Hey Wop,

Are you saying Switchgrass isn't a Native to the USA? Vito, You better
read up on American History! At one time, in the Mid-west,South,and
Northern Plains it was all the Human Eye could see. It was what the
Cowboys designed "Chaps" for. It grows about 10ft Tall in one growning
season.

When it was cut down and plowed under it resulted in the "Dust Storms"
that forced the immigration to Calif,

Here is a write up on "Switchgrass" Long; Very long but really worth the
read.

Biofuels from Switchgrass: Greener Energy Pastures
Click here to download or view this brochure in PDF format (191 k)
The grass stretched as far as the eye could see, and hundreds more miles
beyond that. An ocean of grass—deep enough to swallow a horse and
rider—swaying and singing in the steady wind of the Great Plains. §

The American prairie—tens of millions of acres— once looked like
this. But that was centuries ago, before the coming of the white man,
the railroad, and the steel plow. Today, corn and beans hold sway, and
the remnants of America's tallgrass prairie are confined mostly to parks
and preserves.

§ Now, though, in research plots and laboratories in the Plains
states and even in the Deep South the seeds of change are germinating.
The tall, native grasses of the prairie, so vital to our land's
ecological past, may prove equally vital to its economic future. Such
grasses once fed millions of bison. Soon, grown as energy crops, they
may help fuel millions of cars and trucks, spin power turbines, and
supply chemicals to American industries.

Test plots of switchgrass at Auburn University have produced up to 15
tons of dry biomass per acre, and five- year yields average 11.5
tons—enough to make 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acre each year.The
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) believes that biofuels—made from crops
of native grasses, such as fast- growing switchgrass—could reduce the
nation's dependence on foreign oil, curb emissions of the "greenhouse
gas" carbon dioxide, and strengthen America's farm economy. The Biofuels
Feedstock Development Program (BFDP) at DOE's Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (ORNL), has assembled a team of scientists ranging from
economists and energy analysts to plant physiologists and geneticists to
lay the groundwork for this new source of renewable energy. Included are
researchers at universities, other national laboratories, and
agricultural research stations around the nation. Their goal, according
to ORNL physiologist Sandy McLaughlin, who leads the switchgrass
research effort, is nothing short of building the foundation for a
biofuels industry that will make and market ethanol and other biofuels
from switchgrass and at prices competitive with fossil fuels such as
gasoline and diesel.

Not the grass in your backyard
First, a distinction: switchgrass and your suburban lawn
grasses—bluegrass and zoysia grass— are about as similar as a
shopping-mall ficus and an old-growth redwood. Switchgrass is big and
it's tough—after a good growing season, it can stand 10 feet high,
with stems as thick and strong as hardwood pencils.
But what makes switchgrass bad for barefoot lawns makes it ideal for
energy crops: It grows fast, capturing lots of solar energy and turning
it into lots of chemical energy— cellulose—that can be liquified,
gasified, or burned directly.

It also reaches deep into the soil for water, and uses the water it
finds very efficiently.
And because it spent millions of years evolving to thrive in climates
and growing conditions spanning much of the nation, switchgrass is
remarkably adaptable.
Now, to make switchgrass even more promising, researchers across the
country are working to boost switchgrass hardiness and yields, adapt
varieties to a wide range of growing conditions, and reduce the need for
nitrogen and other chemical fertilizers.

By "fingerprinting" the DNA and physiological characteristics of
numerous varieties, the researchers are steadily identifying and
breeding varieties of switchgrass that show great promise for the
future.

Switchgrass can be cut and baled with standard farming equipment.

Yield of dreams
In the hard, shallow soil of southern Alabama, Dave Bransby is turning
cotton fields into swatches of grassland. Some Alabama farmers joke that
there's no soil in Alabama to farm—two centuries of King Cotton and
steady erosion haven't left much behind. Yet Bransby, a forage scientist
at Auburn University, has found a crop that thrives the Among the 19
research sites in the Eastern and Central United States raising
switchgrass for the BFDP studies, Bransby's site holds the one-year
record at 15 tons per acre.

Those are dry tons weighed after all the moisture's been baked out.
Convert that into ethanol, an alcohol that can fuel vehicles, and it
equals about 1,500 gallons per acre. Bransby's 6-year average, 11.5 tons
a year, translates into about 11,500 gallons of ethanol per acre.

An added bonus is the electricity that can be produced from the leftover
portions of the crop that won't convert to ethanol.
Many farmers are already experienced at raising switchgrass for forage
or to protect soil from erosion.

