Getting fuel from plants like corn
and sugar cane is not that efficient. That’s
why researchers are working on so-called
cellulosic biofuels. The process turns things
like corn stalks, wood chips, and grasses into
fuel. As Mark Brush reports, some new
cellulosic refineries are breaking ground:
Transcript
Getting fuel from plants like corn
and sugar cane is not that efficient. That’s
why researchers are working on so-called
cellulosic biofuels. The process turns things
like corn stalks, wood chips, and grasses into
fuel. As Mark Brush reports, some new
cellulosic refineries are breaking ground:
The new refineries are being built with money from the federal government. The hope is
to perfect a fuel source that a) doesn’t come from food, and b) is much more efficient
than corn-based ethanol.
The problem is it’s hard to get at the sugars inside the
plants. But the payback could be big. For every one unit of energy going in,
cellulosic ethanol could spit out about five to ten units of energy.
Brian Davidson is with the BioEnergy Science Center. He says industry officials are
hopeful, but he thinks these new refineries are just a first step.
“They believe that those technologies will be more widely applicable, but I actually
believe that we’re going to need further technology improvements to go from these first
few handful of plants, handful of bio-refineries, to make them widespread.”
Davidson says scientists still have not perfected ways to break down the plants in a
cost-effective way.
Eric Rund raises corn and soy on his Illinois
farm but is experimenting with 'Miscanthus x giganteus',
a hybrid grass that could become a major feedstock for
cellulosic ethanol - if the market ever matures.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
Stephen John is an agronomist with the Agricultural
Watershed Institute, which is helping the area around Decatur, Illinois cut down on soil erosion and fertilizer pollution; he
believes perennial grasses such as miscanthus may be part of
the solution.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
Gary Letterly dips his hand into a hopper of miscanthus
pellets in the furnace room of his University of Illinois Extension
Service office in Taylorville, Illinois.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
These pellets were produced from miscanthus grown in
Illinois; they're fed into a modified corn furnace to heat office space.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
This furnace was originally built to burn pelletized corn, but
Gary Letterly had an Illinois manufacturer modify it to burn miscanthus
pellets; corn and grass (miscanthus and other grasses such as switchgrass)
produce different amounts of ash when burned.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
The US is in the middle of an
ethanol revolution, or at least it’s
supposed to be. Scientists want to
develop ethanol that doesn’t use corn
– so food prices won’t go up. They’ve
found a tall grass called miscanthus that
can produce loads of ethanol – but they
haven’t perfected it yet. Shawn Allee reports some are trying to grow
miscanthus before the ethanol revolution
arrives:
Transcript
The US is in the middle of an
ethanol revolution, or at least it’s
supposed to be. Scientists want to
develop ethanol that doesn’t use corn
– so food prices won’t go up. They’ve
found a tall grass called miscanthus that
can produce loads of ethanol – but they
haven’t perfected it yet. Shawn Allee reports some are trying to grow
miscanthus before the ethanol revolution
arrives:
You won’t find much miscanthus near Decatur, Illinois.
Nope. Corn is crop number one.
But all this corn-growing has a downside.
Agronomist Stephen John offers to show it to me.
Shawn Allee: “Where are we?”
Stephan John: “Well, we’re near the upper end of Lake Decatur, looking across at
the city’s dredge. Right now that dredge that is sucking up sediment from the lake
bottom.”
John says corn can leave ground bare, and rain washes dirt and fertilizer pollution into
this lake.
“Some of that nitrogen gets into streams and ditches into Lake Decatur, which had
to develop a facility to protect drinking water.”
John wants farmers to protect soil from erosion and use less fertilizer.
One option is to grow grasses that hold soil and use less nitrogen. One candidate is that
miscanthus grass the ethanol industry’s interested in.
Problem is, no one buys miscanthus yet.
“So, the trick is how do you make it economically viable to get those grasses onto the
land, how do you make that attractive?”
John says people are working on that problem.
Farmer Eric Rund stands near a patch of miscanthus grass. He’s a pretty tall guy, but the
grass is even taller.
Shawn Allee: “I’m putting my hand through here.”
Eric Rund: “It’s like a jungle in there, it’s like bamboo growth or something.”
Rund says corn farmers get kinda freaked out by miscanthus. It doesn’t grow from seed,
and unlike corn, it takes years to produce.
He says farmers need to experiment with it.
“And if we do that now, when ethanol production comes along, we will then have a
reliable source of biomass for the ethanol plant.”
Rund says some farmers would grow miscanthus just to protect water and soil. But to
make it mainstream, it’s gotta be profitable.
