Ethanol: Grass Better Than Corn

  • A lot of people are banking on a prairie grass called switchgrass as a future raw material for ethanol. (Photo courtesy of Michigan Department of Natural Resources)

Researchers have found using grass instead of corn might be a better
way to make ethanol. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

Researchers have found using grass instead of corn might be a better
way to make ethanol. Rebecca Williams reports:


Ethanol is showing up in more gas stations around the country. Right
now that ethanol is made from corn. But critics say corn ethanol
takes a lot of energy to produce… so there’s not a huge energy gain
from making it.


Ethanol made from grass might be a better bet.


New research finds that making ethanol from switchgrass is much
more efficient than making it from corn. The study’s published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


In the study, researchers got almost five and a half times more energy
out of the switchgrass than it took to grow, harvest and turn it into
fuel. They say that’s a lot better than corn.


But there’s one big obstacle. The technology to make ethanol from
switchgrass on a commercial scale is still being developed.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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