Published on March 2nd, 2010
The poplar tree has entered the crowded field of sustainable biofuel crops, and now it seems that China, Israel and the U.S. are racing to tap into its potential. Poplars have a couple of big advantages over conventional biofuel crops, especially food crops like soy and corn. For one thing, raising poplars is potentially more fuel efficient and generates a lower carbon footprint than annual food crops. Depending on the growing conditions poplars don’t need as much pest control or soil enhancement, and they don’t necessarily need to be harvested each year – cut them back and they just keep growing. Also, a properly managed biofuel woodland can be part of a viable wildlife habitat, and could potentially coexist with human populations or recreation areas.
One roadblock is the slow growth rate of poplars relative to nonfood biofuel darlings like crambe and camlina. That may not be a factor much longer. Last fall an Israel-China research partnership was formed to develop new poplar variants for biofuel production in China. And here in the U.S., the National Science Foundation has just announced a $3.2 million grant for the University of Maryland and Bowie State University to create new high-yield poplars for biofuel.
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Published on January 20th, 2010
We are so lucky to have people still willing to go into science. While scientists have been the recipients of abuse and even death threats for taking on the thankless task of alerting humanity to the dire dangers that we all face from climate change – other scientists have heeded those warnings carefully, rather than hysterically, and put on their thinking caps to innovate solutions.
Scientists around the world have worked for a decade to solve one of the most apocalyptic aspects of climate change: that heat kills crops. This work is needed because, even just in the US, an 82% drop in corn and soy is predicted by the end of the century because there will be too many days over 86 degrees Fahrenheit in the Corn Belt, if we keep on adding greenhouse gases at the current rate.
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Tags:
Agriculture,
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climate deniers,
climate science,
climatologists,
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desertification,
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John Innes Centre,
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Norwich-based,
Philip Wigge,
salt,
Vinod Kumar
Published on January 5th, 2010
According to a new study, solar-powered irrigation systems have significantly enhanced both the household incomes and the nutritional intake of villagers in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Significant fractions of sub-Saharan Africa’s population are considered food insecure,” wrote Jennifer Burney, a scholar with the Program on Food Security and the Environment and the Department of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford. “They frequently survive on less than $1 per person per day, and … they still spend 50 to 80 percent of their income on food”
The two-year study found the pumps installed in the West African nation of Benin were a cost effective way to deliver water, especially during the dry season. Only 4-percent of the cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated, most communities rely on rain-fed agriculture. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on January 4th, 2010
Medusahead was notorious as one of the worst range weeds in the Western U.S. fifty years ago, and it’s gotten even worse since then. The weed is as nasty as its name sounds. An invasive species, medusahead popped up in Oregon in 1903 and it’s been wreaking havoc on rangelands from North Dakota to Texas to the west coast ever since.
Agriculturists have tried to control medusahead through burning, tilling, prescribed grazing, and the herbicide imazapic. All have certain risks and drawbacks, and the weed has marched on…until now. In an Oregon test area, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has planted bands of desert wheatgrass at the edge of a medusahead infestation, and so far the barriers have practically stopped the noxious weed in its tracks.
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Published on December 31st, 2009
Cow farts are emerging as a major source of the greenhouse gas methane, but scientists in Australia may be on to a simple way to nip that in the bud. Preliminary studies are showing that feeding “algae cakes” to cows results in a significant reduction in their methane emissions.
As reported in The Australian, a team of researchers at James Cook University anticipates a sustainable quadruple whammy from the new bovine diet: algae absorbs more carbon dioxide than other plants, it can be grown as a natural water cleanser for fish farms, it can be harvested as a biofuel crop, and the leftover “cake” produces an anti-methane effect on cattle.
Published on December 22nd, 2009
Solar arrays can provide energy to pump water to watering troughs for cows, improving water quality on remote pastures and saving money too. Farmers can more sustainably manage their pastures if cows are not all clustered around small creeks, eroding the banks.