“That’s the key. No farmer’s going to plant much of it unless there’s a market for it
and there’s no market for it unless there’s a steady supply of it, so the two are going
to have to grow together.”
But what if that takes a while for the ethanol industry to come knocking? Who would use
Rund’s miscanthus?
I meet a guy who’s working on a solution.
Gary Letterly: “What would you like to do, where would you like to start?”
Shawn Allee: “I want to see your furnace.”
I’m with Gary Letterly. He works with the University of Illinois.
He says in corn country, some people heat their homes with corn pellets.
That gave him an idea on how to heat his office.
“And what you see here, it was a corn furnace, and we thought it would be just
great if we could use that furnace and burn grass pellets.
Right next to the modified furnace, there’s a plastic hopper full of miscanthus pellets.
They look like rabbit or hamster food, and they smell like grass.
“Look at high energy costs. This was very competitive with natural gas, and the very
nice thing is being able to keep this value very close to home. The grass was
produced within fifteen miles, the furnaces were produced within five miles, and the
grass was processed into a pellet within 30 miles.”
Letterly says miscanthus offers enough local economic and environmental benefits that
people should look into it now.
It already has potential to be a kind of super-star plant, with or without help from an
ethanol industry may never come.
Steve Mohoney (left), of the Clinton County Soil & Water Conservation
District, gives dairy farmer Dale Tetreault his first look at "Bigfoot". (Photo by David Sommerstein)
Over the last 30 years, plastics
have become indispensable on America’s
farms. They save farmers time and money.
The problem is agricultural plastics are
filling up landfills. In some places,
farmers actually burn the plastic. That
releases dangerous chemicals into the air.
David Sommerstein reports
on a new effort to bale plastics and recycle
them:
Transcript
Over the last 30 years, plastics
have become indispensable on America’s
farms. They save farmers time and money.
The problem is agricultural plastics are
filling up landfills. In some places,
farmers actually burn the plastic. That
releases dangerous chemicals into the air.
David Sommerstein reports
on a new effort to bale plastics and recycle
them:
Farmers must have been paying attention when Dustin Hoffman got that
famous piece of advice in ‘The Graduate’.
“I just want to say one word to you, just one word.”
“Yes, sir?”
“ Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Plastics.”
Plastics are all over the farm today. Plastic greenhouse covers. White sheets
to wrap hay bales. Black plastic feed troughs.
(sound of moving troughs)
Dale Tetreault shakes a tall pile of the feed troughs on his dairy farm in
northern New York State.
“They’re a hard plastic and they hold molasses and minerals.”
Tetreault says the plastics are handy – essential, really – to keep feed fresh
for his 500 cows. But the material’s hard to re-use because it gets dirty and
tears easily.
So Tetreault’s left with a decision – spend a thousand dollars a year to truck
them to the landfill. Or burn them, polluting the air and water.
“Yeah, exactly, I mean, we’re not talking about some light piece of plastic
here. We’re talking about heavy duty plastic.”
A new machine is giving Tetrault a third alternative. It goes by the name of
Bigfoot.
(sound of motor starting up)
Bigfoot is a portable hydraulic press. It crushes used plastic and ties it up
in bales.
“Quite an interesting contraption, that’s for sure.”
Tetreault’s been saving up used farm plastics for a couple months for this
test run.
“Alright, we ready to try this?”
That’s Steve Mahoney, a farm educator with the local soil and water
conservation district. He bought Bigfoot with a $35,000 state grant.
(sound of engine running)
Mahoney and some farmhands stuff dirty plastic sheets into the baler, then
Bigfoot crushes it down. That makes room for more.
(crushing sound)
“Okay, so go on back up.”
Mahoney teaches the farmhands how to run Bigfoot. With the help of the
local farm extension office, he’s baled plastics at nine farms so far. He
wants all of the area’s farmers to share Bigfoot, to keep plastics out of the
landfill or burn pile.
“It’s an obvious problem on the farms. It’s necessary, but the disposal of it
is a problem.”
The big plan is to recycle the plastic. Mahoney’s coordinating with a
recycling firm in Minnesota to pick up 40,000 pounds of plastic bales. They
could be made into plastic lumber or shingles or road filler.
The thing is, there isn’t much of a market for low-grade, dirty plastic right
now. Lois Levitan directs New York’s Ag Plastics Recycling Project at
Cornell University. She says as fuel costs rise and more farmers bale their
plastic, that might change.
“Markets want to know that there’s a certain quantity of product at a
certain level of quantity and they’re going to become increasingly interested
when they know there’s a steady stream.”
(sound of Bigfoot machine popping out a bale)
“Ok, that’s it, that’s the finished product.”
