Grass in the fuel tank

At a Virginia Tech agricultural research centre in Fredericksburg, the switchgrass plot is an unruly, waving...

At a Virginia Tech agricultural research centre in Fredericksburg, the switchgrass plot is an unruly, waving thicket of 7-ft-tall green stalks. But it only looks neglected: This is one of the centre’s most prized plants, a formerly obscure prairie grass now projected to be a major source of farm-grown fuel.

“That’d be some energy, right there,” said Dave Starner, the centre’s superintendent, holding a freshly cut bundle of it.
Researchers think that switchgrass could help supplant corn as a source for the fast-growing ethanol industry. In Virginia, some officials are urging farmers to grow it and envision dozens of refineries that will turn the stalks into fuel. “It’s the future of the rural community and the world as you know it,” said Ken Moss, an entrepreneur who is using some state funds for a factory that turns switchgrass into a substitute for heating oil.

But such efforts have hit a snag: Scientists haven’t perfected the process that turns switchgrass into ethanol. So for today, the Crop That Could Change Virginia is just hay with better publicity.

The plant behind all the hoopla, Panicum virgatum, looks a bit like a corn plant without the cob. It has a thin, rigid stalk with a feathery tassel of seeds. Scientists say switchgrass probably grew wild across the eastern two-thirds of the US for centuries before Europeans arrived.

Researchers say switchgrass has much to recommend it over corn, the source of almost all US ethanol. For one thing, it isn’t also food—the ethanol-driven demand for corn has pushed up prices on a range of items, from tortillas to steak. For another, switchgrass requires little of the irrigation and fertiliser necessary to grow corn, a prima donna among crops.

Environmentalists have also praised the plant for the ability of its roots to filter out pollutants that often wash off farm fields. “It’s better for the land. It’s better for the water,” said Josh Dorner, a Sierra Club spokesman.

One reason for the optimism is obvious at the Virginia Tech research centre in Orange. Months of dry weather had stunted the corn, but the switchgrass was still green and tall. “It’s been a drought year; (we) haven’t put any water on it,” said John Fike, a Virginia Tech professor who is looking into potential biofuels. “I mean, that’s one of the reasons people are interested in switchgrass.”

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There’s just one thing missing from the plans to make Virginia an epicenter of ethanol production. That, unfortunately, is ethanol. The process of turning plants into fuel is a lot like turning them into liquor, scientists say: Sugars are extracted and fermented, producing alcohol. The problem with switchgrass is that its sugars are locked up chemically and are much harder to extract than those in corn.

Scientists have not found a way to produce solutions with the right concentrations of alcohol from switchgrass, said George Douglas, a spokesman for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado.
-David A. Fahrenthold (The Washington Post)