Kudzu as Biofuel?

Why convert it? With a set of spurs and good strong reins, you can just point it in the intended direction of travel and ride it to your destination.

Kudzu could be grown on trellises that could be cycled into biofuel along with it, so it wouldn't have to be disentangled in order to harvest it. The value of Kudzu depends on the amount of cellulose present in the vine. You wouldn't actually burn it for fuel, you would chop it and ferment it to produce ethanol. Check out "rumen fermentation"...very interesting.

Another way would be to "refract" it. There was a project somewhere in the south central US about 10 years ago where a guy could put in any organic material, refract it over several hours at around 500 F and recover all the water, base metals, and carbon from the mass. The low temperature refractor was a recovery system - mainly for organic trash and chicken parts from the Tyson farms. Wonder what ever happened to him.

Anyway - the lignin and cellulose in kudzu could provide ethanol, but since it can grow a foot a day, and is a vine, it could be forced to grow into absolutely cheap organic material mats that could then be used as evaporative surfaces (after drying the vines and recovering the water they emit). These evaporative mats would be useful in desalination and water purification.

So I agree - kudzu isn't useful now because we haven't imagined a use for it. The fact that it's a vine means it has different uses compared to bamboo - if you went into those poor southern areas where people are out of work, and offered 2 cents a pound for chopped kudzu, I bet you would have people lining up for miles with bales of the stuff.

As I have pointed out before - Fermentation produces the waste greenhouse gas Methane; which must be flared while making your bio-fuel. I ask you, where is the environmental bonus in making a waste product that is 25 times more polluting than carbon dioxide?

CAPTURE THE METHANE LIKE HOG FARMERS DO. USE IT TO FOR FUEL ALSO.

A LAND FILL IN WHITTIER, CA TAPS THE METHANE GAS FROM THE BURIED TRASH

AND FUELS A POWER GENERATING STATION PLUS THEIR FLEET OF TRUCKS.

THERE REALLY IS NO END TO INNOVATIVE USES OF WHAT IS TYPICALLY CONCIDERED

TRASH OR USELESS. IT SURE BEATS USING CORN. THAT ONLY MAKES OUR FOOD

MORE EXPENSIVE AND AT RISK TO LARGE CROP FAILURES. KEEP THINKING, LES

Unless there is something seriously wrong with the fermentation process, an insignificant amount of methanogenisis should occur. Ethanol production will generate a lot of CO₂, the offgas would not be cost effective to recover for fuel (unlike a Landfill where oxidation potential is so low that methanogenisis is the dominant form material decay. I have never seen a ethanol plant, and i live near one and was one of the engineers on the original project, flare methane. If you see a flare at a ethanol plant something is seriously wrong in there processing. Oil production on the other hand... Keep in mind that ethanol production (fermetation) is what every drinking alcohol producers does, e.g. Jack Daniels and Anheuser Busch, and they are not flaring off methane byproducts.

You capture the CH4, burn it to boil water, power a steam driven generator....called cogeneration and it's very effective.

Electro, Good ideas! I'm already working on such on a small scale at the house...except that I'm growing the plants vertically/ above ground in a tire ring on a concrete pad as they don't like pH 8.0 and above. Now that they're growing, I'm adding wire trellising to make mechanical harvesting easier...the way that grape vines are cultivated. Jessica Marshall's 6/16/08 article " Kudzu Gets Kudos as a Potential Biofuel" got me started. Grasses are definitely not the answer for cellulosic biomass conversion to ethanol/ butanol and direct hydrogen production...that's just BIG MONEY foot-dragging. For a window/ portal into real/ current research try YHP Zhang's "Zhang Group" site @vt.edu( VA. Tech)...especially their 2008/ 2009 publications (which you can have for free)... maybe start with the " Restarting the Hydrogen Economy.." article...And did you see that last Monday, 2/16/09, Oak Ridge Nat'l Lab certified that we can now go directly from cellulose to hydrogen by a scale-able process @ ambient T&P???And for your further reading , I suggest Shurtleff & Aoyagi's " THE Book O of Kudzu (1977)"...written way ahead of its time. Good job thinking beyond the B&M crowd...Tomo

Thanks for your comment. I think Kudzu may have advantages over algae. For one thing it can be fed to livestock first, and the remainder used to make biofuel.

