[permaculture] Tiny super-plant can clean up animal waste and be used for ethanol production
mIEKAL aND
qazingulaza at gmail.com
Thu Apr 9 22:39:06 EDT 2009
I think the answer to that is no, but living here in dairy country,
especially with CAFO's trying to sneak their greasy asses into
counties everywhere, this would be a far improved system over their
current practices. The county next to me has a 3200 cow dairy (on 200
acres) trying to move to an area 2 miles from the county seat.
They're talking about massive manure lagoons. Ironically Vernon
County WI also has more organic farms than any county in the country.
~mIEKAL
On Apr 9, 2009, at 7:46 PM, Brandy Davis wrote:
> BUT, BUT do we want to continue having large areas of animal waste
> water?!
>
> On Apr 9, 2009, at 4:30 PM, mIEKAL aND wrote:
>
>> Tiny super-plant can clean up animal waste and be used for ethanol
>> production
>>
>> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/ncsu-tsc040709.php
>>
>> Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that a tiny
>> aquatic plant can be used to clean up animal waste at industrial hog
>> farms and potentially be part of the answer for the global energy
>> crisis. Their research shows that growing duckweed on hog wastewater
>> can produce five to six times more starch per acre than corn,
>> according to researcher Dr. Jay Cheng. This means that ethanol
>> production using duckweed could be "faster and cheaper than from
>> corn," says fellow researcher Dr. Anne-Marie Stomp.
>>
>> "We can kill two birds – biofuel production and wastewater
>> treatment –
>> with one stone – duckweed," Cheng says. Starch from duckweed can be
>> readily converted into ethanol using the same facilities currently
>> used for corn, Cheng adds.
>>
>> Corn is currently the primary crop used for ethanol production in the
>> United States. However, its use has come under fire in recent years
>> because of concerns about the amount of energy used to grow corn and
>> commodity price disruptions resulting from competition for corn
>> between ethanol manufacturers and the food and feed industries.
>> Duckweed presents an attractive, non-food alternative that has the
>> potential to produce significantly more ethanol feedstock per acre
>> than corn; exploit existing corn-based ethanol production processes
>> for faster scale-up; and turn pollutants into a fuel production
>> system. The duckweed system consists of shallow ponds that can be
>> built on land unsuitable for conventional crops, and is so efficient
>> it generates water clean enough for re-use. The technology can
>> utilize
>> any nutrient-rich wastewater, from livestock production to municipal
>> wastewater.
>>
>>
>> Large-scale hog farms manage their animal waste by storing it in
>> large
>> "lagoons" for biological treatment. Duckweed utilizes the nutrients
>> in
>> the wastewater for growth, thus capturing these nutrients and
>> preventing their release into the environment. In other words, Cheng
>> says, "Duckweed could be an environmentally friendly, economically
>> viable feedstock for ethanol."
>>
>> "There's a bias in agriculture that all the crops that could be
>> discovered have been discovered," Stomp says, "but duckweed could be
>> the first of the new, 21st century crops. In the spirit of George
>> Washington Carver, who turned peanuts into a major crop, Jay and I
>> are
>> on a mission to turn duckweed into a new industrial crop, providing
>> an
>> innovative approach to alternative fuel production."
>>
>> Cheng, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering,
>> co-authored the research with Stomp, associate professor of forestry,
>> and post-doctoral research associate, Mike Yablonski. The research,
>> which is funded by the North Carolina Biofuels Center, was presented
>> March 21 at the annual conference of the Institute of Biological
>> Engineering in Santa Carla, Calif.
>>
>> Cheng and Stomp are currently establishing a pilot-scale project to
>> further investigate the best way to establish a large-scale system
>> for
>> growing duckweed on animal wastewater, and then harvesting and drying
>> the duckweed.
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