Joe Bouton, director of the forage improvement division of the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, looks at growing switchgrass — a likely future source of ethanol. provided by the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
The report, authored by researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, estimates that switchgrass grown as a source of biofuel in its study produced more than five times more energy than what was needed to grow, harvest and process it into ethanol.
The study lasted five years and used switchgrass fields on 10 farms in three states.
"It was really a very good paper,” said Joe Bouton, director of the forage improvement division of the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. The foundation is teaming up with researchers at Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma to make up the Sooner State's Bioenergy Center.
"What it showed us is that biofuel made from switchgrass contained about 540 percent more energy than what was consumed to make it,” Bouton said.
"And the fact that it was done on a farm really gives a lot of credibility to the study,” he said.
One exciting aspect of the research, he added, is that researchers in the study were using varieties of switchgrass that were available in 1999 and 2000.
Research since has given researchers even more fuel-packed varieties of switchgrass since then.
"It looks like this research is just going to improve this grass even further,” Bouton said. "For researchers working on this issue in the Northern Great Plains, and for all of us on the Great Plains, this is good news.”
According to ScienceDaily, which recently published a story about the study, researchers were looking at switchgrass' net energy output.
The study involved switchgrass fields in Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. It found switchgrass had better greenhouse gas emissions and that biomass leftovers from ethanol production could be used to provide needed energy to distill the product and to fuel other operations of a biorefinery.
In June, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry signed a bill that created the Oklahoma Bioenergy Center to coordinate biofuels research and development at the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University and the Ardmore-based Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.
Oklahoma's Legislature agreed to spend $40 million during the next several years to fund the effort.
Ray Huhnke, a researcher in the Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Department at OSU, said his colleagues are making great strides in coming up with n