Steve Mahoney presses a button and out pops a thousand pound bale of
plastic. Farmhand Lennie Merculdi brushes his hands.
“Put it this way, trying to put it in a dumpster, to the barn, and never having
enough room for the garbage, that’s not good either. What’s a few minutes?
You get rid of the plastic, it’s convenient, you tie it up and away it goes.”
For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.
Ken Brunswick at the Limberlost marsh (Photo by Sam Hendren)
The Limberlost marsh was written about by Gene Stratton-Porter, a
popular novelist in the early 1900s. Stratton-
Porter was best known for her fictional accounts
set in and around an the swamp. (Photo by Sam Hendren)
A red-winged blackbird at the Limberlost marsh (Photo by Sam Hendren)
Biologists say we’ve lost about half
of the number of songbirds we had just 50 years
ago. Part of the reason is the loss of habitat.
Many birds need wetlands. Sam Hendren has the
story of one man’s love of those birds and his
work to save their home:
Transcript
Biologists say we’ve lost about half
of the number of songbirds we had just 50 years
ago. Part of the reason is the loss of habitat.
Many birds need wetlands. Sam Hendren has the
story of one man’s love of those birds and his
work to save their home:
When Ken Brunswick was a kid, he wanted
to study birds. Brunswick grew up near the
western Ohio town of St. Henry in the 1950s. He
says it didn’t take long to read all the books
about birds in the local library.
“I knew exactly where all the bird books were
because at that time that’s what I had my heart
set on, being an ornithologist,” Brunswick says.
One of the books that inspired Brunswick
was written by Gene Stratton-Porter. She was a
popular novelist in the early 1900s. Stratton-
Porter was best known for her fictional accounts
set in and around an Indiana swamp called the
Limberlost. She was also an amateur naturalist
and wrote several books about birds.
“I was in the eighth grade in that little two-room
schoolhouse reading ‘What I Have Done With
Birds’ by Gene Stratton-Porter, and the teacher
walked up to see what book I was reading, and
looked at it and the teacher said, ‘You know that
place isn’t very far from here.’ And I didn’t know
what she was talking about.”
The Limberlost actually was only a few miles
west across the state line. Stratton-Porter
moved to the area in 1888. But to the locals, the
trees were valuable lumber and the swamp was
a waste of land. Stratton-Porter wrote that
commerce attacked the Limberlost and began,
she said, its usual process of devastation. By
1910, two decades of destruction were
complete.
“This Loblolly Marsh was what I consider the
heart of the Limberlost area and this marsh was
actually the last thing that was drained in this
area so the farmers could start farming it,” says
Brunswick.
Brunswick became a farmer himself. He
started a dairy only a mile from the old Loblolly
Marsh. Through the years he learned more about
the swamp and the birds that lived there.
Later he formed the Limberlost
Remembered project. The group’s mission: to
bring Loblolly Marsh back to life. And they’ve
made a lot of headway.
Brunswick, who’s 63, is retried from farming.
He’s now an ecologist for the Indiana
Department of Natural Resources. He oversees
the Limberlost restoration.
We take a look at the changes aboard his ATV.
He’s maneuvering along a path near the edge of
the marsh. It’s thick with prairie cord grass,
switch grass and blue stem. Some of the grasses
have been planted here; other plant seeds have
lain dormant for decades and are now reclaiming
the ground on their own.
Out in the marsh the water is a gentle sea of
green and wildflowers abound around the edges.
But Brunswick’s love of the birds has not gone
away. And he’s thrilled to see them returning to
their marsh home.
“This is the area where we see American Bittern
once in a while. There’s been Virginia Rail, we
hear Sora Rail in here also. Sora is just a real
little bird that has just the dandiest sound when
it makes its call,” Brunswick says.
These birds and others like them are in
trouble. Most of the wetlands and prairies where
birds once thrived have disappeared.
Brunswick’s dream of becoming an
ornithologist never happened. But his work to
save the Limberlost has been his way of doing
something for the birds he loves.
“Actually when I think about this work I’m doing
it takes me back to that dream I had when I was
a kid in that two room schoolhouse. That dream
of being an ornithologist was taken away and
here, about 30 years later, seeing this land
flooding, I’m seeing birds that, some of them, I
never saw before.”
And the work of an old farmer has restored
the wetlands and natural areas that farmers
before him destroyed.
An endangered holiday darter. Darters are among the most threatened Southeastern fish; they have been likened to aquatic canaries. (Photo by Noel Burkhead, courtesy of USGS)
A new study shows things are getting
worse for fish in North America. Lester
Graham reports water pollution is the problem:
Transcript
A new study shows things are getting
worse for fish in North America. Lester
Graham reports water pollution is the problem:
The U.S. Geological Survey finds nearly twice as many kinds of fish are now listed
as imperiled today than just 20 years ago. 61 types of fish have gone extinct.
