Miscanthus - The Supergrass of Energy?
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 09. 8.05
How the worm turns. From the home state of the fossil fuel dependent automobile industry comes research that could liberate many from such a nasty addiction. The Uni of Illinois reckons if it planted 8% of the state's land area with Miscanthus grass, burning the resulting dried fibre could generate enough electricty for the entire state. A similar percentage, if cropped in Ireland, could yield about a third of that country’s electricity. Now, long term ‘huggers will know we like our grasses here, especially that bamboo stuff. But this one deserves keeping an eye out for. Apparently the US are thinking doing a 50% mix with coal, to run power plants. This is not the common backyard lawn that your push mower can tackle—it grows up and over the 4 metre mark (that’s about 13 feet for those in the world still to embrace metric). According the scientists quoted in this ABC news bulletin, Miscanthus would also be carbon neutral. But don’t take our word for it. Read Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s factoids and the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs take on it, too. ::ABC News Online
Detroit is in Michigan, not Illinois.
Of course it is. CN, Thank You for being so gentle with me. Others might've lambasted me with much more vigour. My tired old, sleep deprived brain apologises for messing up such a simple geography lesson. As penance, I'll go sit in the corner with my dunces hat on.
Could one go about cultivating this oneself and say, burning it in a woodstove? I know early settlers on the prairies used to wind up grass and bind it into burnable "logs" to heat with. Does anyone know anything about where to secure rhyzomes, what variety is best, how to harvest, prepare for burning, etc.?
Tim, here is one place you can try for sales of Miscanthus Giganteu. $15USD a pop. Maybe it's hybrid, because they seem unsure of the source, but we understand that the original came from the mountains of Japan
http://www.hostas.com/grasses/gallery/grass-39.html
Excellent - thank you Warren. So, in other words, exactly what variety the U of Illinois used in their tests is unknown?