Alternative Fuels
Wild Grass Biofuel - Cars can eat grass too!
Wild Grass is emerging as one of the hot potential biofuel sources offering a number of advantages over other plant based biofuels including low water requirement, it's carbon negative, it's not a food source and can be grown on degraded land that is unsuitable for food production.
In field tests the grasses have shown to take in more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than was released from the fuel used to grow and process them.
Reports also indicate that it can produce yields between five and 10 times greater than corn.
I'm not a great fan of genetic modification but if wild grass could be engineered to grow in dry or saline soil then it becomes very attractive. There is a lot of negatives to using corn or sugar for biofuel production due to their water requirements and taking resources away from the food production system.
Currently I could not see how Australia could be a part of the biofuel solution having such little sustainable and economically viable farmland for food production, low water resources and being so susceptible to drought. The right strain of wild grass makes things interesting if it could be used on non-productive land, not require huge water resources and could run alongside with agricultural food production and not in competition.
More info:
More about Miscanthus - http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/miscanthus/miscanthus.html
US Dept. of Agriculture - Genetic Snapshots Help Brighten Switchgrass’s Future
Green Car Congress - Mixed Prairie Grasses Are Better Biofuel Source
New Scientist - Big risks of the biofuel revolution
Leave a Comment
{ Last Page } { Page 6 of 25 } { Next Page }Switch grass
11:47 AM, 7/2/2008 .. Posted by AnonymousI have a couple of questions but I would like to grow this. I have 5 acres about 4 in pasture. How can get this seed.
Thanks clemm@cableone.net
Navigation
HomeArchives
Links
Green Vehicle GuideAustralian BioFuel Users
Fuel Cell Institute
GreenHouse.gov.au
Directory of Energy in Australia
RSS feed for Alternative Fuels
Categories
ArticlesBio Fuels
Diesel Vehicles
Hybrid Vehicles
LPG
Peak Oil
Recent Entries
Faux Green: Handouts for Toyota Little for Australian RenewableThe Looming Energy Crisis
Wave Energy - Australia could do that
Volkswagen: From Supercar to Superfrugal
Chevrolet Volt gets closer to production
Wild Grass Biofuel - Cars can eat grass too!
Should Australia go Nuclear
Solar Power - Solar Systems for Australia
Global Warming is it Just a Big Con?
Five Ways To Save The World
A Car that Runs on Air
GM Hy-wire - Fuel Cell Technology at work
The Fossil Fuel Generation
Biofuels - ethanol
Biogas