One example of a worst case scenario is Dick Lester’s Spring Valley Ranch in Cherokee County, Iowa. He had one tiny creek that his cattle were trampling to death, reducing their own water supply.
He needed to pump water 150 feet up the hill to three separate watering troughs so the cows would spread out and not trample the creek’s stream banks, fouling their own drinking water supply and reducing the flow by eroding the stream banks.
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Published on December 22nd, 2009
In a post-Copenhagen move; the US Dairy industry announced today that it is partnering with the US Department of Agriculture to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020 by greatly ramping-up the use of anaerobic digesters.
While cows have been with us since at least 2020 BC, now that we are growing towards 9 billion on our one and only planet, obviously dairy farming has far more impact now than it did in our earliest farming days. So the news comes as a very welcome announcement.
Climate change will devastate US farming if our greenhouse gas production is not turned around by 2020.
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Published on December 12th, 2009
New York City is fighting to save its drinking water supply from potential contamination by new natural gas drilling operations, and some unlikely heroes may be ambling to the rescue. Dairy cows are being recruited to provide sustainable manure-derived methane biogas to power homes in New York State. Along with other alternative energies, renewable methane could reduce the demand for natural gas, and forestall the potential danger to water supplies posed by unsafe natural gas drilling operations.
The statewide methane biogas project was kick-started this fall at New York State’s Dairy Power Summit. The initial goal is somewhat modest: by 2020, the state’s dairy farmers hope to produce enough methane to power about 32,000 homes. The real punch is in the involvement of future thinking GE Energy with other innovative dairy industry partners in the effort, which promises to transform the humble dairy farm into the central feature of hundreds of bioenergy communities across the state and elsewhere in the U.S.
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Published on October 10th, 2009
The US Air Force has placed an order for 100,000 gallons of Camelina-based jet fuel, in addition to the 40,000 gallons the Navy ordered last month for $2.7 million, with delivery to begin this year. Sustainable Oils is supplying them with a biofuel grown in Montana with 80% lower carbon emissions than jet fuels now.
The US Air Force has ordered an additional 100,000 gallons of Camelina for their second round of flight tests starting next June. The DOD is trying to find a non food-competitive biofuel that can be blended with jetfuel to reduce carbon emissions and is running tests on several kinds of alternative fuels.
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Published on October 7th, 2009
A Woman’s Work…
The Governor’s Global Climate Summit ended with Oxfam America’s inaugural Sisters on the Planet Climate Leader Awards. Thanks to Karen Solomon at Opportunity Green, I was able to attend. The event showcased the work that women all over the world are doing to adapt to climate change. Sisters on the Planet is committed to exposing how livelihoods of the majority of the planet’s women are the most severely impacted by climate change. To quote the brochure:
“But if you remember one thing about Sisters on the Planet, make it this: Climate change is already having a disproportionate impact on poor people in the US and abroad, and it’s hitting women hardest.”
Oxfam is working with women all over the world to develop low-cost adaptation techniques relevant to the regions they’re in. Adapting to global warming requires a range of tactics, from helping families in flood-prone regions elevate their homes, build floating vegetable gardens, and store seeds and other necessities safely to helping farmers in drought-prone areas plant trees, drill wells and improve their irrigation techniques. Oxfam’s publication, Adaptation 101, shows the overall cost of some of these projects, and at what level they need to be carried out- in the community or nationally.
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The poplar tree has entered the crowded field of sustainable biofuel crops, and now it seems that China, Israel and the U.S. are racing to tap into its potential. Poplars have a couple of big advantages over conventional biofuel crops, especially food crops like soy and corn. For one thing, raising poplars is potentially more fuel efficient and generates a lower carbon footprint than annual food crops. Depending on the growing conditions poplars don’t need as much pest control or soil enhancement, and they don’t necessarily need to be harvested each year – cut them back and they just keep growing. Also, a properly managed biofuel woodland can be part of a viable wildlife habitat, and could potentially coexist with human populations or recreation areas.
