Title:
Grasses for Sustainable Bioenergy Production in Northern China
Author(s):
Zuo, H., Wu, J., Sardo, V.
Document(s):
Paper
Abstract:
In order to help gaining the necessary information for sustainably growing energy crops, an ongoing research was started in 2006 north of Beijing on a sandy clay loam soil aimed at assessing the potential of grasses as bioenergy producers and the related problems in Northern China. One major objective was to collect all the inputs required to run selected simulation models in order to elaborate life cycle analyses and assess the sustainability of the bioenergy generating processes. All the aspects related to cultural practices, energy input, labor, cash and non-cash costs as well as environmental protection were analyzed. The grasses under scrutiny were: silver grass (or miscanthus); switchgrass; giant reed; hybrid pennisetum (annual). The main results so far achieved are: in terms of annual dry biomass averaged yield crops can be ranked in the following order: hybrid pennisetum (44.0 Mg ha-1 ) > giant reed (34.4 Mg ha-1) > miscanthus (29.0 Mg ha-1) > switchgrass (28.1 Mg ha-1); irrigation was not necessary in the years following crop establishment; for N fertilization it was sufficient to apply 150 kg urea ha-1 year-1 in the first years; plant residues on soil surface secured a good protection from water and wind erosion; no need for pesticides has been evidenced; the economic balance showed that switchgrass ranks last and giant reed ranks first while hybrid pennisetum and silver grass are in intermediate positions; hybrid pennisetum ranks first in terms of net energy yield in spite of being last in terms of energy efficiency; hybrid pennisetum ranks last in terms of soil and biodiversity protection, while giant reed and silver grass rank first under this respect. A parallel research has been recently started with mass selection aimed at finding salt-tolerant ecotypes of the same grasses.
Keywords:
switchgrass, giant reed, Miscanthus, silver grass, bioenergy grass, Hybrid pennisetum
Topic:
Biomass resources
Subtopic:
Tools for optimization of biomass
Event:
18th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition
Session:
OC10.3
Pages:
167 - 171
ISBN-13:
978-88-89407-56-1
ISBN-10:
88-89407-56-5
Paper DOI:
10.5071/18thEUBCE2010-OC10.3
Price:
FREE