HOW ABOUT ITS USE AS A CO2 ABSORBER ? GROWN NEXT TO A POWER PLANT THE CAPTURED CO2 COULD BE PUMPED UNDER GROUND INTO A KUDZU FIELD AND ABSORBED. IF GROWN HIGH LIKE HOPS YOU COULD EXPAND THE AVAILABLE SURFACE AREA THE AT LEAST 3 TIMES A FLAT FIELD COULD PRODUCE. MAYBE A NEW 'GREEN' USE FOR AN INVASIVE PLANT. WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK ABOUT THIS POSSIBILITY ?

Hello LES HARVEY

http://www.yahoolavista.com/kudzu/

That plant appears to be a real pest, but the energy input of harvesting, drying and storing it, will probably, like most biofuels, exceed the nett energy output.

As an aside, some Bamboo varieties can grow more that 2 feet overnight.

Kind Regards....

Hmm, wonder what the cellulose content is. Maybe since it is so fast growing and invasive we could harvest it and use for cellulosic ethanol. Maybe even if the content is not particularly high, the rate of growth and government funding to help combat it as an invasive species could make it a viable resource for ethanol production.

THINK OF ALL THE TOBACCO FARMERS DOWN SOUTH THAT NEED A NEW CASH CROP.

THIS COULD ALSO REDUCE THE DEMAND FOR CORN BASED FUELS. THE COST OF CORN FOR FOOD AND ANIMAL FEED COULD BE REDUCED TO A MORE REASONABLE

PRICE. IT WOULD TAKE A BIG PROBLEM AND TURN INTO A NEW INDUSTRY.

That's the problem with Kudzu - all subspecies are invasive and aggressive.

This was one of Jimmy Carter's 'good ideas'. He thought it would 'green up the highway'. What we need, right now, is something that will hunt down and eat this stuff. It's destroying an entire ecosystem in the South Eastern U.S.

This stuff is not susceptible to conventional plant killer. Anything that will kill this will also kill rats and that means by extension that we're killing higher mammals. The only thing that kills Kudzu is fire or maybe, Agent Orange, and no one wants to use Agent Orange.

Orpheuse

As you can see from this picture, Kudzu completely covers the trees so that the tree never get any sunlight and,eventually, die.

Some one's got to say it so let it be on my head: Think Hemp Seed Oil. Each hemp seed yields 90% of it's mass as Hemp seed oil, and it burns very clean.

There. I've said the unthinkable/unspeakable/unbearable concept. Now let's get off our high-horses and soapboxes and start producing something we can burn safely, from an environmental view.

Orpheuse

Orpheuse, Hemp fiber can also be used for making paper. We used to grow hemp on our farm during WWII, but it was not anything like what people grow now.

Back to Kudzu, It would be great if we could use it to make biofuel. I don't know if the sugar level in the plant is high enough to have much alcohol yield and most yeast strains in use don't convert fiber very well.

Mike

Fine idea Orpheus! Mind if I stand down wind and...err..."watch" it burn?

I don't think there is anything other than hydrogen that can be "burned safely from an environmental point of view." Burning anything else produces CO2.

except of course sulfur, aluminum, phosphorus, etc. which also do not produce CO₂ when burned. However, I am sure none of these elements are environmentally friendlier, safer, or as available as carbon based fuels.

Puts a whole new spin on "sitting around and watching the grass grow, dunnit?"

There are all sorts of application today for Hemp. In Israel it's used in head trauma surgery. The fibers can be woven into just about anything we use cotton for.

As for paper, one acre of Hemp produces three times more paper than 5 acres of old growth forest and, you can get two to three crops per year every year, without depleting the soil.

Regarding Hemp seed, I know most of you went to college. Have you ever lit a hemp seed? Burns like crazy. We need corn to feed the hungry and corn has to be carefully tended and fertilized etc . . . Hemp is a weed - save some seed, plant it and forget it. It will grow. To much rain, too little rain, bad soil, it doesn't care.

