- News
- May 9, 2010
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On-Farm Biofuels Production
by Francis ThickeYesterday I visited a farmer, Lee McClune, from Knoxville Iowa who has designed a complete system for making ethanol from sweet sorghum on the farm. That is exactly in line with one of the top issues in my campaign: farmer-owned, on-farm energy systems that can sustainably produce energy on a farm to power the farm.
Iowa agriculture is highly dependent on cheap fossil fuel energy, and we seem to be oblivious to the fact that we are at the end of the cheap fossil fuel era. We need to make Iowa agriculture more resilient and energy-efficient, and find sustainable ways to produce energy on farms to power farms.
There are several great features to Mr. McClune’s “sorghanol” system: 1. Sorghum has lower fertility (especially nitrogen) and water needs than corn. 2. Sorghum is planted later than corn, which means that a cover crop could be grown before sorghum is planted, which will reduce soil erosion, reduce soil nutrient loss, and sequester more soil carbon. 3. The sorghum crop residues and nutrients are returned to the soil. Only ethanol leaves the farm, or is used on the farm. 4. According to Mr. McClune, sweet sorghum will yield as much as or more ethanol per acre than corn, with lower levels of energy inputs required. 5. A company in Texas is producing tractors that run on ethanol, which means that ethanol produced on a farm could be used to power the farm.
Ethanol from sorghum might not be the best energy solution for every farm, but it is this kind of creative thinking and innovation that we need to get agriculture off its dependency on fossil fuels.
3 Comments
I understand that (in addition to the catastrophic oil spill) fertilizer runoff into the Mississippi is causing algae blooms in the Gulf that are negatively impacting their fishing industry down there. Is there a way to capture some of that runoff at the source to grow algae-based biodiesel? I recently saw this article on pressure cooking algae biodiesel:
http://www.wwj.com/UM-Pressure-Cooking-Algae-Into-Better-Biofuel/6851949
They could even do the same with hog farm waste, cooking fuel from e coli.
Our ecological and economic issues are integrated. We need to dream big about integrated solutions. Scalable biofuels production is a terrific idea. Keep these ideas coming!
As the article you provided the link to points out, algal-based biofuel production has a lot of potential, particulary if tied to waste streams that the algae can utilize.
Perhaps some of the high nitrate leachate from field tile drains could be diverted to algae ponds for biofuels production. However, that wouldn’t make much of a “dent” in the volume of tile-drainage leachate from the millions of acres of tile-drained soils in the Midwest.
What a wonderful meeting with Dr. Thicke! As editor of SORGANOL News, a newsletter that we are developing for the SORGANOL Producers Association, I felt privileged to be part of a meeting that I believe was history in the making. Mr. Lee McClune, a farmer and physicist/engineer, was thrilled to talk with Dr. Thicke, a fellow farmer and agronomist, who understood the simplicity and viability of Mr. McClune’s plans for SORGANOL production by farmers. SORGANOL is a sustainable and carbon-neutral biofuel. Mr. McClune has developed in-field processes that use only proven technologies. His concepts are very beneficial to farmers financially and are environmentally friendly. Dr. Thicke commented about the benefits to farmers and also the reduction of greenhouse gasses that would be in effect through the production and use of SORGANOL. Wow! The SORGANOL Production Company stands ready to manufacture Mr. McClune’s patented Sor-Cane Harvesters in Knoxville, IA. If you are interested in supporting SORGANOL, or for questions, please contact Mr. Lee McClune at sorganol@hotmail.com and if you are interested in receiving the future publication of SORGANOL News please contact Tammy L. Havlik at sorganolnews@hotmail.com Our first four bi-weekly issues will be complimentary. Also, please feel free to visit http://www.sorganol.com Thank you again, Dr. Thicke!