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Power Science Technology

Burn Grass, Get Green Biofuel 440

Posted by timothy from the burn-timothy dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Do you want to use an economical and environmentally friendly biofuel? Just grow grass. Burning grass pellets will produce an energy-efficient biofuel, according to Jerry Cherney, a professor of agriculture at Cornell University. In this news release, 'Grass as Fuel,' he says "Burning grass pellets makes sense; after all, it takes 70 days to grow a crop of grass for pellets, but it takes 70 million years to make fossil fuels." Unfortunately, there is nothing like a grass political lobby in Washington, so he might not be heard. But with current oil prices, more and more people will be tempted to use cheaper -- and cleaner -- sources of energy. This overview contains many more details and references about this environmentally friendly biofuel made from grass."
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Burn Grass, Get Green Biofuel More

Burn Grass, Get Green Biofuel

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  • Roland Piquepaille (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:12PM (#12123839)
    Another Roland Piquepaille story
    Here is what he wrote if your interested:

    samedi 2 avril 2005

    Burn Grass, Get Green Biofuel

    Do you want to use an economical and environmentally friendly biofuel? Just grow grass. Burning grass pellets will produce an energy-efficient biofuel, according to Jerry Cherney, a professor of agriculture at Cornell University. In this news release, "Grass as Fuel," he says "Burning grass pellets makes sense; after all, it takes 70 days to grow a crop of grass for pellets, but it takes 70 million years to make fossil fuels." Unfortunately, there is anything like a grass political lobby in Washington, so he might not be heard. But with current oil prices, more and more people will be tempted to use cheaper -- and cleaner -- sources of energy. Read more...

    Here is the introduction of the Cornell University news release.
    Grow grass, not for fun but for fuel. Burning grass for energy has been a well-accepted technology in Europe for decades. But not in the United States.
    Yet burning grass pellets as a biofuel is economical, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and sustainable, says a Cornell University forage crop expert.
    This alternative fuel easily could be produced and pelleted by farmers and burned in modified stoves built to burn wood pellets or corn, says Jerry Cherney, the E.V. Baker Professor of Agriculture. Burning grass pellets hasn't caught on in the United States, however, Cherney says, primarily because Washington has made no effort to support the technology with subsidies or research dollars.
    Why is it important for environment?
    Burning grass pellets makes sense; after all, it takes 70 days to grow a crop of grass for pellets, but it takes 70 million years to make fossil fuels," says Cherney, who notes that a grass-for-fuel crop could help supplement farmers' incomes.
    Cherney points out that grass biofuel pellets are much better for the environment because they emit up to 90 percent less greenhouse gases than oil, coal and natural gas do. Furthermore, he says, grass is perennial, does not require fertilization and can be grown on marginal farmland.
    Cherney recently presented his conclusions about grass biofuel at the Greenhouse Gases & Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture and Forestry conference, held March 21-24 in Baltimore.
    You can find the abstract of his talk, "Grass Bioenergy in the Northeastern USA," on this page. Just scroll a little bit or search for Cherney on the page.
    If you're interested in this subject, here is a link to the July 2004 issue of the "Dairy & Field Crops digest" (PDF format, 12 pages, 728KB). The article "Grass Management for Forage or Biofuel?" appears on pages 7 and 8.
    In this article, Cherney argues that "grass is converted to useable heat at over 80% efficiency, with an energy output:input ratio exceeding 10:1, compared to other bioenergy sources with typicalsystem energy output:input ratios around 1:1."
    The cost-effectiveness of pelletized grass as a fuel results from:

    * efficient use of low cost marginal farmland for solar energy collection
    * minimal fossil fuel input use in field production and energy conversion
    * minimal biomass quality upgrading which limits energy loss from the feedstock
    * efficient combustion in advanced yet modestly priced and simple to use devices
    * replacement of expensive high-grade energyforms in space and water heating

    Cherney is convincing, but it's hard to help him while living in Paris.

    Sources: Cornell University News Service, March 31, 2005; and various websites

    • Re:Roland Piquepaille (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Roland finially writes a summary himself instead of copying and pasting, then you go and copy and paste it off his blog. Oh the irony.

