Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the alternative biomass crops would provide an alternative to ethanol, in what year 40 percent of corn products were used for ethanol and that the National Science Foundation's Water Sustainability and Climate program joined the University's researchers. It also inaccurately reported Matei Georgescu's title and Sethuraman Panchanathan's affiliation with the project. It has been updated to reflect the correct information.
Researchers at the Global Institute of Sustainability are investigating abandoned and degraded tracts of farmland across the nation to determine if those lands could support alternative biomass crops.
Using these crops could lower the amount of corn used for ethanol, thereby reducing prices of corn and corn-based foods.
Geographical sciences and urban planning professor and principle investigator Matei Georgescu said as of 2011, 40 percent of harvested corn is slated for ethanol production, which raises prices for consumers.
“Our goal is to assess and evaluate which places would be the most beneficial for these perennial grasses,” Georgescu said. “We are focusing on how much energy yield we can get and trying to discern what the economic consequences might be.”
The team focuses on perennial plants miscanthus and switchgrass, which only have to be planted once.
When the perennial plants are harvested, the roots stay intact, unlike corn, which has to be re-planted annually.
“People have known about the power that these crops possess for some time,” Georgescu said. “If we can successfully harness that power through these lands, there would exist a massive potential for renewable energy.”
Georgescu said using degraded and abandoned farmlands would ensure that raising energy crops would not compete with food production.
Using research done by other scientists, Georgescu and his team have identified many of the lands they will utilize for the project .
“One of the truly great things about science is that we can build upon work done previously,” Georgescu said.
Promising regions include the “upper” Midwest, central plains and locations in the Pacific Northwest.
Sethuraman Panchanathan, senior vice president of the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, is overseeing the project, which is receiving funding from the National Science Foundation’s Water Sustainability and Climate Program.
“This project is attempting to model all of the relevant data using high performance computing to develop the appropriate numerical models, which allows us to discern the merits, demerits and economic value of what we are trying to accomplish,” Panchanathan said.
Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development spokeswoman Amelia Huggins has worked closely with Panchanathan and other faculty associated with the biomass project.
“The energy crops operation represents just one of a number of sustainability initiatives being worked on at the University level,” Huggins said. “We want to approach the problems facing sustainability from not one, but several perspectives at once.”
Reach the reporter at mjgordo1@asu.edu