This is the cleanest burning stuff with the exception of Hydrogen, which I am not fond of in compressed forms as it tends to go "BOOM". The Zeppelin, Hindenburg was full of hydrogen and you have all seen the tapes of it's destruction.

If we can get Hydrogen going safely, then lets go for it. Until then, we can switch to growing Hemp literally within a week and have a crop in 3 months. And your car will never be happier. Worried about THC? There are 4 subspecies that has little or no THC.

Believe me, I've given this a lot of thought since 1968.

Orpheuse

An environmentalist who wants to ban fire because of CO2. May be a vegan and PETA member too. Try living without anything made using fire. Raise your own organic food by scratching in the dirt with stone hand tools. Eat it raw. Freeze to death in winter. Starve when the raw food spoils. Better run to the Amazon and feed the piranhas.

Plants can be burned safely because the CO2 produced just goes back into new plants that can be burned safely ad infinitum. Some people have no sense and preach principles they cannot live by. They are called insane or hypocrites.

Most any plant seed oil would work, is there particular reason why hemp should be the choice. Does it produce a better quality of oil for fuel production than other plant oils, or is it more efficinet for oil production? Keep in mind it is still log chanined and carbon based so it doesn't burn clean, it just may burn cleaner than say petroleum based diesel. What it might be more efficient for is the production of cellulosic ethanol, since hemp produces a lot of cellulose in the stems and leaves. Though i suspect some people might be offended by the idea of using these portions of the plant to produce ethanol.

Most any plant seed oil would work, is there particular reason why hemp should be the choice. Does it produce a better quality of oil for fuel production than other plant oils, or is it more efficient for oil production?

It's definitely more efficient than most other plant seed. You harvest it like olive oil, just put it in a press and squeeze.

Keep in mind it is still log chained and carbon based so it doesn't burn clean, it just may burn cleaner than say petroleum based diesel. What it might be more efficient for is the production of cellulosic ethanol, since hemp produces a lot of cellulose in the stems and leaves. Though i suspect some people might be offended by the idea of using these portions of the plant to produce ethanol.

Remember that we're not running a THC mill. We're logically casting about looking for an answer to the vows we all took in the '60's

Now, I haven't been able to work with large quantities of hemp seed oil - it's not usually on the shelf at the local grocers, but, it's easy to grow, and it burns cleaner than Kudzu. Kudzu is a plague. Hemp is easy to control.

See my other post from today - I make more of my case there.

Orpheuse

http://mojo.calyx.net/~olsen/HEMP/IHA/iha03114.html

Try this. It is my understanding that Ruderalis, a subspecies of Sativa, was used for lamp oil because it does not produce soot when burning in a wick lamp. It makes better quality oil than Soy, I don't know about yield at lower latitudes.

Kudzu has uses but long term results have to be the goal not the short term.

Brad

Kudzu however is a waste product that we could use, hemp would have to be grown. I would efinitely not promote the idea of planting kudzu. Regarding the production of seed oil, would it be more efficient to produce hemp for oil than other more common oil producing plants. What is the ratio of bio mass produced to obtain 1 kg of oil, and how does this compare to other seed oil producing plants? How fast can you generate 1 kg of oil from a square meter of farm land, and how does that compare to other seed oil producing plants? How fast would you deplete the soil nutrients at agronomic production rates? Keep in mind that you can obtain oil from essentially any plant that produces a seed, but only a few are use for production. So for comparison how does it produce relative to say linseed, cotton, olives, soy, grapes, and flax. It is hard for me, as an engineer, to qualify the efficient production of a fuel oil without some quatification of parameters that effect production efficiency.

Put just a quick pen to the Finish numbers and came up with 72lbs of oil per acre per 3 months. As for the rest not my forte.

