How Biofuels and Water Mix

Jim Langcuster at the Extension Daily blog hits the Daily Double with his post on the effects that biofuels can have on water usage. He gets to the point:

The new generation of biofuels known as cellulosic ethanol possibly could alleviate some of this water demand, though they would be far from a panacea. And this raises the question: As demand for renewable energy, particularly in the form of energy crops, increases, where will the water come from to grow them?

If you want the answer, start reading Daily Extension.

Biofuel Researchers Converge On Auburn

Check out WTVM’s news segment by Brock Parker. He caught up with NRMDI’s Executive Director, Larry Fillmer, at the recent Energy Conference at Auburn University.

“Most of the situations we’ve seen with oil in the past have all been on the supply side in terms of previous crises that we’ve run into. Now we’re running into the demand side. With the growing demands, particularly in India and China, we’re out-stripping our capabilities,” said Larry Fillmer, executive director of AU’s Natural Resources Management and Development Institute.

You can view the entire video by clicking on the link at the WTVM9 website.

There is also a terrific  story on the conference by Amy Weaver in the Opelika-Auburn News.  She highlights research underway at Alabama A&M and Tuskegee University as well as Auburn University on a diverse set of agricultural products such as canola, the sweet potato, and algae.

The sweet potato is not a major crop in Alabama, but since it is grown regionally, Dr. Barrett Vaughan said a major research effort is under way at Tuskegee to establish how to get the crop from the field to the fuel tank. He said research across disciplines includes not only finding the plant with the right characteristics to make the best fuel, but also developing the most cost-effective process to make fuel.

Canola is another option, but it is probably even less common in the state than the sweet potato. However, researchers at Alabama A&M have been growing it for some time and have learned quite a bit.

“This year was the year for winter tolerance, drought tolerance, any kind of tolerance you can think of,” [Dr. Ernst] Cebert said, but because of Mother Nature, researchers now know which genetic types of canola can sustain a freeze and a drought.

The Bioenergy Imperative

Jim Langcuster’s posting at the Daily Extension provides an insightful look into the the energy research challenges facing Auburn University’s Natural Resources Management & Development Institute — and what it means for all of us, for that matter.   He highlights the remarks of NRMDI Executive Director Larry Fillmer at the Alabama Agriculture Energy Conference:

As Fillmer sees it, the challenge for NRMDI and its Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts will be helping develop an agricultural infrastructure to accommodate energy production as well as to balance the need for food and fuel.

This calls for developing engineering technologies to produce liquid fuels, synthetic gas and bioenergy.

Two major challenges will involve finding the right types of renewable energy feed stocks and developing cost-effective ways to harvest and transport these feed stocks to plants for conversion into fuel, Fillmer says.

Of course, Langcuster point out that the imperative that many people feel, and that Fillmer addresses in sobering terms, is our national security.  With the price of oil hovering near triple digits, the demand for fuel intensifying in China and India, and continuing violent threats to a stable energy supply,  the research minds in the alternative energy sector are burning the proverbial midnight oil to come up with solutions.  With so much risk, major bioenergy advances are critical to our security.

Don’t miss this post, or this blog.  It is part of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.  We’ve added it to our blogroll so you can easily find it.

Lack of Preparation, Not Drought, is Source of Water Problems

In a recent Op-Ed, Graeme Lockaby, Director of the Auburn University Water Resources Center writes:

In most years, water is an abundant natural resource in the southeastern United States. As an example, 12 percent of the freshwater in the U.S. annually flows through Alabama alone. Droughts, however, are not new to our region and are somewhat cyclical — occurring about every eight to 10 years and lasting anywhere from two to four years depending upon their severity.

Unfortunately, for much of our region, the current drought is among the most severe in our history. Since 2005, much of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have been under drought conditions. Outlooks for early 2008 precipitation are bleak for some areas as well.

The severity of the current drought has focused the spotlight on water as a critical issue and brought the two-decade debate over water rights among Alabama, Georgia and Florida to the media forefront. However, we were somewhat caught napping and must consider that this drought is not the source of our problems but rather, only a stressor. Other, more constant factors threaten stable water supplies and cause increasing vulnerability to even lower intensity droughts.

During the last 50 years, dramatic impacts on water quality and quantity have occurred because of increases in population and per capita use. New developments have extended the boundaries of urban areas farther and farther into forests and agricultural lands, resulting in significant increases in paved or concrete surfaces that rainwater cannot infiltrate. This causes sharp increases in runoff and often reduces the availability of water for municipalities. These factors will continue to intensify, making our water supply more susceptible to periods of below-normal rainfall.

Today, some Southeastern states such as Alabama have neither comprehensive plans to address water issues like the current drought nor sufficient water supply information to aid in unraveling the very complex issues surrounding water allocation. So what is to be done? We can find the silver lining to our current predicament if we use the drought as motivation to perform a complete and fair assessment of the ‘state’ of our water resources. We need to look at the influence of landscape, demographic and climatic changes as well as the resulting legal, political, economic, environmental and sociological implications. If such an assessment is followed by meaningful actions, then significant progress has been made. If we fail to take serious action, we bear much blame for the next water crisis.

