The idea of creating alternative fuels from biomass is not a new one, and it isn’t new to Kentucky either, as many projects have bloomed over the past few years to study everything from switchgrass to sugar beets.
Producing biofuels on the farm, however, is a bit different and is the focus of a relatively new project being led by the University of Kentucky.
Sue Nokes, professor and department chair of biosystems and agricultural engineering, is heading up the research. She said the project is sponsored by the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture and was funded by a $6.9 million grant received in July 2011.
The premise of the project is to take biomass grown, harvested and stored on the farm and convert it into a liquid composed of fuel and organic acids that would get picked up in much the same way milk is picked up at a dairy farm. The mixture would then be taken to a processing facility and refined into useable fuels and other products.
The project is just in the research phase and much of what is proposed is theoretical, but with an infrastructure basically in place, so far it seems to be very obtainable, according to Nokes.
“The farmer would be processing the material into an intermediate product. The process is condensing the energy in the biomass so that what goes off site is a lot more energy dense than what we started with,” she said.
Getting the biomass to this stage is important from an economical standpoint because it cuts down on transportation costs compared to moving the biomass separately, said Nokes.
Materials that could serve as potential fuel stocks include corn stover, wheat straw, switchgrass and miscanthus. The two grasses are widely known for their use in biomass projects because of their high yields, which make them particularly attractive to this venture.
Nokes said that ultimately one of the end products produced from the project would be butanol that could be used as an alternative fuel for gasoline.
“You hear a lot about ethanol, but the USDA is looking at butanol as an alternative to ethanol,” she said. “It has better fuel properties than ethanol.”
Currently, a mandate in this country requires a certain amount of ethanol be used in gasoline and most ethanol is produced from corn. That usage has come under fire by many groups that say the use of corn as a fuel feedstock has driven up prices for livestock producers, thus creating higher prices for consumers. Not only does this project have the potential to create that alternative for ethanol, but it would bring a new revenue source to the farm.
“We envision this as a product a farmer would sell to a refinery,” Nokes said.
The refinery, in turn, would separate the mixture into a number of products in addition to butanol, including ethanol, acetone and possibly acetic and lactic acids.
In addition to giving farmers a money-making opportunity, it would do so without using land on which they currently grow other crops.
“The biomass could be grown on land you wouldn’t necessarily grow corn on,” Nokes said. “They could do it in addition to their grain. The idea, also, is that most farmers have space and time, and that’s what this would take to process the material — space and time.”
Nokes added that the process isn’t meant to be something that is accomplished in a fast manner but rather is intended to work in a way that is compatible with the farm.
“We’re not trying to do this quickly or in a small footprint, like we might have to do on a commercial scale,” she said. “We think we can be a little less efficient, which is kind of where the process is right now, and still get it done — because it’s on-farm instead of in a commercial facility.”
The project incorporates the help of many partners, including CNH America, a machinery company that is developing equipment to bale the biomass in large rectangular bales that are eight feet by three feet by four feet in size and weigh 1,500 pounds each. The bales would then be stored until needed. At that point, the bales would be moved to a bunker silo, something many farms already have, where the processing stage would begin.
“It is a fermentation process, like what [farmers] do with silage already,” Nokes said. “It’s the same kind of idea. The process we’re envisioning would take about three months, but we would be getting product off of it during those three months.”
The biomass would first undergo a pre-treatment with either a chemical or a fungus to break down the woody part of the plant. The mixture is then washed using a sprinkler system. Bacteria to break down the cellulose would then be used to get to a sugar stage. The mixture can then ferment. The water in the mixture would be taken out and recycled and what remains would then be stored until taken to the processing facility.
Some other partners in the initiative include plant and soil sciences, horticulture, chemistry, chemical engineering and the Agricultural Research Service unit at UK, as well as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Wisconsin and North Carolina State University, among others.
Nokes said the project includes looking at the whole picture, including environmental effects, the economics and carbon cycling, to make sure it is going to be “net beneficial.”
The next step will involve UK MBA students who will write a business plan for the project. At the end of the day, it has to be beneficial in an economical way for farmers to participate.
The biofuels industry as a whole has the potential to be economically beneficial to Kentucky. Secretary Len Peters of the state’s Energy and Environmental Cabinet said the benefit of our biomass resources cannot be overstated.
“The Governor’s Task Force on Biofuels and Biomass estimated a potential net economic gain to the state of about $3.4 billion, along with an additional 10,000 jobs, much of which would be concentrated within rural areas statewide,” he said. “As a state, we must focus on our strengths — and when it comes to renewables, our strength is in biomass. In fact, I think Kentucky has great potential to be a national leader in the development of a bioenergy industry.”
Nokes said that so far each piece of the project puzzle works, and the plan now is to put those pieces together, but taking the research out of the lab to the farm presents challenges. Therefore, the project has enlisted the help of a few farmers to advise the researchers on that transition.
She also pointed out that, after it is up and running, on-farm production will likely involve large farms or a cooperative of farms that would enable smaller producers to participate in order to be profitable.