Brad

That would be the way to evaluate the viability of oil production for fuel. Determine the production rate and assume a reasonable purchase rate for the oil (something on the lines of crude oil would likely be consistent since the oil still needs substantial processing, much like crude oil. The subtract the cost of impacts and maintenance for fertilizer, soil amendments, eroson control measures, water supplies, property taxes (or lease fees), waste disposal, environmental impacts,etc.. All of this should be standardized to cost per acre production and compared with other viable seed oil sources. You should add in the returns for other viable accept marketable consumer goods that maybe concurrently produced, e.g. Grapes seeds are a waste byproduct of grape juice and wine production, so the profit from grape production for juice and wine should be added in since it is an already identified market that will not depend on the acceptability of seed production (it is unlikely that the lack of a seed market would significantly slow grape production, thus it is identifyably viable). Hemp has an identifiably viable market from the past as rope production that could be adjusted to modern monetary values, though some adjustments to the production rates might have to be made to accomodate modern materials occupying some of the market share hemp used to hold.

Let livestock harvest it and turn it into feces. Collect the feces and turn it into fertilizer and methane. Methane can be scrubbed and used as ICE fuel, natural gas etc. It also has many other uses, much as hemp and other biomass sources.

Consider how energy intensive petroleum is:

1. Find it.

2. Access it and pump it.

3. Refine it.

4. Transport it for long distances.

5. Put it into a vehicle that weighs 3000 lbs. to carry around a 170 lb. person.

6. Keep in mind that most of the energy is wasted in heat.

In the long run it seems that solar and wind power are , by far, the least energy intensive.

We are presently ruining our land with poisonous chemicals. The chemicals then poison our rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Time to think of the big picture.

Umm, you might keep in mind that there isn't much in you list different for methane, except the exploration part. Actually many of those steps you have indicated for petroleum are still necessary for methane and would be more complicated to implement on the same scale as gasoline. The handling of liquids is just much easier for the most people. Also, methane from biomass has all kinds of pollutants that should be removed, so it needs to be refined and processed before distribution. On the plus side it is much harder to mix with nitrate and transport to a federal building.

I believe I mentioned scrubbing the methane.

I didn't say that there weren't any less problems with transporting methane, but it is local. All of your criticisms are addressed in my post. The manure is mixed into a slurry for handling. It can be piped and pumped as desired. If a biomass is local, it doesn't have to be shipped from the Middle East and has a huge advantage.

Methane is local thus distributed. It can be used locally by the farmer and neighbors. As can the fertilizer. It is not controlled by large corporations. This should be a major consideration. The main problem is the lack of imagination on the part of farmers and ranchers. Most tend to want to do things as they always have. Dairy farmers are leaving parts of California because they don't want to adapt to environmental regulations. Some have adapted and slashed their energy costs.

Actually most of them are leaving southern california to grow their operations, they use the complaints about environmental regulation to fend off any further investigation into the impacts caused by their industry ( a lot complain that they plan to move to Idaho also, but there really is not business reason for them to move to Idaho and most profitable ones won't move, just like to complain). The main reason they move however, is the cost of land in Pomona to expand from 500 head to 1000 head is too much, whehn they can sell and buy enough land for 15,000 in Madera or Kings County (and the RWQCB is a bit more turn a blind eye in Fresno than the rest of California, or were until the whole Hilmar Cheese incident blew up in their faces and made the Chronicle). As one of my former Dairy client told me once, you can not survive on a 500 head operation, you need at least 5,000 head to make any real money. Keep in mind the biomass is not local, it would be local for Madera, not for SF, LA, San Diego, etc. where the demand for fuel would be the greatest (let alone some place like NYC). Also, most of the oil consumed in the Us doesn't come from the Middle East, only about 10%. The market prices are just set based on the oil prices from OPEC. The US actually supplies a huge portion of its own supplies from its own crude reserves (Oil companies dirty little secret) within the contiguous US and near offshore rigs. similar schemes would happen to large scale energy production of any sort, if the market so allows such speculative pricing to be set on the most expensive product (methane producers would sell from California to NYC to set the high market prices, then sell locally at same market price, since it would be bought and sold on the midwestern markets).

Thanks for your posts. I may be unrealistic, but not yet convinced. I would recommend a new book: ALCOHOL CAN BE A GAS, by David Blume. It is about a 600 page book that explains the field, and even goes into small scale production methods in some detail. It just hit the best seller list on Amazon. The author is an expert. He believes that biomass could meet all of our liquid fuel needs. I agree with him. He has been studying biomass since the 80s and is also an expert on permaculture.

