Now, add this to UCLA's new e. coli microbes to make isobutanol. And you have an energy croup that can readily replace gasoline, especially with with further efficiency improvements in drivetrains.

It's nice to see some good news like this.

I love this, "switchgrass biomass yields in recent yield trials in Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota (36–38) were 50% greater than achieved in this study" in which they got yields greater than 540% of energy consumed! Did I read that right, that current yields should yield more than 8 times the energy consumed? In the Dakotas, land of no rain and long winters? This is phenomenal!
What is the catch?
My Mother ranches in southern Montana, 7000 acres to run 200 cow/calf pairs. She has almost enough precipitation, most years, (about 11 inches) to irrigate 100 acres of alfalfa and to keep the range in decent enough shape that she doesn't need to buy much feed. Man, if she could cultivate Switchgrass...

If Range Fuels can gasify forest waste and make ethanol, maybe someone can do the same with switchgrass.

Hate to rain on your parade, yes thes numbers are very encouraging when compared to the marginal to negative no's previosly for the various feedstocks on low to marginal lands.
Another way of looking at it goes this way. We can grow 1 acre of higher *8 energy input crops per acre of switchgrass harvested. But not an acre of something requiring more than eight times that input If for instance ( Here I havent got any good numbers) ie cotton (water fertilize spray, harvest processing, transport farm labor) or corn fertilizer, sprays machinery.
I could accept, but like clarification that the gasoline equivalent is in fact a finished gasoline product ie in a fully processed or liquid form.
Given the best case scenario as average with environmental advantages.
The problem is that these acre inputs are very low.
Thats great, but most farming inputs are at the other extreme ie very high so the leverage, multiplier what have you is off a low base. Therefore the benefits while apparently very usefull will need to be seen in the context of the volumes that are to be offset.
High input farmlands if food production or prodigious fuel consumption if for that market.
Remember that keeping people on their farms with all mod cons will have a cost too. Not that they wont have costs elsewhere , but remote living can be quite an E consumer to do well also.

The next step is to run a grass farm with onsite surplus fuel production. This is so the tractor runs on alcohol (or whatever), phosphorous and potassium is returned to the soil and no petroleum based herbicides are used. Remember there also has to be enough spare grass and cereal to feed meat animals and make bread. Not just for rural folk but for people with city jobs and their pet dogs. In other words petroleum independent agriculture that produces surplus food and fuel.

@ John L.

Yep. That's the misleading thing on this. How much energy does it take to capture, create and distil the butanol? The UCLA process creates butanol at very low concentration, and slowly...so, the formula isn't high yield just yet.

I don't know if the 50% higher numbers from later farms are directly comparable. Are we talking 50% more tons/acre? Were the inputs 300% higher, thus eroding the EROIE?

All that said, it's a stake in the ground for switchgrass. It's a start. No, I don't want syngas, because it costs too much energy and the more water in the switchgrass, the less EROIE.

Regardless of these numbers, long term harvesting of cellulose will be tantamount to overgrazing without the benefit of whatever manure that is excreted by the cattle. What nutrients will be returned to the soil to make up for the harvested cellulose?

Gary, good question! It doesn't seem like a sustainable method unless some inter-cropping was done with say beans that are not harvested/allowed to rot and fix nutes.

JCwinnie, I don't understand a thing you said. try your post again with some better editing. I am curious what you had to say but the way it is written is not legible.

This is good news for sure. It is a tomorrow technology that will get us to the next decade solar technologies that we will surely be forced to rely on for many of the issues brought up in the comments here.

Hi,
I was involved in the first anaerobic digestion or reduction process in Vancouver Canada and we could not interst anyone in the technology back in 1978. I have since retired to New Zealand where we intend to use the same basic chemistry to make from algae of which there is no shortage, or either, water, algae and solar power. What we do need are American investors to help run the financial side of the operation. Anyone interested please contact Barry Larkman, VP Development
Aleph Biofuels Ltd at

eij says:
"My Mother ranches in southern Montana, 7000 acres to run 200 cow/calf pairs. She has almost enough precipitation, most years, (about 11 inches) to irrigate 100 acres of alfalfa and to keep the range in decent enough shape that she doesn't need to buy much feed. Man, if she could cultivate Switchgrass.."

Most of the rest of you are thinking from the perspective of urban dwellers. The quote above is a most important one, because the study says that the vast acreages in Montana to New Mexico where water is a precious resource and farming is marginal suddenly becomes most practical to raise switchgrass. No irrigation, very low tillage, and end to wind erosion, (google "CRP program") and no annual replanting, with putting the waste back into mulch/fertilizer, make this a most attractive use for all that land.

Currently, grain sorghum is being converted to ethanol in Portales, NM on a scale of several million gallons per year, and that is minor relative to the switchgrass production being discussed here.

The one thing I remember when reading about gasification is that the process needs to be setup for a consistent feedstock. If you have tons of a very similar species of switchgrass, that might be a consistent enough feedstock for the process.

I am not inclined to define anything because you tell me to. You can look up the terms for yourself as they apply in this context. It seems like you can spell them correctly.

You are right that the processing plants would have to be close to the biomass to reduce transportation costs. Companies are working on gasification plants that can be located in rural agricultural areas.

I envision a gasifier every 10 miles in rural corn fields in the U.S. turning all the corn stalks and cobs into fuel that gets transported to markets. That way, the corn grain can be used to food and feed leaving the stalks and cobs for fuel.