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PHOTOS: PENN STATE
Pennsylvania project tests mine lands for biofuel crops
The photo on the left is of abandoned mine land in Schuylkill County, Pa., and was taken in 2006. The photo on the right was taken in 2009, and proves that some of these areas may be prime ground for biofuel crops.
A project in Pennsylvania seeks to determine if abandoned and active mine lands can be reclaimed and used to grow biofuel crops such as switchgrass and other warm-season grass species. Pennsylvania has about 180,000 acres of abandoned mine land, plus active mine land, that is not being used currently for food, feed or fiber, according to Rick Stehouwer, Penn State professor of environmental and soil science. That degraded land can be used for biomass production, but it needs to be reclaimed first, he said. The project will evaluate the effectiveness of soil amendments, determine whether the land can support biomass crops, and if the crops are cost effective. Stehouwer and Marvin Hall, Penn State professor of forest management, have been tending to a privately owned plot planted with switchgrass and other grasses in Schuylkill County for the past four years. The project includes evaluating the use of excess manure from livestock operations and paper mill sludge as reclamation techniques and evaluating sustained production potential and management requirements, Stehouwer said. The projects also will evaluate the amount of nutrient leaching with the different soil amendments, as compared with traditional amendments such as lime and fertilizer.
Another 30-acre reclaimed plot in Clearfield County is in its first year of the project and is being used to grow switchgrass, big bluestem grass and others. “We hope to keep these experiments going long term,” Stehouwer said, adding that it depends on available funding. The project got its start when a representative of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council approached Stehouwer, wondering if manure could be used to rehabilitate mine lands. “These are minimally productive areas without significant intervention,” Stehouwer said. Mined sites are usually not in highly fertile areas, the soil has a fairly low pH and extremely low organic matter content as the result of the mining, and the moving of the soil in the mining process causes compaction. “The potential exists for someone to farm that land,” he said. Barriers to developing it exist, however, including the fact that most of the abandoned and active mine lands are privately owned. It’s up to those landowners to determine how to handle their land after reclamation and not all of the 180,000 acres of abandoned mine land can be used for agricultural purposes because of layout and other issues. —Lisa Gibson
Metabolix completes field trial of genetically engineered tobacco Massachusetts-based Metabolix Inc. completed a field trial of a bioplastic-producing tobacco crop, helping lay the groundwork for planning and permitting of other biomass crop field trials for bioplastics. The tobacco in the 0.8-acre field trial was genetically engineered to express polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biobased polymers. The experiment is not a commercial opportunity for the company, but was used to validate and learn more about processes for future work in plant-based programs with nonfood crops such as switchgrass, oilseeds and sugarcane, according to the company. Metabolix is a bioscience company focused on providing sustainable solutions to manufacture plastics, chemicals and energy. The trial provided valuable data relating to biopolymer production, with the best plants producing 3 percent to 5 percent PHA, according to Metabolix. In comparison, Metabolix has achieved a yield of 3.72 percent dry weight PHA in switchgrass leaves and 1.23 percent dry weight in the plant as a whole, according to Matt Lindberg, a communications represen20 BIOMASS MAGAZINE 12|2009
tative for the company. Research aims to achieve 7.5 percent dry weight from the plant, a benchmark that would be economic for full-scale commercial production, he added. The bioplastic is grown directly within the crop and extracted later through a proprietary process, Lindberg said. Metabolix obtained necessary permits from the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in March and completed its tobacco field trial in October. Information regarding the cost of the project is not available, Lindberg said. In a quest to develop crop technologies for the coproduction of biobased plastics, chemicals and energy from nonfood energy crops, Metabolix is taking a systems approach, from gene to end product. It is developing and commercializing Mirel, a family of bioplastics and biodegradable alternatives to many petroleum-based plastics. —Lisa Gibson