I just believe that all subsidies should be removed, and the free market should sort out the winners of the energy technology race. The criteria would have to include environmental impacts however. Pollution should be taxed for remediation.

Methane or methanol is only one of many fuels and technologies that can meet the world's energy needs. Alcohol, biodiesel, gasification, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, oil drilling, oil shale etc. will all have to play a role.

All the best,

Ron Wagner

Under a properly operating free market model, without monopolies, gasoline production would easily outcompete any green technologies. Part of what drives the cost of many items is monopolization. Think of Diamonds as an example, they operate in the free market economy, but distribution is predominantly monopolized and controlled keeping the prices extremely elevated. For a while the discoveries in Canada and new technologies for manufacturing Diamond indistinguishable from geologically formed were a threat, but the diamond cartels started buying into the mining in Canada, and such. So they stopped the threat of a source outside of their control. Without OPEC, the price of oil on a free market would plummet. If Venezuela had to compete with Libya, Brazil (where they just found huge oil reserves), Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, etc. oils prices might go back 30 years, and these countries economies would tank. So, since monopolies are legal outside the US, how do we maintain a free market on internationally traded resources.

Additionally, the way our invetment markets handle oil is insane, they base the price per barrel on speculations about the price of the most expensive 10% of oil. Most oil used in the US is produced in the US. I have heard from some associates I have worked with who fingerprint oils for the oil companies in the western US that of that produced and used in the US most oil is from the monterey reserves, not even from Alaska. It is a marketing game, have everyone convinced that we have no effective oil production of our own and thus base the price for all on Saudi oil. This is equivalent to basing the pricing for all cars on ferrari. This aspect of the oil speculation can be controlled since regulations exist. The problem is that the government has not been enforcing the law for about 8 years. Obviously someone in the government with some power to influence the enforcement of regulations by federal regulators has a vested interest in increasing the profitability of oil companies.

Hello RCE

Surely you realize that the International Banksters run the economies of the World, to suit their own ambitions and vested interests.

All "money" as used these days, is not real money, but just a debit note, "Legat Tender" without any real backing, not even a worthless promise.

So things are not going to improve, in the near future, sorry to say.

Thus whatever "biofuel' is produced, Kudzu harvested, solar cell improvements, and the like, the banksters are going to wrest control of the business or process, because they control the "money supply".

Kind Regards....

Well actually in the US the Federal Reserve controls and backs the money. They tell the banks what to do with the actual paper notes, and manipulate the value based on economic predictors. When the federal government goes bankrupt, then we have more problems then just the money supply. Though you are correct that banks and investment groups will control business eventually as it grows and becomes a predictable resource of profit, to the point of stalling the profitability of the company. Such has been the case with APPLE in the past as most investor groups and bankers find Steve Jobs a bit too risky, but when they remove him and install a puppet corporate henchman the company tanks. It is true that banks tend away from change, as they do not understand the implications , and risk, associated with such change. They like to invest in known business ventures with little risk, and white collar crime and real estate speculations they understand and know they have minimal risk. So for the near future they problably wont get too involved in new technologies, except for the marketing benefits of being able to claim they are "Green". When they start to see some profitability, they would likely step in and install a puppet MBA with no knowledge of the new industry to run the companies like GM or Ford, and the progress will stall.

The federal reserve is a public entity of the US government with private industry components, thus it is a psuedo-public agency. It was created through a act of congress in 1913. It is not a private corporation, and does not make a profit. It is a venture formed by act of congress that included banking interest. The chairman and board of governors of the federal reserve are apppointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, not their member private banks. Also it is not for profit as a government agency, the main role that are semi privatized involve some governance of their private banking members and electing 3 of the 9 governors of the regional federal reserve banks. 3 are appointed by the fed system board, and 3 are appointed by the government.

As far as bankruptcy, there is a big difference between being indebted and bankrupt. Bankruptcy would be a state where it is not viable to pay off financial debts and you legally write off those debts transferring all but some minimal necessary assets to your lien holders. It would be pretty hard for the US to go Bankrupt, if all the assets and holding were evaluated, particularly since we hold so many outstanding loans to much of europe, central america, south america, and mexico that will never be paid back. We just at the moment happen to owe a lot of money to chinese and japanese banking interest over this whole Iraq thing.