    • Re:Roland Piquepaille (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:30PM (#12123977) Homepage
      And GEE! Look what "editor" posted the story!
    • Cherney points out that grass biofuel pellets are much better for the environment because they emit up to 90 percent less greenhouse gases than oil, coal and natural gas do.

      So, burning grass pellets produces less greenhouse gasses? So, if the carbon in the pellets isn't burning, what exactly is, and why are those byproducts not harmful?

      • Re:Less 'greenhouse gasses?' Pfft... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Tekgno ( 321071 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @02:45AM (#12125061)
        I think it is more of a matter of how burning grass or any bio-fuel for that matter fits in with the carbon cycle. Burning of oil, coal and natural gas releases carbon that has been locked up underground for millions of years as opposed to grass which collects it from the air and thus isn't adding any more to current amounts.
    • The problem is that right now, one grass-pellet's volume (or indeed, weight) of petroleum fuel will run my car for several hundred meters, and until we get a good heat-to-movement conversion system for grass pellets, I don't see how I'm going to make serious use of this.

      I agree that biomass is worth investigating, but there have been dozens of projects in the area over the years, and nothing usable so far.

  • What the hell are they smoking?!

  • So.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Siriaan ( 615378 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:13PM (#12123848)
    "So what does your car run?"

    "Grass."

    "Smokin."

  • Grass, Grass or Ass (Score:4, Funny)

    by nmilford ( 530497 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:14PM (#12123853)
    Nobody rides for free!

  • Heheehe (Score:5, Funny)

    by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:14PM (#12123855) Journal

    Unfortunately, there is anything like a grass political lobby in Washington, so he might not be heard.

    I beg to differ. [tlmp.org]

  • Obvious marijuana jokes aside... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kwoo ( 641864 ) <kjwcode@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:17PM (#12123875) Homepage Journal

    One thing I don't get is how burning grass is not seen as having the same emissions problems as burning other organic material.

    I'm no expert on American environmental regulations, but wouldn't a low-emission or zero-emission fuel source be considered more highly for North American use?

    • Re:Obvious marijuana jokes aside... (Score:5, Informative)

      by istewart ( 463887 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:21PM (#12123911)
      The way I get it, it's a zero-emissions fuel in that it's a closed carbon cycle. The CO2 from burning the plant or plant derivative will be consumed and used by another plant. This is assuming that no petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides, etc. are used, which would release additional carbon byproducts that were locked beneath the ground before.
    • TFA says:
      • grass biofuel pellets are much better for the environment because they emit up to 90 percent less greenhouse gases than oil, coal and natural gas do
      Wikipedia mentions that the primary greenhouse gas is water [wikipedia.org] (since water absorbs infrared energy, compared to nitrogen and oxygen which don't)... are these grass pellets dried when they're pelletized?

    • Re:Obvious marijuana jokes aside... (Score:5, Informative)

      by rewinn ( 647614 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:25PM (#12123942) Homepage

      Great question. According to the article

      ... grass biofuel pellets are much better for the environment because they emit up to 90 percent less greenhouse gases than oil, coal and natural gas do. ..."

      So while grass may not be perfect, it is 90% better than what we've got, from a carbon-release standpoint.

      Another consideration is that the carbon emitted from burning grass is carbon that the grass took out of our atmosphere while growing, so there would be no net increase in atmospheric carbon from its use. In contrast, carbon released by fossil fuels hasn't been in our atmosphere for millions of years, which is why re-releasing it into our atmosphere is problematic.

      • Somehow, I completely missed that. Thanks to you and iStewart for pointing that out. If I could divvy up the mod points wasted on my comment between the two of you, I would.

        Thanks again -- I'll read more carefully next time!

      • Good point, but I have to disagree with you in one area. Yes, the grass did remove some carbon dioxide from the air while it was alive, but not all of the carbon it will release when it is burned came from the air. Some, and I would venture to guess most of it came from the ground. So there is still a net increase in atmospheric carbon due to burning grass, though it is still less than burning hydrocarbons.

