Sustainable Feedstock Resource Availability
Crop Residue- What’s It Worth?
Robert Fireovid (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service) explained the interest in crop residues, concerns about crop residues, how USDA-ARS is addressing these concerns, what research it has shown, and what would be the next steps. He includes the water-quality cost and erosion as a consequence of production of grain ethanol. The presentation contains good data about how much these consequences really affect the water supplies.
He proposed some of alternatives and introduced the Renewable Energy Assessment Project (REAP) through which the biomass expectations can be sustainably met. One of them is from biomass to bioenergy where there are 428 million tons of crop residues available, and 256 million tons of corn stover.
Some of the research challenges we still have to deal with are: low density feedstock, inefficient enzymes, desperate need for new biocatalysts, product recovery, and low co-product value. The presentation contains very good figures on meeting expectation sustainability over time. Furthermore, there are tables on information about corn grain and stover yields, price of plants etc. READ MORE
