Want the next energy source? Try willow, hemp and switchgrass

STOCKHOLM – Plants that can be grown for fuel are often touted as a vast, clean energy source – except by those who say precious food is being diverted into gas tanks, and that biofuel crops are using up dwindling land and water.

Enter willow, hemp and switchgrass.

Scientists say research into a new generation of biofuel sources could yield cheap energy supplies that do not compete with food crops – or with nature – for water or space.
The day may be decades away, but some say plants might even cover a large share of the world’s energy needs.

Goran Berndes, a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, says the list of possible plants goes far beyond the established crops such as corn, maize and sugar cane that are already grown commercially for fuel uses.

“Bioenergy is much broader,” he said. “Most people working in bioenergy expect other crops to dominate in the long term.”

One promising energy source is the willow, a northern plant used to make baskets and cricket bats. Others include hemp, known for its rope-making and mind-altering qualities, and switchgrass, a reedy plant found in the US Midwest.

A new crop that is being used already is jatropha, a resilient, oil-rich, tropical plant that can be grown on waste land and even introduces nutrients to the soil. Its oil is already used in India to power diesel cars and turbines.

Jatropha has grabbed headlines because it avoids the biggest controversy surrounding biofuels: the ethical debate over whether agricultural resources should be used for energy when millions across the planet go hungry.

New Zealand Herald