U P F R ONT | ENER GY
Power Plants Ornamental grasses pull carbon from the air and provide clean energy when harvested
Researcher Emily Heaton hopes to use miscanthus, a perennial grass, to help fuel the University of Iowa power plant.
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rnamental grasses are more than just beautiful additions to your landscape; they’re also helping to reduce the carbon pollution that causes climate change. Emily Heaton, an associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University, says that as miscanthus, switchgrass and other perennials grow, they pull carbon from the air. The low-sulfur plants can also help to reduce or replace carbon emissions when burned for energy. “Coal is a dirty fuel. ... But it’s a cheap, abundant and domestic fuel,” she says. “If you’re using something dirty, one way to clean it up is to dilute it.” Heaton says blending biomass — the organic matter derived from living or recently living organisms such as plants and animals — with coal creates a fuel that still works in current boiler systems and also meets required emission profiles. Using this method as a source of power establishes new opportunities for more biomass energy, she says. She’s working with the nearby University of Iowa
GREEN LIVING | SPRING/SUMMER 2016
“We shouldn’t have to feel guilty for using energy. We just need to get energy from the right place.” — Emily Heaton, agronomist
to use miscanthus in its campus power plant. The university aims to use 40 percent renewable energy by 2020, and one way to do that is by increasing the plant biomass it burns, Heaton says. The plant, which primarily burns coal, already uses oat hulls to reduce carbon emissions. Within a couple of years, it will be burning perennials, too, to help offset the plant’s carbon and sulfur emissions. Sulfur contributes to acid rain that’s damaging to water, forests and animals. “When you burn the very low-sulfur biomass with high-sulfur coal — low CO2 biomass with high CO2 coal — it dilutes it,” she says. “You get the same energy, but you have much cleaner emissions.” Heaton sees a day when biomass can be the primary fuel for power. Biomass could also power our cars. “We shouldn’t have to feel guilty for using energy,” Heaton says. “We just need to get energy from the right place.”
ZACH BOYDEN-HOLMES/THE DES MOINES REGISTER
BY DONNELLE ELLER