        • Re:Obvious marijuana jokes aside... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gwydion04 ( 756582 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:39PM (#12124029) Journal
          Plants do not get the majority of their carbon from the ground. I quote from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
          "Plants are autotrophs, which means they are able to synthesize food directly from inorganic compounds, instead of eating other organisms or relying on material derived from them. Most notably, they use carbon dioxide gas and water to produce sugars and oxygen gas. The energy for these processes comes from photosynthesis. For instance, the over-all equation for the production of glucose is:


          12H2O + 6CO2 + light --> C6H12O6 (glucose) + 6O2 + 6H2O

          The glucose is variously used to form other organic compounds, such as the building material cellulose, or it may be used as a fuel."
          Cellulose = polysaccharide that makes up the majority of a plant's structure - i.e. what you would burn.

          Plants need only minerals and water from the ground - that's why you can grow them with hydroponics. Crack open that high school bio textbook before posting to avoid such future didatics from your fellow slashdotters. ;-)
      • It seems like people have acquired total tunnel vision about the CO2/global warming problem. hello? what about the massive amounts of NOx, CO, SO2, SO3, O3 and other compounds AND particulate soot that would result from doing this? Seems to me that burning plants is, if CO2 "clean", still a very dirty process.

    • Recently-Stored Carbon vs. Dinosaur Juice (Score:5, Informative)

      by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:33PM (#12123994) Journal
      There are two different major issues with emissions - carbon dioxide and Nasty Stuff (particulates, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, etc.). The emissions problems with Nasty Stuff are pretty similar, and some materials are cleaner or dirty than others, and may be easier or harder to clean up. It's generally easier to clean up power plant emissions than car/truck emissions, because you have more technical choices, aren't limited by weight, can use water, etc. (Hmmm... cleaning grass smoke by bubbling through water... might be some future to that one...)

      Carbon Dioxide emissions are really different, because the problem is greenhouse heating caused by increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Burning oil and coal takes carbon that's been in the ground for a long time and pumps it into the atmosphere, which is a problem. But growing grass or trees for fuel takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, using solar energy and chlorophyll to split it up into various plant compounds, so any carbon dioxide emissions you get from burning the grass are just moving around carbon dioxide you took out of the atmosphere last growing season, so it's no problem.

      ObDoperReference: Hemp is a really good grass for applications like this. It grows fast, doesn't need pesticides, you can do useful things with the seeds, the fiber can be used for cloth if you don't feel like burning it, and as a bonus you get a bunch of flowers that you can divert to other applications.

  • grass you say? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Maskirovka ( 255712 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:17PM (#12123880)
    So is this burning of grass somehow different from the smoking of grass?

  • Conserve fuel for what we NEED it for. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SteelV ( 839704 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:19PM (#12123895)
    I guess our running out of fuel in the future won't be the end of the world.. there are always sources of energy, perhaps not as easily attainable but nonetheless viable.

    However, what about certain plastics, etc. that we need, that are made from oil? Perhaps we should start moving towards alternative energy now, and save the fuel for what we need it for?

    I am by no means an expert, so please let me know if I'm way off base here.

    • Re:Conserve fuel for what we NEED it for. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wwahammy ( 765566 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:28PM (#12123963)
      Yes but that would require foresight beyond the next election cycle from our political leaders, something which is has been lacking even more lately.
    • Don't worry. Plastics aren't a problem anymore either.

      Now you can make plastic from oranges.
      Cornell has you covered once again [cornell.edu]

      There's just fewer jokes about smoking oranges...
    • I guess our running out of fuel in the future won't be the end of the world..

      If we don't find alternative fuels, it very well COULD be the end of the world.

      Wars are almost always fought over control of natural resources.
    • Supposedly this is what capitalism is good for... dealing with scarcity and efficient allocation of resources... once oil starts running out (though definitely with some still left), gas prices will start going up rapidly. Some people will stick with gas if it's very difficult for them to change, but for most people, it will become cheaper to switch to other forms of fuel. Once most transportation starts using something else, we should still have enough oil left to devote to plastics (and recycling of p
      • the problem with that kind of thinking (and i do wish it were true), is that it relies on a certain amount of "sanity".

        unfortunately, oil prices have been artificially held back (wish i could find the link to the story i read this in), so they're just going to suddenly spike when we're looking the other way. Hello, End Of the World...!

