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Burn Grass, Get Green Biofuel

Posted by timothy on from the burn-timothy dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Do you want to use an economical and environmentally friendly biofuel? Just grow grass. Burning grass pellets will produce an energy-efficient biofuel, according to Jerry Cherney, a professor of agriculture at Cornell University. In this news release, 'Grass as Fuel,' he says "Burning grass pellets makes sense; after all, it takes 70 days to grow a crop of grass for pellets, but it takes 70 million years to make fossil fuels." Unfortunately, there is nothing like a grass political lobby in Washington, so he might not be heard. But with current oil prices, more and more people will be tempted to use cheaper -- and cleaner -- sources of energy. This overview contains many more details and references about this environmentally friendly biofuel made from grass."

9 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. So.... by Siriaan · · Score: 5, Funny

    "So what does your car run?"

    "Grass."

    "Smokin."

  2. Duuuude... by nxtr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You'd know this if you weren't smoking it.

  3. Sounds expensive... by nxtr · · Score: 5, Funny

    At 20 bucks per gram for fuel, I'd be better off taking the bus.

  4. Re:Obvious marijuana jokes aside... by rewinn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Great question. According to the article

    ... grass biofuel pellets are much better for the environment because they emit up to 90 percent less greenhouse gases than oil, coal and natural gas do. ..."

    So while grass may not be perfect, it is 90% better than what we've got, from a carbon-release standpoint.

    Another consideration is that the carbon emitted from burning grass is carbon that the grass took out of our atmosphere while growing, so there would be no net increase in atmospheric carbon from its use. In contrast, carbon released by fossil fuels hasn't been in our atmosphere for millions of years, which is why re-releasing it into our atmosphere is problematic.

    --
    --- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
  5. Re:Conserve fuel for what we NEED it for. by wwahammy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes but that would require foresight beyond the next election cycle from our political leaders, something which is has been lacking even more lately.

  6. Already been done by Kohath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My great grandfather had a mode of transportation that ran on grass.

  7. Re:Obvious marijuana jokes aside... by gwydion04 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Plants do not get the majority of their carbon from the ground. I quote from Wikipedia:
    "Plants are autotrophs, which means they are able to synthesize food directly from inorganic compounds, instead of eating other organisms or relying on material derived from them. Most notably, they use carbon dioxide gas and water to produce sugars and oxygen gas. The energy for these processes comes from photosynthesis. For instance, the over-all equation for the production of glucose is:

    12H2O + 6CO2 + light --> C6H12O6 (glucose) + 6O2 + 6H2O

    The glucose is variously used to form other organic compounds, such as the building material cellulose, or it may be used as a fuel."
    Cellulose = polysaccharide that makes up the majority of a plant's structure - i.e. what you would burn.

    Plants need only minerals and water from the ground - that's why you can grow them with hydroponics. Crack open that high school bio textbook before posting to avoid such future didatics from your fellow slashdotters. ;-)
  8. Another use for Grass... by bosef1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had been thinking about how much it sucks to go the landfill with my garbage, and how much it sucks to mow my lawn. I recycle a lot of stuff, but I still produce a lot of non-recyclable food and paper waste. I would compost, but I don't have anything I could do with the compost.

    Cellulose, one of the primary components of grass and other plants, is a polymer of glucose, and can be converted back into glucose by the action of several natural enzymes (like the ones found in the bacteria in the guts of termites) and by concentrated sulfuric acid. Glucose, under the action of additonal enzymes, like those found in yeast, can be turned into ethanol. I did some research, and it turns out a company called Arkenol Fuels already has a factory that implements this process with sulfuric acid.

    My thought was that it would be excellent to develope smaller, at-home version of this process. If it also used sulfuric acid (as opposed to the termite enzymes), you could probably put just about any cellulose-containing or food waste into the process, and get out fuel for an automobile.

  9. Re:Less 'greenhouse gasses?' Pfft... by Tekgno · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think it is more of a matter of how burning grass or any bio-fuel for that matter fits in with the carbon cycle. Burning of oil, coal and natural gas releases carbon that has been locked up underground for millions of years as opposed to grass which collects it from the air and thus isn't adding any more to current amounts.