperforms current biofuels sources — by a lot. Using Miscanthus as a feedstock for ethanol production in the U.S. could significantly reduce the acreage dedicated to biofuels while meeting government biofuels production goals, the researchers report.
The new findings, from researchers at the University of Illinois, recently appeared in the journal Global Change Biology.
Using corn or switchgrass to produce enough ethanol to offset 20 percent of gasoline use — a current White House goal — would take 25 percent of current U.S. cropland out of food production, the researchers report. Getting the same amount of ethanol from Miscanthus would require only 9.3 percent of current agricultural acreage.
“What we’ve found with Miscanthus is that the amount of biomass generated each year would allow us to produce about 2 1/2 times the amount of ethanol we can produce per acre of corn,” said crop sciences professor Stephen P. Long, who led the study. Long is the deputy director of the BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute, a multi-year, multi-institutional initiative aimed at finding low-carbon or carbon-neutral alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Long is an affiliate of the University of Illinois Institute for Genomic Biology. He also is the editor of Global Change Biology.
…http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/08/0730miscanthus.html Miscanthus can meet U.S. biofuels goal using less land than corn or switchgrass
7/30/08
Diana Yates, Life Sciences Editor
217-333-5802;
[email protected]CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In the largest field trial of its kind in the United States, researchers have determined that the giant perennial grass
Miscanthus x giganteus outperforms current biofuels sources – by a lot. Using
Miscanthus as a feedstock for ethanol production in the U.S. could significantly reduce the acreage dedicated to biofuels while meeting government biofuels production goals, the researchers report.
The new findings, from researchers at the University of Illinois, appear this month in the journal Global Change Biology.
Using corn or switchgrass to produce enough ethanol to offset 20 percent of gasoline use – a current White House goal – would take 25 percent of current U.S. cropland out of food production, the researchers report. Getting the same amount of ethanol from
Miscanthus would require only 9.3 percent of current agricultural acreage. (View a narrated
http://www.publicaffairs.illinois.edu/slideshows/Miscanthus_Yield/index.html">slideshow about
Miscanthus research.)
“What we’ve found with
Miscanthus is that the amount of biomass generated each year would allow us to produce about 2 1/2 times the amount of ethanol we can produce per acre of corn,” said
http://www.cropsci.uiuc.edu/">crop sciences professor Stephen P. Long, who led the study. Long is the deputy director of the BP-sponsored Energy Biosciences Institute, a multi-year, multi-institutional initiative aimed at finding low-carbon or carbon-neutral alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Long is an affiliate of the U. of I.’s
http://www.igb.uiuc.edu/">Institute for Genomic Biology. He also is the editor of Global Change Biology.
…
Study is here:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120119109/abstract Meeting US biofuel goals with less land: the potential of Miscanthus
EMILY A. HEATON * , FRANK G. DOHLEMAN† and STEPHEN P. LONG *†‡
* Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, 1201 W. Gregory Drive, 379 Madigan Lab., Urbana, IL 61801, USA, †Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, 1201 W. Gregory Drive, 379 Madigan Lab., Urbana, IL 61801, USA, ‡Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, 1206 W. Gregory Drive, Room 126 IGB., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Correspondence: Stephen P. Long, Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, 1206 W. Gregory Drive, Room 126 IGB., Urbana, IL 61801, USA, tel. +1 217 333 2487, fax +1 217 244 7563, e-mail:
[email protected]Copyright Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing
KEYWORDS
biomass • ethanol • feedstock • perennial • petroleum • production • switchgrass • yield
ABSTRACT
Biofuels from crops are emerging as a Jekyll & Hyde – promoted by some as a means to offset fossil fuel emissions, denigrated by others as lacking sustainability and taking land from food crops. It is frequently asserted that plants convert only 0.1% of solar energy into biomass, therefore requiring unacceptable amounts of land for production of fuel feedstocks. The C4 perennial grass Miscanthus×giganteus has proved a promising biomass crop in Europe, while switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) has been tested at several locations in N. America. Here, replicated side-by-side trials of these two crops were established for the first time along a latitudinal gradient in Illinois. Over 3 years of trials, Miscanthus×giganteus achieved average annual conversion efficiencies into harvestable biomass of 1.0% (30 t ha−1) and a maximum of 2.0% (61 t ha−1), with minimal agricultural inputs. The regionally adapted switchgrass variety Cave-in-Rock achieved somewhat lower yields, averaging 10 t ha−1. Given that there has been little attempt to improve the agronomy and genetics of these grasses compared with the major grain crops, these efficiencies are the minimum of what may be achieved. At this 1.0% efficiency, 12 million hectares, or 9.3% of current US cropland, would be sufficient to provide 133 × 109 L of ethanol, enough to offset one-fifth of the current US gasoline use. In contrast, maize grain from the same area of land would only provide 49 × 109 L, while requiring much higher nitrogen and fossil energy inputs in its cultivation.
Received 28 December 2007 and accepted 3 March 2008
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