BIOMASS ENERGY FROM PERENNIAL GRASSES: AN ASSESSMENT

The current economic collapse in the United States, which has now spread around the world, has multiple causes. One of them, the recent unprecedented run up in oil prices certainly helped destabilize our economic and financial system. The US appetite for imported oil and its gaping dependence on it has enriched our adversaries in the largest wealth transfer in human history. For the moment, the oil price bubble has burst, but it should give us great pause. For geopolitical security, climate stabilization, and economic sustainability, we must break the global addiction to oil and other fossil fuels, especially to achieve an 80 percent carbon emissions reduction by 2050.

This paper examines the potential for second generation biofuel from low-input, high-diversity (LIHD), perennial grasses which could enhance our nation's security, enhance soil, water and wildlife sustainability, reduce carbon emissions, stimulate the US economy, and provide a desperately needed stepping stone, on the road to the future, perhaps, a solar electric and solar hydrogen economy. For now, transportation moves on liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Biofuels from LIHD crops will stretch conventional oil supplies, reduce carbon emissions, enhance the environment and build the domestic economy, along with other second and third generation biomass feedstocks of a variety of waste streams, from food processing to municipal sewage algae systems. Biofuel from LIHD perennial grasses has a modest potential, but can make a valuable contribution in an ecologically diversified portfolio to restore the land and free up grain crops for food. We are “on call” in every area at this time in our history. The Obama Administration taking shape shows great promise on energy and environmental fronts urgently in need of response. This case study of a Midwest farm shows one possible step to rise to meet that call.