        • The strength of this kind of thinking is that it relies on human greed, one of the most reliable forces in the known universe. If the oil runs out then petroleum plastic products will be extremely highly desirable. A lot of the plastic items we have now will be replaced with other materials that are similar in one way or another, including plant-based plastics, Aluminum, carbon fiber, blah blah blah. It will happen because people will find a way to make money doing it because it will be cheaper than, for example, digging up landfills and sorting out all the plastic which in turn will be cheaper than pumping the last few barely-accessible drops of oil out of the ground.

          Of course in the meantime a lot of people will suffer due to the inequalities inherent in such a system. No plan is perfect. A few people will get disgustingly rich, of course. Also, the planet is being shit upon. It turns out that basicallly all of the alternatives to pumping oil out of the ground and burning it, which as we all know is not particularly good for the environment as it relates to humans, are more environmentally friendly than burning dinosaurs (or turning them into soda bottles.) Of course a lot of them aren't nearly as convenient, but I don't think there's too many things that we make with oil that we can't duplicate fairly well in some other way. To preserve our ability to perform those sorts of things, we should really think about moving to some other source of energy sooner rather than later.

  • Chong? is that you? (Score:3, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:19PM (#12123897)
    ...Roland Piquepaille..."

    Tommy Chong? Is that what you call yourself now? Trippy, dude...

  • ... my own personal Grass Pellet Refinery from ThinkGeek, then I'll be excited.

  • Another reason it won't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:20PM (#12123907) Homepage
    "Unfortunately grass has no political lobby, which makes the start up of any new alternative energy industry problematic," says Cherney

    A huge market barrier is that consumers won't take the chance because they're not confident they will find gas stations that supply this stuff (not to mention all the other alternatives that have been around for a while). And what's in it for the gas stations to get started in investing in whatever equipment is necessary to store and pump this stuff?

    Sorry to be Johnny Raincloud, but big changes, even if for the better with no apparent logical downside, tend not to happen. Regarding high gas prices, enough people are satisfied simply with bitching about the prices and won't bother making any dramatic changes. They're enough of them for the market to get away with blocking out newcomers like grass.

    • The reason that environmentalists push the Hydrogen economy [wikipedia.org] is that once our cars such are based on a single easily-renewable fuel source, then we won't need to keep reconfiguring our gas-station infrastructure anymore.

      After that, energy is produced via whatever method is most efficient currently (grass, hydro, solar, wind, cow earth, whatever), but we don't have to keep changing gas stations, because all of these are semi-easily converted into hydrogen.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Another reason it won't happen. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by El Puerco Loco ( 31491 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:20PM (#12124229)
      The real problem with this and other biofuels is that it is not sustainable. to grow enough to be commercially viable will require huge amounts of fertilizer. most fertilizer for large scale farming is based on ammonium nitrate. almost all ammonium nitrate is produced directly from natural gas. so it would really just be converting petroleum to biofuel, which doesn't make sense, as the petroleum is a perfectly good fuel as it is. if the worry is running out of petroleum, the current common sense best solution is nuclear power, but common sense rarely prevails when discussing nuclear energy. replacing petroleum with renewable energy sources is a pipe dream. i think once the situation gets critical, people will be a lot more open to the nuclear option, but things will probably have to get awful bad first.
    • If you really want grass pellets, just go on down to your local nursery. If the guy running the chemicals/fertilizers/grass seed department has any clue as to what is available he could order some in for you. I have had several vendars pitch grass pellets as a mulch for grass seed. The only problem is that it is expensive. To mulch about 30 sq feet cost is close to $10. The other problem that I see is that there are issues with ferilization. Grass is brutal on the requirements of nitrogen. That is why all t

  • Sounds expensive... (Score:5, Funny)

    by nxtr ( 813179 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:22PM (#12123913)
    At 20 bucks per gram for fuel, I'd be better off taking the bus.