The problem is once its shown to be a viable material to produce ethanol, people will start intentionally planting it, and as an invasive species, would we really gain anything environmentally speaking? Because its so invasive, govenments will want some sort of oversight into its production and containment, and thats going to cost money that will just end up hitting you at the pump. On the other hand, since it really isnt used for much else, it would be an ideal source compared to corn, whose price affects just about everything.

Since most every plant waste could be used to produce cellulosic ethanol, you could just jave a facility that takes in plant-based wastes, like a green waste facility. Then if you pay people for the wastes based on type of plant (cellulosic value of the material), they might harvest the kudzu since it is free, in an atttempt to remove something aesthetically unpleasant and getting paid in same activity. I think the only problem is the risk of poisoning your bioreactors, so you might have to limit some of what you can take in, and/or pre-treat waste to remove toxic pesticides/herbicides (which really equates to washing the waste down with water), or use more resilient bacteria.

If that's the case then South Florida is ethanol heaven.

If you drive around Texas and you see an open field, you can be certain that some living creature is kept there, especially cows.

If you drive around South Florida and you see open land, you are looking at a golf course. We have more 'landscape artists' here than any other place on the planet.

Then there are palm fronds weed whackers, leaf blowers at 8:00 AM . . .

I still think hemp is the way to go.

Sleep deprived in South Florida,

Orpheuse

Hemp is not an invasive species. They wiped it out in the U.S. in no time after the Marijuana Stamp Act was signed into law.

If you really want to read a 'Catch 22' document check out the Marijuana Stamp Act.

I believe he was talking about kudzu as being a invasive species. However, I suspect that if the Government really wanted to control Kudzu, maybe if the DOE, DEA, or DOD determined it to be some sort of security risk or public nuissance/addictive drug, it would be gone in a decade or so.

Cotton was King, and he feared hemp would usurp him (better products that don't spoil the land) and since some strains are psycho active causing pleasure, a large push with a bad political spin thus no more threat even if the U.S. Navy had to get their rope from foreign sources.

Don't you know Reefer Madness is real. At least our elders are convinced.

I don't advocate the use of recreational THC. It is a waste of time. I wasted too much time, been there done that, but that is an other epic.

Hemp products seem to be superior on many levels but without large modern farming I can't say if on all levels.

Brad

It looks like Kudzu is a high moisture crop as well as a vine = low cellulose content, also it will not grow in tractable fields and be amenable to machine harvesting.

Thus it is an aggressive pest. One hopes they will find a selective killer or an insect that eats it.

Les,

Last time I checked in with my good friend the microbrewmaster... He said that the big joke with all the biofuels is that all the digester's use some sort of enzyme or yeast or micro spore to break down their biomass into the sugars needed to make ethanol. They all have to vent methane during the fermentation process to keep each batch from spoiling. (Methane is 25X more pollutive than CO2, by the way.). All of the process types vent methane. Some of them harvest and burn the waste methane for preheating to save cost of manufacturing energy - but the point is that to make biofuels, most of which DO NOT in fact take less energy in to get more energy out of an engine by the consumer end of the process, everyone making this stuff is making a worse greenhouse gas than they are trying to reduce in cities where pollution is a problem, i.e. the goal is to reduce carbon dioxide and total greenhouse gas emmissions, overall. (Old studies long ago pointed out that just the pollution spewed by the trucks and tank trains delivering the alcahol additive to the gasoline blending plants in spring and summer, negated that fairy tale.).

