Comments on: $47 Million for Renewable Energy Projects to Replace Oil

By: Tina Casey

Tina Casey — Tue, 10 May 2011 00:27:00 +0000

Hi Durwood, you make a good point in regard to first-generation biofuel crops such as corn and soy, but for the very reason you lay out we’ve moved on to agricultural waste, paper waste, and woody or weedy biomass that can grow on marginal lands with little or no petrochemical assistance.

By: Durwood Dugger

Durwood Dugger — Mon, 09 May 2011 05:47:00 +0000

Can we say boondoggle. Almost everyone knows that you can’t produce significant biomass/biofuel without the use of petro chemical fertilizers – which are not renewable. Sort of like replacing oil with oil – except you need those fertilizers for 95% of global food production. Really bright – not.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 09 May 2011 03:53:00 +0000

Except that’s not true.

Switchgrass, for example, grows on very marginal land, takes only a small amount of fertilizer to get it established, and improves the land on which it grows. Being a perennial it can be harvested over many years and requires no irrigation in many locations. (It’s one of the native grasses which once covered the American plains.)

Forests do not require fertilizer.

And I seem to remember that camelina can be inter-cropped wheat and requires only small amounts of fertilizer. Inter-cropping adds extra organic matter to the soil and cuts down on the amount of fertilizer for the wheat crop, shifting some of the saved fertilizer to the camelina.

None of these biofuel crops displace food crops.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:58:00 +0000

Should be $47 billion.