Digest Special Report on Switchgrass; Genera breaks ground on Biomass Innovation Park

In Tennessee, Genera broke ground on the Biomass Innovation Park in Vonore, a 21-acre facility that will provide harvesting, handling, storage, densification, pre-processing and transportation for up to 50,000 tons of switchgrass and other energy crops and feedstocks.

The Park will initially serve more than 6,000 acres of switchgrass growing in nine counties within 50 miles of the Vonore biorefinery, under contract to Genera for cellulosic ethanol feedstocks. The Park will also be the site for a $5 million DOE-funded high-tonnage switchgrass bulk handling system.

The first phase on construction is scheduled for completion by the end of 2010, and is expected to store and process switchgrass harvested this fall. The Park will include storage silos, sheds, processing buildings and energy crop demonstration plots for switchgrass and other energy crops.

Genera in context

The groundbreaking comes at a critical time for biofuels development. More than 85 advanced biofuels projects are now in pilot, demo or commercial construction or operation – and downstream markets in many countries are assured through biofuels mandates.

However, SARA (safe, affordable, reliable, available) feedstocks for advanced biofuels remain a goal rather than an assured reality.

In this context, Genera should be seen as one of a handful of projects — aside from the broad grouping of microcrop feedstock projects — addressing advanced biofuels feedstock development in a systematic manner, perhaps rivaled only by POET’s projects in developing corn cob harvesting and supply in the Midwest.

Switchgrass yields and economics

Ceres CEO Richard Hamilton recently told the Digest that he is comfortable with the USDA’s goals of 12 tons of switchgrass per harvested acre. At an optimal 80-100 gallons per ton in ethanol yields, the switcheroo from fallow lands or other crop production would total in the range of 10.0-11.6 million acres by 2022.

Key to understanding the impact of this goal: how much land will be drawn from existing crop production, such as corn, and how much will be drawn from land that is currently now in production.

With prices for biomass expected to range between a low of $40 per ton and highs of $110 per ton (with the upper levels expected for states that have competing renewable power standards), the stakes are potentially high for farmers, as well as state and local governments.

A current corn crop, averaging 160 bushels per acre at $3.80 per bushel, drives $608 per acre in farmer income. Switchgrass has a potential range of $480-$1320 per acre, depending on the underlying biomass price.

To the extent that switchgrass can utilize unproductive land, its a potential bonanza for the agricultural sector – just one of the reasons that the USDA is adamant in advancing bioenergy projects as a means of developing long-term stability in farm incomes.

Let’s look at some of the recent news on switchgrass, and energy crops in general.

Grasstopia

The USDA’s view on the subject were published in its landmark Regional Roadmap last month, which the Digest dubbed the “grasstopia” report for its empahsis on energy grasses. The USDA projected in its report that the US, in order to meet its 2022 RFS target of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel, would produce 13.4 billion gallons from dedicated energy crops, including perennial grasses, energy cane, and biomass sorghum; 500 million gallons from oilseed crops, 4.3 billion gallons from crop residues (corn stover, straw), 2.8 billion gallons from woody biomass (logging residues only) and 15 billion gallons from corn starch ethanol.

Switchgrass yields

In Tennessee, a team of researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Dartmouth published a summary of data on the response of switchgrass yield to soils, climate, and crop management across the United States. The researchers used peer-reviewed publications to evaluate switchgrass yield as it relates to site location, plot size, stand age, harvest frequency, fertilizer application, climate, and land quality.

The scientists compiled a total of 1,190 biomass yield observations for both lowland and upland types of switchgrass grown from 39 field sites across the United States.

Annual yields averaged 12.9 metric tons per hectare for lowland and 8.7 metric tons for upland ecotypes. Some field sites in Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma reported biomass yields greater than 28 metric tons per hectare using the lowland cultivars Kanlow and Alamo.

New varietals

In Tennessee, researchers at the University of Tennessee, working with UT Extension biofuels specialists and partners at Ceres and Dupont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol, have planted 1000 acres of improved varieties of switchgrass across nine counties, and will compare results with 1000 acres planted with standard “Alamo” switchgrass for comparative purposes.

The research team said that their University of Tennessee Biofuels Initiative  project will have four phases: comparing the large-scale production of the different varieties of the energy crop, analyzing the chemical and structural characteristics of the varieties, evaluating pre-processing techniques at Genera’s Biomass Innovation Park in Vonore, and measuring the ethanol yield of the various varieties through the demonstration-scale biorefinery.

The UTBI projects that Tennessee farmers could sustainably produce enough switchgrass by 2025 to produce more than a billion gallons of ethanol annually on some 1 million acres without displacing the production of food and fiber crops.

Salt-tolerant, drought-tolerant, low-nitrogen plant traits

In California, Ceres reported that its researchers tested the effects of very high salt concentrations and also seawater from the Pacific Ocean, which contains mixtures of salts in high-concentration, on improved energy grass varieties growing in its California greenhouses.

According to Ceres, there are more than one billion acres of abandoned cropland globally that could benefit from this trait and others in Ceres’ pipeline, including 15 million acres of salt-affected soils in the U.S. The company now plans to evaluate energy crops with its proprietary salt-tolerant trait at field scale.

More Coverage on this Topic

• Genera Energy joins freeway-to-fuels movement with test plots for switchgrass along highways
• DDCE re-named Dupont Cellulosic Ethanol; taps Mirshak as new chief
• Tennessee pols tout switchgrass for ethanol
• Tennessee farmers bullish on switchgrass after pilot
• University of Florida selected for $125 million research partnership with India
• To Strive, To Seek, to Find, and max out yields
• Researchers developing cassava, switchgrass for China biofuels
• Altgen narrows to two TN towns for $35M biofuels investment

Tags: Genera, switchgrass, Tennessee, Vonore

Category: Producer News, Top Stories