Optimistically, the bottom line is that we should feel motivated to be proactive and act to avoid future water shortages. We must use our greatest talent, creative thinking, and not be overly cautious about new approaches and ideas. Many attempts to alleviate problems such as water shortages fail because the ‘big’ picture is not taken into account. Some of the answers lie in embracing the integration between our rural lands and water supplies elsewhere. Our forest and agricultural lands have the capacity to stabilize water quantity and quality in our cities if we use basin or watershed processes to our advantage. As an example, New York City employs non-regulatory, financial incentives to manipulate proportions of forest and other vegetation in watersheds to protect clean water supplies. These methods can be very cost-effective and often entail financial incentives for rural landowners. However, we have not tried these approaches in the Southeast, but perhaps the time is right for such an endeavor.

At the Auburn University Water Resources Center, we are studying the feasibility of using the non-regulatory, market approaches in the Southeast so that more options for maintaining supplies of clean water can be made available. Also, we are working to provide highly accurate information regarding water supply and the economic and environmental implications of changes in that supply so that decisions can be made from a well informed standpoint. The present drought may be a strong forecast of worse things to come, but the water riddle is solvable if we move now in an aggressive and creative fashion.

A rainy day fund for water

The Birmingham News’s Mary Orndorff posted yesterday on the Farm Bill and efforts underway to fund water projects that would address the management challenges we face in storing water for future use. Orndorff writes:

Tucked inside the five-year farm bill is a $60 million pot to jump-start storage and irrigation projects in places where it rains a lot in the winter but sporadically in the summer, places just like Alabama and much of the East. The farm reservoir program has gone from the relative obscurity of a single Alabama congressman’s long-shot idea to a major policy initiative that has survived key negotiations and could help a region combat future droughts.

That’s Representative Terry Everett, she is talking about. His idea envisions collaborative management efforts among farmers and municipalities. It’s drawing praiseworthy comments from the farm community as well as Auburn University’s Water Resources Center.

“For the first time we have a national program within USDA that can help farmers start to address Alabama’s long-term need for the storage of water and how it affects rural development, production agriculture and water quality,” said Keith Gray, who directs the national affairs office of the Alabama Farmers Federation.

University researchers who have studied the idea estimate that one farmer’s 15-acre reservoir, 10 feet deep, could sustain 200 to 300 acres of corn or cotton in Alabama.

While the national focus on the southeastern drought could help pass water-related legislation, the reservoir program is designed to supplement mostly normal but sporadic rainfalls, not be a complete buffer to severe drought, said Graeme Lockaby, director of the Auburn University Water Resources Center.

Saving water for a not-so-rainy

The Birmingham News’s Mary Orndorff posted yesterday on the Farm Bill and efforts underway to fund water projects that would address the challenges we face in storing water. Orndorff writes:

Tucked inside the five-year farm bill is a $60 million pot to jump-start storage and irrigation projects in places where it rains a lot in the winter but sporadically in the summer, places just like Alabama and much of the East. The farm reservoir program has gone from the relative obscurity of a single Alabama congressman’s long-shot idea to a major policy initiative that has survived key negotiations and could help a region combat future droughts.

That’s Representative Terry Everett, she is talking about. His idea envisions collaborative management efforts among farmers and municipalities. It’s drawing praiseworthy comments from the farm community as well as Auburn University’s Water Resources Center.

“For the first time we have a national program within USDA that can help farmers start to address Alabama’s long-term need for the storage of water and how it affects rural development, production agriculture and water quality,” said Keith Gray, who directs the national affairs office of the Alabama Farmers Federation.

University researchers who have studied the idea estimate that one farmer’s 15-acre reservoir, 10 feet deep, could sustain 200 to 300 acres of corn or cotton in Alabama.

While the national focus on the southeastern drought could help pass water-related legislation, the reservoir program is designed to supplement mostly normal but sporadic rainfalls, not be a complete buffer to severe drought, said Graeme Lockaby, director of the Auburn University Water Resources Center.

Alabama Agriculture Energy Conference

On November 7 and 8th, at the Auburn University Hotel & Dixon Conference Center, the topic will be Alabama agriculture’s growing role as an energy provider to our state, region and nation. Sponsored by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) and the Auburn University Natural Resources Management & Development Institute (NRMDI), this two day conference will feature a number of nationally recognized leaders in the field of alternative energy. On Wednesday morning , August 7th, Dr. David Bransby, Professor of Energy Crops and Bioenergy, College of Agriculture, Auburn University and noted switchgrass expert will address the conference on challenges in the emerging bioenergy industry.

The conference brings together an impressive array of academic talent, business and commodity growers and government leaders. Pursuing one of its goals to promote collaborative efforts in the alternative energy sectors, NRMDI has recruited the state’s top thinkers from Alabama A&M University, Tuskegee University, the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and Auburn University.

The business and government leaders addressing and supporting the conference round out an impressive list. Check out the agenda and the speakers. You get the feeling that the state’s future energy industry will be gathering in Auburn starting tomorrow.

Dee River Ranch – Biofuel Pioneer

Another fine article on the work at the Dee River Ranch in coordination with Auburn University’s NRMDI. The News’ Amy Weaver is on target as her piece focuses on the duel role that producing biofuel serves.  As she points out, the tractors like the biofuel and the cattle like the feed supplement.

The role of agriculture in recognizing, understanding and doing something about alternate fuel development is beginning to come to the front of the debate.  Farmers are the scientists and the laboratories for creating and using biofuels from a variety of sources — soybeans, switchgrass, sunflowers,wood products and more.