Biomass ag
A term that is being kicked the growing of certain plants that
around these days could became _can be converted directly into fuel,
quite important in the years ahead. - The Department of Agriculture
The term is “biomass says, "This process of converting
agriculture.” In simple words, it’s plant matter directly into a
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commercial tuel source could
circumvent the millions ot years
required Jor plant energy to
become tossil fuel.” It’s an
ticipated that biomass production
m time could account for one-tenth
of U.S. energy needs.
Biomass production could arrive
on the farm scene very quickly and
could literally overwhelm
production of mdny food and teed
crops. Although research is going
on m this relatively new area of
agriculture, a lot is already known.
The basic production technology
already exists, the major problem
is converting biomass into useful'
energy at a price competitive with
fossil fuels. But once that’s solved,
the implications for agriculture
are tremendous.
For instance, the Agriculture
Department says with present
biomass technology, an estimated .
100 million acres of biomass
feedstock would need to be"
cultivated to-yield fuel for one
tenth of current U.S energy
requirements. The experts think
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Uncaster Farming, Saturday, September 19,1981-D5
there are about 110 million acres of
additional land that could be
converted to crop use by 1985.’
Obviously, the energy crops
would be competing with more
conventional crops for those ad
ditional acres. Crop prices would
become an important determinant
in the mix. If the price is right and
the fuel shortage critical enough,
you can bet a lot of today’s food
and feed crop acres will be
channeled into biomass produc
tion.
The concepfof running an engine
on something other than fossil fuel
goes back many years. In fact, the
first diesel ’ engine exhibited in
Paris in 1900 operated on peanut
oil. Other vegetable oils were used
in limited quantities until the
period of cheap petroleum came
along after World War H.
But now with skyrocketing fuel
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vegetable oils. It’s not a question of
will they work, but rather what do
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is available at $2.24 a gallon,
soybean oil at $1.92. That’s pretty
costly compared to diesel fuel at
$1.20.
That doesn’t make the biomass
concept look too promising until
you consider that during the 1970 s
the price of vegetable oil doubled
while diesel fuel prices increased
five-fold. Project that ahead a
decade and you can see that
vegetable oils could well be im
portant fuels well before the turn of
thecentury.
The Department of Agriculture
figures many obstacles will have to
be overcome before biomass
agriculture becomes practical. Not
the least of these problems will be
converting farmers themselves to
this new line of endeavor. And that
may hinge in large part on
government action. Uncle Sam
might just subsidize production of
certain energy crops just to get the
concept going, or he might be
required to as our fossil fuel supply
dwindles.
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(Turn fo Page D 6)
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