Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Skip the corn and move to grass

This article provides some information about the experiments that are being done to try to use switch grass as ethanol. Didn't say much about the waste from the refining process or anything about potential risks of nitrogen fertilization. If those risks aren't bad it might just be a viable option to get us to the point we are using vehicles that don't depend on liquid fuels.

1 comment:

Gene said...

That USDA scientist Ken Vogel is an adjunct faculty at UNL and has an office in my building. Nice guy. The only crux with switchgrass is the cost of the finished product, which wouldn't compete with petro or corn ethanol at the present time. Yet it's still in its infancy and has a lot of possibility, Brazil uses their main crop after all. It would also change the landscape of Nebraska quite a bit, although I think it would look pretty cool.