  • Grass as Fuel... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Irishlace ( 866817 )
    Ok this sounds like an awesome idea. And let's be honest it goes back as far as peat burning stoves to my knowledge, possibly before. But, can you truly see the US government going for such a cheap reaalistic idea? For that matter can you see the American public going back to something such as this? You will have people in arms about the smell, the smoke, and let's not forget that cheaper means less to tax. I just can't see this happening anytime in the near future.
    • Smartass anti-american comments aside, I wouldn't buy a grass burning car because you can't replace the exciting sound when I turn my ignition key and get the low car shaking feeling. I can't hear that the car is working, I can only feel it. I just don't think the current hybrids or some weird idealistic grass powered car can do any better. You'll be hard pressed to get any serious car enthusiast to switch from a gas combustion engine to some alternative fuel car. It may cost me more and more into the f

  • 70 days to grow a crop of grass? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TykeClone ( 668449 ) * <TykeClone@gmail.com> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:22PM (#12123918) Homepage Journal
    Don't alf alfa fields get 2 or 3 cuttings minimum per season?

    Also, would you be able to use "field trash" from corn and soybean fields to manufacture the pellets, or does it require green plant matter?

    • Re:70 days to grow a crop of grass? (Score:5, Informative)

      by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:10PM (#12124180) Homepage
      > Don't alfalfa fields get 2 or 3 cuttings minimum
      > per season?

      Depends on the climate, among other things. Here in Wisconsin I get three cuttings a year of my mixed alfalfa/brome, but I am trying for an optimum combination of nutrition for horses, tonnage, and stand life. Many of my neighbor dairy farmers cut their pure alfalfa every 28 days. This gives them higher protein at the price of slightly lower tonnage and shorter stand life. If I was growing hay for fuel I would be trying to maximize dry weight without concern for nutritional value and would choose what to plant and how to harvest it on that basis.
    • If this idea were to ever get some serious funding, I'd imagine that the government would pay a company such as Monsanto to genetically alter an already fast-growing grass to grow even faster.

      Essentially, though, what you have to remember is that the energy supply for the grass is still the sun. The question then becomes whether or not this is more energy efficient in the long run than solar panels are. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's though it's less efficient, it's much cheaper (in the long run), an
  • That sound you hear is thousands of hippies bubbling with excitment over the idea of a grass-fired powerplant!

  • What about? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:24PM (#12123928)
    What about all the land it takes to grow the grass? What about all the fresh water it takes to grow the grass? What about all the energy and logistics it takes to put the water on the grass? What about the energy it takes to harvest the grass and turn it into a form that's useful? How much grass would one have to grow to actually put a minor dent in the fossil fuel consumption of the world? After the dust settles, what would it cost relative to gasoline or oil?

    Why does it seem like they always fail to mention this stuff?
    • Grass has very obvious upsides as an alternative to oil:
      • it's a carbon sink
      • it's quickly renewable... eg. doesn't need millions of years to form

      Compared to solar energy, it's somewhat favorable also:

      • it's a carbon sink
      • solar is 10-30% efficient [doe.gov]... although I can't find any similar statistics for grass, I can't imagine grass is any worse (even after including all the maintenance work)
      • in terms of land use... humans MUST start devoting some land to renewable energy. The benefit of grass vs. things
      • What if we grew a grass that we could use for this, but that also gave us a harvestable grain - like, say, corn or wheat?

        Right now, the only parts of these plants that are used (mostly!) are the grain. The rest is field trash and is plowed back into the ground at the end of the growing season.

      • Re:What about? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dmaxwell ( 43234 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:41PM (#12124327)
        Compared to solar energy, it's somewhat favorable also

        Strictly speaking, this grass is solar energy. It's just that plants seem to be more efficient at converting solar energy than anything we've devised thus far.

    • Re:What about? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What about all the energy and logistics it takes to put the water on the grass?

      It's called rain.

  • so... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What does the mower run on?

  • Ford Taurus (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:28PM (#12123966)
    I, for one, look forward to the new Ford Taurus, which travels down the interstate grazing the median line. At least with this new model, the bovine name DOES make sense!