Where is the environmental responsibility in venting one of the worst greenhouse gases in order to get a few gallons of alcohol to burn up the valve stems and seats in a gasoline burning, CO2 belching car? All of y'all - engine engineers, congress, car buffs, hemp, corn, sugarcane, sorghum farmers and other biofuel makers, the fools that allowed economic regulators to turn sweet crude oil into a futures commodity... are looking like a Chines Fire Drill in full blown dramatization to this old boy. Where the hell has common sense gone in the world?

whew

Biofuels are not something new, they were utilized by Germany during WWII. They used biofuels because they had limited supplies of petroleum available for their war efforts, and it allowed them some independence from petroleum. Any byproduct gases from production are readily capturable as you identified, therefore there is very little or no release to the environment. There is actually relatively little methane produced, otherwise the production would be totally self sufficient as captured methane could be utilized to maintain the temperature of the bioreactors. So the production does require a little additional input of fuel to heat the system and for other system operations, pumps and such, and the energy value of Alcohol is less than gasoline per mole. However, the fuel does have a lower net carbon release to the atmosphere, as the plants do recycle the carbon dioxide. Petroleum represent a complete net release to the atmosphere, and currently, depending on the market and conveyance capacity, there is as much methane released from petroleum production in inefficient flares as we will get from alcohol production. Additionally, petroleum products burn very poorly and the emissions have a longer residence time in the atmosphere than the simpler alcohols. In the end, however, biofuels represent a stop gap as they are not themselves a solution and will over time contribute to increase atmospheric pollution, just at a dramatically slower rate than petroleum fuels, also, they help develop some fuel independence from the middle east (most strictly islamic states can not grow much corn).

It might be better to graze livestock on kudzu and use the manure for fertilizer or methane. You could start by grazing on the land already overrun by kudzu. Kudzu can be grown on land not suitable for mechanized farming, and can be grown vertically, using more area for photosynthesis.

I believe the idea is to find a economically viable application for kudzu that would promote removal of this invasive species, but not commercial production. Additionally, many commercial high production cattle endeavors (where you would feed the cattle and harvest materials from the waste stream) require strict dietary requirements for cattle regulated by State environmental agencies to protect against excess impacts to groundwater and surface water. Because of the abundance of research it is usually economically cheaper to use the proven technologies, corn, wheat/barley, and alfalfa paying to scientifically demonstrate the viable use of another food source (keep in mind it is the quality of the waste stream that is in part being controlled).

Good points on all counts. I work for the Federal Government (US) and feel that anything idea that keeps us out of your data stream is best. Simpler is almost always better, even if less efficient. There is no scarier introduction than "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you". I'll give you a vote for "Good Answer". Micah

What you are saying is scary. If a farmer or rancher can't go out on their own land, or with the permission of other landowners and graze already existing Kudzu, and harvest it. I really doubt that what your are saying is factual. I don't think anyone needs governmental permission to graze livestock on rural land, except possibly, on government range which is rented. Please supply a reference if possible. I think many governmental organizations would welcome Kudzu harvesting and grazing on overrun roadsides, etc. I think the problem might be finding ranchers willing to try something that would require extra effort and thought. Possibly the increasing cost of grains will change this however.

I am not saying that other types of feed might not be needed too, but I believe the research has already been done. I think Kudzu was originally planted for erosion control and animal fodder. Also that it has an excellent nutrient profile. I will try to do some research, and get back to the subject.

Ranchers could feed anything they wanted almost to cattle, but they do not have any real system for collection of waste streams (and are not regulated). Only CAFOs will have such facilities, and are regulated to have them or they would not, and CAFOs are regulated about land disposal practices, the crops they can grow, the cattle feed, etc.. Grazing is not an issue, you can graze cattle all you want. The issue is collection of waste, which ranchers do not have to do on open land. Farmers and Ranchers can do many things that are not allowed on feed lots or dairies, including not efficiently collecting wastes. If you don't have to have a waste collection system why would you pay out the millions of dollars for one, then the extra half million for energy collection from the waste, 100 K for groundwater monitoring, and treatment systems for the waste stream after energy recovery, for a herd of 5,000 head. And then there is the issue of getting the cattle back to your collection system to deficate, rather than where ever they are at that time without creating a system that ends up classifying your facility as a CAFO (this is the distinction between minimal regulation and strict regulation by EPA and states).

The research was quick and easy. Just do a search on The Kudzu Connection. Mother Earth News has all the info needed. Good enough for me anyway. They even recommend a book on the subject.

