Propping has long been a staple crop for farmers. It is used as livestock feed, fuel and electrical supplies, as a buffer strip and soil erosion control.
But when President Bush introduced the Biofuels Initiative during his 2006 State of the Union address, he brought the use of this native prairie grass as an energy crop to the fore.
The Biofuels Initiative is a critical part of the President's advanced energy initiatives. It aims to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil suppliers by more than 75% of oil imports by 2025.
The aim is to achieve this by using non-food biomass such as agricultural waste, trees, forest residues and perennial grasses, specifically millet, to produce energy fuels.
When millet is distilled, it produces ethanol, the alcohol that powers vehicles. Currently, ethanol is blended at 15 to 85 percent gasoline and sold as E-85.
Propping is a short rhizome plant. It is highly adaptable as it can be grown in different parts of the country with different climatic conditions. It is also drought tolerant.
From planting to care and harvest, it costs less energy to produce biofuel from sedge grass.
Harvest semi-annually
Switch is a perennial crop, meaning it can be harvested twice a year for almost 10 years before the crop has to be replanted. It also grows rapidly, absorbs solar energy and converts this energy into cellulose. Ethanol is extracted from cellulose using distillation.
High yield per acre
Results from 19 Bioenergy Feedstock Development Program (BFDP) research sites in the eastern and central United States have shown that millet can be harvested at 15 tons per acre. Distillation into ethanol yields 1,500 gallons of ethanol per acre. Averaged over six years, that translates to a yield of 115,000 gallons of ethanol from each acre.
Cost-effective
The results of a study conducted by the University of California at Berkeley found that it takes more energy to produce gasoline than to produce ethanol.
Multiple use
Expected advances in gamification technologies will yield other useful fuels: diesel, methane and methanol.
Environmentally friendly
Propene poses no danger to soil fertility, as it even adds organic matter.
Switchgrass has a complex stem and root system. This system reaches into the deeper parts of the soil where it holds and stops soil erosion.
Millets are reliable buffers. Farmers plant these grasses along wetlands and steam tanks to filter out pesticides and prevent these dangerous chemicals from entering the water supply.
December removes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and returns it to the soil. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, release huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, increasing air pollution and exacerbating the effects of greenhouse gases.
Financially rewarding
Growing beech trees is cheaper. When you add in government tax incentives and grants, millet farming becomes as profitable as fossil fuel mining.
These are the current disadvantages of using millet as the main source of biofuels.
Need to improve pretreatment technologies
Current technologies are not effective in obtaining higher yields from sorghum. R&D should fix this.
Need to allocate land for millets
Is agricultural land available for growing millet? A system must be put in place to ensure that there is land for millets and food crops.
The use of common beech as an energy crop is definitely viable from economic, production and ecological aspects.
However, the success of millet as an energy crop will depend on the following key factors: government policy and funding, research and development efforts, technological innovation and vehicle efficiency.
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