Howard Jelks is the lead author of the study.
He says the decline in fish is because most streams, rivers, and lakes are in worse
shape because of sprawling development, farmers’ chemicals, and pollution washed
off parking lots and streets.
Even if you don’t go fishing, or really even care about the fish, Jelks says there’s a
reason you should care.
“You know, at a certain point, it’s a quality of life issue. If it’s not good enough for
some of these fish, it’s probably not good enough for your kids to swim in.”
And the experts say that means we all have to think about what’s going down the
drain and what chemicals we’re putting on lawns, and on farms.
Researchers at the University of Delaware have found that planting trees around poultry farms has many benefits (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
As suburbs are built closer to
farms, there are sometimes complaints
about the odors. Researchers are now
working to smooth things out between
farmers and their new neighbors. Jessi
Ziegler has the story on one
of the simple solutions they found:
Transcript
As suburbs are built closer to
farms, there are sometimes complaints
about the odors. Researchers are now
working to smooth things out between
farmers and their new neighbors. Jessi
Ziegler has the story on one
of the simple solutions they found:
If you’ve ever driven by a chicken farm, you know the
smell can get pretty bad.
So, imagine living by one, and smelling it every single day.
Well, researchers may have come up with a solution –
trees.
Planting a few rows of trees around a farm can do all sorts
of good.
They capture dust and ammonia. And they block noise
and odor.
Also, they make the farm look a lot prettier. Which,
researcher George Malone says, can make a big difference.
“There’s been other studies to indicate that attractive
farms, statistically, have less odor than unattractive farms.
Perception is reality of what we deal with.”
And the perception is, the better you think a farm looks,
the better you think it smells.
For The Environment Report, this is Jessi Ziegler.
Today’s cattle are much bigger than they were back in the 1920s. They’ve been bred to
big and beefy. But, it turns out, you can actually produce more meat with the smaller
cattle.
(Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)
Because of feed and energy prices,
some cattle farmers are scaling back.
They’re not reducing the size of their
herd. They’re reducing the size of their
cows. Kinna Ohman reports:
Transcript
Because of feed and energy prices,
some cattle farmers are scaling back.
They’re not reducing the size of their
herd. They’re reducing the size of their
cows. Kinna Ohman reports:
Today’s cattle are much bigger than they were back in the 1920s. They’ve been bred to
big and beefy. But, it turns out, you can actually produce more meat with the smaller
cattle.
Richard Gradwohl has been breeding miniature cattle for more than forty years. He
says with today’s larger beef cattle on five acres, you can produce 2400 pounds of
meat. He can raise as much as 7000 pounds of beef on that same five acres.
“It’s surprising to me how many large cattle breeders call me almost every day
because they’re interested in reducing the size of their animals to achieve more
feed efficiency.”
Gradwohl thinks the emphasis on breeding large cattle might be reversing.
Bob Gavlak and his partners organize freshly-harvested produce in
their cooling truck. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Deli owner Donna Chriszt is pleased with the quality of the beans
and other produce. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Most twenty year olds use online
networking sites. But most farmers don’t.
Until now. A team of recent college grads
is using their internet savvy to connect
farms and restaurants. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Most twenty year olds use online
networking sites. But most farmers don’t.
Until now. A team of recent college grads
is using their internet savvy to connect
farms and restaurants. Julie Grant reports:
Last summer Matt Szugye entered a college business school
competition. His team needed to make a plan for a new
business. They started throwing around ideas.
“It just happened, that the night before I was at a restaurant
talking with an owner, and they were telling me about the
trials and tribulations of starting their restaurant with the idea
that they would serve seasonal, local produce.”
But the restaurant owner couldn’t get food like onions,
zucchini or tomatoes directly from local farms. Szugye’s
team studied the idea. Lots of people in the food business
were saying the same things. Things like this:
“So I’m getting things shipped in from other states.”
That’s Donna Chriszt. She’s the owner and chef at Dish Deli
and Catering. It’s a small, gourmet deli in a downtown
Cleveland neighborhood.
“And the amount of fossil fuels that are coming out of that,
we hated. So, it’s not what I wanted to do for my
community.”
So now that the college team knew there was demand for a
product, they contacted farmers. Eureka. There was also a
supply. Lots of farmers wanted new ways to sell their fruits
and vegetables locally.
The team put together a plan for a distribution business – to
pickup produce from farms and deliver it to nearby
restaurants.
They decided they could use the internet.
