PLEA Network

17 January 2016, Climate News Network, Grasses’ growing role for American cars. Second-generation biofuel made from natural grass species challenges ethanol derived from maize crops as the US seeks to reduce its fossil fuel use. In tomorrow’s world, it won’t be just the corn on the great American plains that is as high as an elephant’s eye. It will be the elephant grass as well. To deliver on US promises to reduce fossil fuel use, American motorists in future will drive on miscanthus − as elephant grass is also known – and prairie switchgrass. Researchers led by Evan DeLucia, professor of biology at the University of Illinois, report in a new journal, Nature Energy, that to exploit biofuels – which recycle carbon already in the atmosphere, and are therefore technically “carbon-neutral” – Americans will have to think again about how they manage the change away from fossil fuels. Right now, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Renewable Fuel Standards foresee that by 2022 American motorists will start up their cars with 15 billion gallons (57 billion litres) of ethanol from corn. But this could be augmented by 16 billion gallons (60 billion litres) of biofuel derived from perennial grasses. Energy source The switch to the prairie’s native switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) andEurasian elephant grass (Miscanthus giganteus) will be necessary because there are problems with corn as a source of energy. One is that, in an increasingly hungry world, it reduces the overall levels of food available. The second is that corn requires annual planting, fertilising and harvesting. Perennial grasses simply grow, and can be mown once a year. So by turning over surplus land to swift-growing grasses, and at the same time reducing the levels of carbon dioxide released from cultivation, the US could meet its target of a 7% reduction in its annual transportation emissions by 2022. If farmers went on gradually to switch from corn to the grasses, the reduction could get as high as 12%. Read More here