by frog
Researchers at North Carolina State University have shown that making ethanol from duckweed is much more efficient than doing so from corn:
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.
The beauty of this is that this is a first generation biofuel process that doesn’t necessarily have to steal arable agricultural land for the process. That means that unlike the kiwi algae to biodiesel technique, which is struggling to scale up, we can start making it straight away.
It also means we don’t have to argue about the sustainability – or not – of ethanol that we import from places like Brazil.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Sat, April 11th, 2009
Tags: biodiesel, duckweed, ethanol, north Carolina state university
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
This is good news. I don’t see it being a major contributor to our transport needs as I believe there will only be limited areas where the duckweed can be grown. However there are a number of transport and other applications where there is no real alternative but to use a liquid fuel, and for which ethanol will do, so this proposal will go some way to meeting those needs.
Trevor.
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Gave it a try Frog; but the car keeps waving it’s doors and trying to take off – an I’m not telling Eastwher Egg stories anymore either…
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So to help save our energy needs all we need to do is fill up huge ponds with pig poo?
I suspect we’d all be a lot better if this stunning discovery had never been made
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I don’t see why the duckweed wouldn’t also grow just as well if fed with cow manure rather than pig manure. We produce a lot of cow manure, so this would help deal with that. And to ease shorty’s mind, the cow manure is already finding its way into our waterways and leading to all sorts of problems, so this proposal would be just a controlled form of the same thing
Trevor.
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Trevor29 Says:
April 13th, 2009 at 11:41 am
> the cow manure is already finding its way into our waterways and leading to all sorts of problems, so this proposal would be just a controlled form of the same thing
we could have cow manure and duckweed settling ponds, which would actually stop a lot of the cow manure getting into the waterways.
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Shorty – as Trevor has already pointed out, the poo is already hitting our waterways. Interestingly, at least as far as human poo and a lot of ruminant poo at abattoirs is concerned, it is already in sediment ponds, so there is little need to build new ones.
I would have to find out how well the duckweed does with human and cow poo. It would be great if it grew well as well!
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Frog,
I have asked one of my flatemates (masters in pig nutrition; academic flatmates are very useful, huh?). She says that since the systems of pigs and humans are almost identical the effluent of humans and pigs should be essentially the same given the same inputs; the bigest factor detirimining the difference would be if the pigs are feed meat sources such as meat and marrow, etc. otherwise; a vegan pig and phil should be full of the same sh*t. ditto for a omnivorous pig and myself.
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>>a vegan pig and phil should be full of the same sh*t.
Best line on FrogBlog ever…..
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Legalise weed for ducks!
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then vegan ducks would be full of the same sh*t as Phil
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kahikatea said: then vegan ducks would be full of the same sh*t as Phil
Sorry, BP, kahikatea’s now just has to be the best line on frogblog.
But for the best post ever I still prefer this one which, I suspect from the style and location, may have been instigated by greenfly:
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Vegan pork sounds good to me.
Where do I get it?
Should beat organic hands down, or should that be trotters down.
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