It would work a little like an online dating service. Each
farmer could list what’s available and set the price. The
restaurant owners could browse through the list and place
their orders. The college students’ business plan would be
the match-maker.
The team won their business school contest.
After graduation this Spring, they launched an actual
business based on their model.
They call it Fresh Fork.
Donna Chriszt was thrilled.
“I was like hallelujah. Thank God someone will be able to
help a small place like me by doing all the foot work.”
(sound of a factory)
After picking up produce from farmers, Fresh Fork Team
member Bob Gavlak is finally getting back to the distribution
center. It’s 10 p.m. It could have gone a lot sooner, but he
got caught up talking with the farmers about what they’re
growing and how their kids are doing, you know, forging
relationships.
(sound of a cooling truck)
The team now has to move racks of produce in a cooling
truck. Then they organize it all.
“This is where we’re going tomorrow, is Dish Deli and
Catering. And you can see Knoble Farms. They have some
corn.”
When Gavlak and his partners started planning this
business, they didn’t quite get why there was such a fuss
about local food.
They were still college students fueled by Ramen and fast
food.
So they spent some time on the food prep line at an upscale
local restaurant – cutting onions, stirring soup – for hours.
Not pouring soup out of a bag like a lot of places. Gavlak
says he started to understand.
“I would go to the store and I’d have strawberries, and I’d be
like, ‘oh, these are so good’. But then, when we had
strawberries here in the spring and early summer, it’s like I’d
never had a strawberry before. It’s just seeing the difference
that happens between a product that’s fresh and homegrown
and the product that isn’t.”
The team finishes sorting all their fresh produce at midnight.
They’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn to deliver to 8
restaurants, a grocery store, and a hospital.
(sound of Dish Deli)
When Gavlak brings her order, deli owner Donna Chriszt
inspects the cucumbers, rhubarb, and red skin potatoes.
“And our big bushel of corn. And everything looks great. It’s
always exciting when it comes in, because we’re like, ‘what
are we going to do with this?’”
This week, they’re planning rhubarb cobbler, potato salad
and fresh pickles for a neighborhood festival.
Gavlak smiles. He’s says it makes him feel good that the
business he and his college buddies designed, Fresh Fork,
is connecting farms and restaurants and getting people
fresh, locally grown food.
He finishes the order, and then walks into Chriszt’s deli to
have some lunch.
It is predicted that the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the size of the state of Massachusetts (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Environmental groups are
petitioning the government to limit
pollution from farm fields in states
that drain into the Mississippi River
and its tributaries. The pollution
contributes to a so-called ‘Dead Zone’
in the Gulf of Mexico. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
Transcript
Environmental groups are
petitioning the government to limit
pollution from farm fields in states
that drain into the Mississippi River
and its tributaries. The pollution
contributes to a so-called ‘Dead Zone’
in the Gulf of Mexico. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
Nine groups from states bordering the Mississippi River are calling for standards
to limit nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. The main source of the chemicals
is runoff from farms.
Attorney Betsy Lawton is with Midwest Environmental Advocates.
She says it’s been ten years since the Environmental Protection Agency said it
would make states in the Mississippi Basin protect and clean up the waters.
“EPA has long held that it would step up and take action when states failed to do.
It has set several deadlines for states to take this type of action and limit this
pollution but has let the states slide from those deadlines.”
The nitrogen and phosphorus flow down the Mississippi into the Gulf Dead Zone
– an oxygen depleted area of about 8,000 square miles – or the size of the state
of Massachusetts.
It is predicted that the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico could be the largest ever (Photo courtesy of NASA)
A researcher is predicting farm
fertilizers will cause record “Dead Zones”
in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay
this year. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A researcher is predicting farm
fertilizers will cause record “Dead Zones”
in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay
this year. Lester Graham reports:
These dead zones are areas where oxygen is depleted. No oxygen and much of the
marine life leaves or dies. It’s caused by nitrogen-based farm fertilizers that are
washed off the fields and into the water.
Donald Scavia is a researcher at the University of Michigan. Using U.S. Geological
Survey data, he predicts the dead zone in Chesapeake Bay will be the sixth largest
on record.
“The six other ones are also not that much bigger than what we’re predicting for this
year.”
Heavy rains and flooding across the Corn Belt washed nitrogen fertilizers into the
Mississippi River system and then on to the Gulf of Mexico. Scavia predicts the
dead zone in the Gulf could be the largest ever.
“What you put down on the land is what gets flushed in those rainstorms. And we’re
putting too much fertilizer on the land. So,
what’s changed over the last three decades is agricultural practices. What changes
from year-to-year is the weather.”
Scavia says better methods of farming could reduce the dead zones.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