  • We need... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Col Bat Guano ( 633857 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:30PM (#12123972)
    a grass roots campaign to get this one going.

  • A reasonable idea for rural areas. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Camaro ( 13996 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:32PM (#12123983)
    I've read quite a few articles about this sort of alternative fuel in the farm publications I recieve, and I think it would be more difficult to get alternative heating going in urban areas due to the size of heating units (the ones I've seen pictures of are the size of a small shed or larger) and the infrastructure needed to deliver grass/wood/grain as a fuel source. But for those in rural areas where one often needs to get fuel hauled in anyway, why not? I have to get oil delivered to my farm for home heating anyway, so it's not a stretch to consider setting up a heater than can burn straw bales, or grain that these days seems almost worthless anyway.
  • maybe there is some brilliant way to avoid this but I would think that burning grass would have a lot of particulates in the exhaust? Guessing that in addition to the usual combustion products makes grass less attractive than biodeisel.

  • There just isn't enough land to make a difference (Score:3, Insightful)

    by InterGuru ( 50986 ) <interguru@@@gmail...com> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:34PM (#12123999)
    Using biomass (plants) for fuel has a lot to say for it. It is a renewable resource which does not contribute to global warming. Anyone with a lawn can produce some.

    Unfortunately, when you do the numbers, we do not have enough land to replace more that a few percent of our fossil fuel consuption with biomass.

    An article [aip.org] in Physics Today discusses this. They only talk about fertile agricultural land, but even if you were to use marginal land, the argument stays the same.

  • Already been done (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:39PM (#12124023)
    My great grandfather had a mode of transportation [uark.edu] that ran on grass.
  • Cherney points out that grass biofuel pellets are much better for the environment because they emit up to 90 percent less greenhouse gases than oil, coal and natural gas do.

    Am I the only one who finds that claim implausible? My (uninformed) guess is that burning grass would give off almost as much CO2 as burning wood.

  • Fill 'er up with perenial rye.

  • Another use for Grass... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bosef1 ( 208943 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:45PM (#12124062)

    I had been thinking about how much it sucks to go the landfill with my garbage, and how much it sucks to mow my lawn. I recycle a lot of stuff, but I still produce a lot of non-recyclable food and paper waste. I would compost, but I don't have anything I could do with the compost.

    Cellulose, one of the primary components of grass and other plants, is a polymer of glucose, and can be converted back into glucose by the action of several natural enzymes (like the ones found in the bacteria in the guts of termites) and by concentrated sulfuric acid. Glucose, under the action of additonal enzymes, like those found in yeast, can be turned into ethanol. I did some research, and it turns out a company called Arkenol Fuels [arkenol.com] already has a factory that implements this process with sulfuric acid.

    My thought was that it would be excellent to develope smaller, at-home version of this process. If it also used sulfuric acid (as opposed to the termite enzymes), you could probably put just about any cellulose-containing or food waste into the process, and get out fuel for an automobile.

    • My thought was that it would be excellent to develope smaller, at-home version of this process. If it also used sulfuric acid (as opposed to the termite enzymes), you could probably put just about any cellulose-containing or food waste into the process, and get out fuel for an automobile.
      Also great for getting rid of bodies ...
    • Enzymes are problematic because they're picky; the reason your body keeps its temperature so closely regulated (and a 5-10F/3-6C rise or fall in body temperature is so hugely significant) is because most enzymes care. A lot. Some, obviously, don't care so much if you bang on em a bit - plants', reptiles', and probably your termites. They still require reasonably controlled conditions pH-wise, because if that changes too much, your enzyme will fold up and crumple into something else entirely, and it won't wo

  • The Peak Oil issue won't go away. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by newdamage ( 753043 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:50PM (#12124092) Homepage Journal
    All of us in the US are going to have to get on the alternative fuel bandwagon soon whether we like it or not. If the current oil futures boom is any indication, we're at or very close to the Peak Oil point, and it's only going to get worse from here on out.

    Most people fear higher prices at the pump, I welcome them. Anything that gets people out of SUVs and in hybrids/bicycles/walking modes of transportation will at least help give us more time to use oil while it's still plentiful to build solar panels, wind turbines, and the things we'll need to avoid going back to a 100% lo-tech farming nation.