Hmm, interesting that such articles still occur. It seems like Kudzu is a cure-all home remedy, much like opium or coca cola was in the 1800s. I have seen similar articles from the past, just did not expect to see one so similar and current, but i guess there is just about anything on the internet now. As a soil scientist (among other things), I particularly like the discourse on the effects and benefits of legumes, though the implied effectiveness of nitrogen fixing bacteria may have been over simplified leading many people to misunderstand how they work. What you really need to look into is the CAFO regulations, and waste collection systems if energy conversion of waste streams is the plan. Also, you may note, though they did not, how Kudzu has become a predominant species and is not native to the americas. As such it is a invasive species, and must be competing for resource with native species, out-competing them actually quite effectively. So i am not sure that promoting Kudzu as a feed stock that should be grown would be beneficial. Allowing it to be grazed, well if the cattle like it and it does not adversely effect the food quality of the beef, i say go for it. CAFOs on the other hand are regulated and changing feed to a large degree is not something easily done. I am not sure that a kudzu crop would make it through the application process for Waste Discharge Requirements, or the EIR for that matter. Of course you could always do the research and compile something comparable to the research on corn, wheat and alfalfa (probably the three most researched agricultural crops). Many different disciplines have been researching these crops scientifically for well over 100 years. So if you started now and hired 10 researchers, you might get sufficient data collected by the mid-21st century.

Please explain the acronyms EIR and CAFO. I am a dilletante, and need some help. You seem quite knowledgeable. I am also thinking small farmer, wheras you are talking large scale. I realize this is what has become of agriculture, and it continues.

Possibly some small farmers could begin by adding Kudzu to their feed, and gradually increase it, depending on the results. Hogs and chickens would probably like it all. Feed costs are much higher now, so this is a good time to try it out. I live in corn country, and I know farmers stopped using silage decades ago, wheras it was once important. I am not a farmer, just a gardener. Maybe a farmer or rancher could give more input. I know my chickens used to love willow and sunflower leaves though.

CAFO=confined animal facilities operation

EIr environmental impact report

The thing that has me all up in arms is that I just can't see burning anything that people can eat.

On rumors that we are thinking of burning food as fuel is helping to raise food prices on the International and Domestic markets. Of course the current price of gas world wide isn't helping. Here in South Florida, we have met and in some places exceeded $3.50usd/Gallon, and about $3.40usd/gallon diesel. I don't know what the heating oil prices were like this year up North, but I know it wasn't good.

Remember, it's easier to fill a stove than it is to fill a belly. Don't burn our food; but don't look to Kudzu as an answer. Think of it more as a pernicious pest than as a plant or a fuel source.

Orpheuse

The problem currently has more to do with the way the futures market speculates on fuel. This type of speculation and price manipulations have begun to wander over to the grains markets, and the SEC/USDA has not begun to install any price controls. Previously USDA kept the price controlled by setting minimum prices and subsidies to maintain a market in which farmers could subsist, now they will need to control the high endo from fuel specualtion driving up the food markets. Keep in mind USDA subsidies kept farming floating in many areas using US tax $, because these food were deemed necessary for a secure food supply for the US, maintaining an available food supply is a national security issue. ( Now that unethical energy specualtions infringe into the available food supply, USDA and SEC will have to take a different position on energy supplies competing with food supplies). I am strongly in favor of using waste to generate energy supply, cellulosic waste may one day be used, but even currently, any waste containing sugar or most poly saccharide (starch) can be converted into alcohol. Why not take restaurant wastes or food processing waste, which currently pose serious issues for waste water treatment facilities, separate the saccharide waste streams from the fats & oils streams, and ferment those waste streams. (Some cities have to build special pre-treatment facilities just to handle these commercial/industrial waste streams). Of course futures parasites can not manipulate futures markets speculations for profit by short-term investing/divesting in waste streams. Having multiple sources that can used to fulfill demands in different market sectors is a good thing, but we need to also balance keeping the staple food supply costs to consumers relatively stable and inexpensive, or there may be serious social consequences over time.

Kudzu exists in large quantities, so why not use what there is. At least that would control it. In the mean time we can consider whether it can be grown on controlled farms. Kudzu has many uses, as does hemp.