[Graeme]

Will A Bioeconomy That Produces Fuel From Biorenewable Resources Be Sustainable?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his spring farmers responded to the ethanol industry's demand for grain by increasing their corn acreage by 19 percent over last year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates.

What if that happens again next year?

What if farmers decide against crop rotations and plant corn on the same fields, year after year? Or, what if farmers begin growing biomass crops such as switchgrass for the production of ethanol from plant fiber?

Will soil lose fertility? Will erosion increase? Will the amount of energy needed to produce biofuels go up or down? Will farm income increase or decrease?

Will the bioeconomy be sustainable?


Their paper, "Potential for Enhanced Nutrient Cycling through Coupling of Agricultural and Bioenergy Systems," was recently published online by Crop Science, the official publication of the Crop Science Society of America.

The paper reports that as much as 78 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer needed for crops could be recovered from an integrated biological and thermochemical process that converts switchgrass to ethanol. The study says such nutrient recovery and recycling could significantly improve the sustainability of biomass production and the amount of energy required to produce ethanol from plant fiber.


To help farmers begin to understand how collecting biomass from their fields may affect soil fertility, erosion, energy needs, labor and the bottom line, Anex and a team of Iowa State researchers have added bioeconomy elements to I-FARM, a Web tool that helps farmers simulate and plan various changes to their operations.

I-FARM is free and can be found at http://i-farmtools.org. Its focus is on the upper Midwest but weather and soils data from 28 states are accessible from its database.

[Judgie]

Better question:

Will A Bioeconomy That Produces Fuel From Biorenewable Resources and That Will Need To Contend With the Current and Growing (FOREVER, as envisioned by many, not all Technocopians) Global Population Be Sustainable?

Answer: Most Definitely No.

Reduce the population AND growth rates and you know, you might be on to something