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Making The Case For Miscanthus as a Dedicated Energy Crop

 

Miscanthus x Giganteus (MxG) has great potential to become the energy crop of choice in the United States. It has been explored in Europe for two decades but has not been actively pursued in the U.S. until very recently. Many reasons can be cited, such as the lack of long-term yield data in different U.S. regions, high establishment costs and the relatively low yield from direct conversion of cellulosic biomass into bioethanol based on today’s technology. Lack of political support for green initiatives such as proliferation of carbon credits adds to the woes for adoption of miscanthus as a viable energy crop of the future. The key issue to be addressed, therefore, is the apparent lack of sustainable economics.frontpage


In general, many studies have pointed to the fact that miscanthus should be a more suitable candidate than switchgrass  as an energy crop. MxG dry mass yield reaches twice that of switchgrass with a rotation cycle of up to 20 years. Typically, dry mass yield can be 12 to 20 tons per acre, with the highest reported yield of 24 tons per acre. Nevertheless, large-scale commercialization of MxG has not yet appeared, and there remain very few, if any, economically viable integrated commercialization or business process approaches.
It is crucial to the successful scalability and sustainability of MxG commercialization that the individual process Miscanthus blocks—propagation, farming, densification and be sustainably profitable. This will significantly enable the national targets for conversion of biomass to ethanol or biocoal to be achievable.
At least three U.S. companies, including Earth Sense Energy USA, Inc., have developed MxG commercialization methodologies that, while subtly different, can supply only a small portion of a large and growing market. In addition, through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, the USDA has aided the establishment of four planting zones totaling 200,000 acres in the U.S. for growing miscanthus as a dedicated energy crop and feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production.  Federal programs such as BCAP, local government subsidies, carbon credits and other forms of subsidies are market accelerators, but not enablers. Key features of a successful integrated approach will lie in balancing the business risks with innovative technology and business solutions, imposing rigorous financial assessment of the returns on investment in various segments.



 

 

USA projections

 

 

 

Shares of energy sources in total global primary energy supply in 2008


Special Report Renewable Energy Sources (SRREN) — Summary for Policy Makers , IPCC, May 2011, p. 6 PDF formatted document
copyright: ESEUSA 2005