  • How much land is needed? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:52PM (#12124102) Homepage

    Seems like a compelling argument. It has lots of advantages, and little drawbacks.

    However, I could not find this info in the article:

    Let us say I have a growing season of May to September (South end of Ontario).

    What is the amount of land needed to run a car for a year, or heat a house for the winter?

    When this is answered, one can know the amount of grass-mass needed, and whether it would be a commercially viable mass market thing, or a private grow-your-own thing.

  • Unfortunately, there is anything like a grass political lobby in Washington,....


    Huh? There is anything? Huh?


    Timothy... must be smoking some... Timothy Grass.

    --RIMSHOT--

    Thanks, I'll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitress.

  • Texas gave up all rights to privacy long ago...

    Texas law enforcement isn't much better than their Mexican Police counterparts on the other side of the border.

    In both cases, you'd rather be shot, than detained.

  • I got an idea! (Score:3, Funny)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:17PM (#12124208) Homepage
    Let's start a grass-roots movement!

    *duck!*

  • So... where's the money? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RaveX ( 30152 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:19PM (#12124225)
    A pretty good post [blogspot.com] over at Peak Oil Optimist [blogspot.com] makes the obvious point about this nonsense: if it were really an economically feasible alternative source of energy, it wouldn't require subsidies. Saying that it beats other biomass crops in terms of energy input to output ratio isn't saying much-- ethanol production, for example, is typically a net energy loser (but it exists due to heavy subsidies). Maybe we need to stop spending so much money on farm subsidies, and focus on more realistic avenues for alternative energy?
  • More moderator incompetence, April Fool's was yesterday!

    I demand that Roland Piquepaille and Jon Katz team up to write the ultimate slashdot articles!

  • Biomass entropy (Score:2, Informative)

    by papastout ( 774254 )
    Consulting the rulebook on thermodynamics: rule #2= there is always loss. Bearing that in mind the idea of grass as biomass makes a certain amount of sense when you have monstrous lawns to clip. This would take a lot of grass to get a little useable fuel. The idea is to get a high output for a minimal input, and most any biomass will give some amount of gas when heated in a pyrolysis chamber.

    Hemp (yes, cannabis) is absolutely the best plant for this application, and without peer in the overall output of bi

  • How is this any different from any other fuel? It's taking carbon from the earth and putting it into the atmosphere, pulling some potential energy out in the process. No different from burning coal, fuel oil, or wood. How is the carbon cycle completed? What gets the carbon back into the ground? All this does is impoverish the soil and add more carbon to the atmosphere. If you start talking about fertilizer, then you've lost your energy savings argument. Someone please tell me how this is any better

  • The cost-effectiveness of pelletized grass as a fuel results from:

    * efficient use of low cost marginal farmland for solar energy collection
    * minimal fossil fuel input use in field production and energy conversion
    * minimal biomass quality upgrading which limits energy loss from the feedstock
    * efficient combustion in advanced yet modestly priced and simple to use devices
    * replacement of expensive high-grade energyforms in space and water heating

    Growing hay as fuel also means not needing to use herbicides

  • Grass is VERY thirsty. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @12:58AM (#12124657) Journal
    Grass uses a LOT of water. (Not surprising, since it's got a lot of surface area.) Acre for acre it takes more water than trees or pretty much any food crop. It evaporates something like six times as much water as a lake.

    So you're not going to want to convert land to growing grass if it doesn't have a lot of water available allready. So much for the southwest - and a lot of areas where you have the other main ingredient: sunlight.

    But if you're already growing and mowing it, what a deal.

    I'd love to get a lawnmower that delivered fuel pellets rather than mulch that needs to be hauled away or worked back into the ground. Given the price of natural and the small amount of heating I need to do in the climate where I live, a pellet stove burning lawn trimmings would be a godsend.

  • No grass lobby? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Money for Nothin' ( 754763 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @01:48AM (#12124845)

    Unfortunately, there is anything like a grass political lobby in Washington

    You can't ignore this grass lobby! [norml.org]

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