Besides showing great promise for energy production, switchgrass also
restores vital organic nutrients to farmed-out soils.Many farmers
already grow switchgrass, either as forage for livestock or as a ground
cover, to control erosion.

Cultivating switchgrass as an energy crop instead would require only
minor changes in how it's managed and when it's harvested. Switchgrass
can be cut and baled with conventional mowers and balers. And it's a
hardy, adaptable perennial, so once it's established in a field, it can
be harvested as a cash crop, either annually or semiannually, for 10
years or more before replanting is needed. And because it has multiple
uses—as an ethanol feedstock, as forage, as ground cover—a farmer
who plants switchgrass can be confident knowing that a switchgrass crop
will be put to good use.

Farmers working in production mode might not match Bransby's carefully
tended research plots, but if the future brings rises in oil prices—or
if environmental taxes are eventually imposed on fossil fuels—energy
from switchgrass could prove economically competitive with petroleum and
coal, making biomass crops attractive to American farmers.

And with recent advances in the technology of gasification, switchgrass
could yield a variety of useful fuels—synthetic gasoline and diesel
fuel, methanol, methane gas, even hydrogen—as well as chemical
by-products useful for making fertilizers, solvents, and plastics.

Strong environmental roots
Annual cultivation of many agricultural crops depletes the soil's
organic matter, steadily reducing fertility. But switchgrass adds
organic matter—the plants extend nearly as far below ground as above.
And with its network of stems and roots, switchgrass holds onto soil
even in winter to prevent erosion.

Besides helping slow runoff and anchor soil, switchgrass can also filter
runoff from fields planted with traditional row crops. Buffer strips of
switchgrass, planted along streambanks and around wetlands, could remove
soil particles, pesticides, and fertilizer residues from surface water
before it reaches groundwater or streams—and could also provide
energy.

And because switchgrass removes carbon dioxide (CO2 ) from the air as it
grows, it has the potential to slow the buildup of this greenhouse gas
in Earth's atmosphere. Unlike fossil fuels, which simply release more
and more of the CO2 that's been in geologic storage for millions of
years, energy crops of switchgrass "recycle" CO2 over and over again,
with each year's cycle of growth and use.
The road ahead

One reason BFDP researchers are confident that switchgrass can become an
important feedstock for ethanol production is the groundwork that's
already been laid by corn growers. U.S. ethanol production from corn
currently totals nearly 2 billion gallons a year. Some of this ethanol
is blended with gasoline to make gasohol; some is further refined to
make gasoline octane boosters; and some is burned, either in pure
("neat") form or mixed with a small percentage of gasoline, in fleets of
research and demonstration vehicles.
Looking down the road, McLaughlin believes switchgrass offers important
advantages as an energy crop.

"Producing ethanol from corn requires almost as much energy to produce
as it yields," he explains, "while ethanol from switchgrass can produce
about five times more energy than you put in. When you factor in the
energy required to make tractors, transport farm equipment, plant and
harvest, and so on, the net energy output of switchgrass is about 20
times better than corn's.

" Switchgrass also does a far better job of protecting soil, virtually
eliminating erosion. And it removes considerably more CO2 from the air,
packing it away in soils and roots.

Switchgrass offers excellent habitat for a wide variety of birds and
small mammals.Back to the future
At the turn of the last century, America's transportation system was
fueled by biomass: 30 million horses and mules, give or take a few
million, pulled buggies, hauled wagons, dragged plows. According to Ken
Vogel, a U.S. Department of Agriculture forage geneticist helping
develop and test switchgrass for the BFDP, replacing animal power with
machine power freed up 80 million acres of U.S. land—land that had
been used to grow grass and other feed for these millions of animals.
Now, at the dawn of the next century, the wheel could begin to turn full
circle. On millions of acres of farm land not needed for food crops,
fast-growing energy crops of switchgrass—harvested and converted
efficiently to clean-burning, affordable ethanol, methanol, or
diesel—could once again supply vast amounts of horsepower.

In short, biomass could bring back a 21st-century version of the
prairie. And along with the prairie, it could bring a new crop to
America's farms, a boost to U.S. energy independence, and brighter
prospects for a clean, sustainable future. According to BFDP and its
research partners across the country, that's a future worth cultivating.

For more information, contact:
Bioenergy Feedstock Development Program
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P.O. Box 2008
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6422
865-576-8143 (fax) Produced for DOE's Office of Transportation
Technologies and the Office of Power Technologies within the Office of
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

http://community.webtv.net/tassail/ThomPage