CFAES scientists are testing a range of trees, shrubs, and grasses (such as switchgrass, shown here) for their potential as new bioenergy crops in Ohio. Besides producing renewable energy, the plants could be value-added crops for Ohio farmers and could restore degraded land. Read the story …
Posts Tagged ‘renewable energy’
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Can we grow these crops in Ohio for bioenergy?
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 15th, 2013
New form of renewable energy ‘may be at our fingertips’
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 10th, 2013
Penn State’s Bruce Logan talks about his microbial fuel cell work in this video (1:19): “The breakthrough is that we can now extract energy out of a wastewater or a source of organic matter rather than putting in energy to get rid of that organic matter.” Hear more on Friday (4/12).
Microbial fuel cells, Bruce Logan part 2
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 10th, 2013
“The idea is that with no moving parts, we can convert organic matter into electricity,” Bruce Logan said in a talk on microbial fuel cells last year (video, 24:43). He speaks on Friday (4/12) at Ohio State. Read a LiveScience profile of him here.
Friday: A way to get energy from water?
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 10th, 2013
Microbial fuel cells are the focus of a seminar Friday (4/12) sponsored by Ohio State’s Environmental Science Graduate Program. Penn State’s Bruce Logan, pictured, presents “Energy from Water: Microbial Fuel Cell Technologies Meet Salinity Gradient Energy” at 3 p.m. in 021 Lazenby Hall on Ohio State’s campus in Columbus. There’s also a video link to 121 Fisher Auditorium on OARDC’s Wooster campus, 1680 Madison Ave. Free. All are welcome. (See later posts here and here.) (Photo: Penn State.)
Wooster campus of CFAES’s research arm now running on 30 percent green energy
Posted by Mauricio Espinoza on April 2nd, 2013
Rotten produce. Animal fat. Bad soda. Manure. The Wooster campus of CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, is going to waste. And that’s a good thing. The campus is using agricultural and food-processing waste to meet nearly a third of its 12-megawatt-hour annual electricity needs. That’s 3.6 MWh of green energy, or enough to power 313 average U.S. homes, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Read the story …
‘What the future of energy, and our world, might look like’
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on April 1st, 2013
A reminder that global energy expert Daniel Yergin will speak tomorrow (April 2) at Ohio State in Columbus. He’s a Pulitzer Prize winner for his book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power and is the author of the current bestseller The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World. Audience questions, a book signing, and a reception will follow right after. Free and open to the public. See previous posts here and here.
Earlier in the day, Yergin will present “The Quest: The Future of Energy” to Ohio State students (10 a.m. in the Ohio Union’s U.S. Bank Conference Theater).
For details on both events, contact Gina Langen in Ohio State’s Office of Energy and Environment, langen.2@osu.edu.
How to grow, sell new bioenergy crops in Ohio
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on March 13th, 2013
Ohio State’s South Centers in Piketon, part of CFAES, will hold a workshop April 8 on growing and marketing bioenergy crops, including miscanthus and guayule (pictured). Get more details here and here (pdf; check out the list of expert speakers). (Photo: Clarence A. Rechenthin @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database.)
Watch: ‘The opportunities for algae are absolutely huge’
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on January 15th, 2013
Tour the new pilot algae farm near Wooster, Ohio, in this video (8:16), which includes interviews with key players from OARDC and from the farm’s operator, West Virginia-based Touchstone Research Laboratory. See previous posts on the farm here and here.
This ‘good’ algae can be used to make biofuel
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on January 15th, 2013
There are algae we don’t want. And algae we do. A pilot algae farm now operates near Wooster (pictured) and CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, is one of the project’s partners. Studies at the farm should give us new, specific details on the system’s costs, biofuel yields, evaporation rates (including an innovative material that cuts them), and sustainability. Of note: Some of the carbon dioxide released by the farm’s coal-burning greenhouse heat source gets reused. It gets pumped back into the water, which helps the algae grow. Also: Residue left after processing the algae for biofuel also gets reused. It feeds an anaerobic digester that in turn generates energy too.
Watch: ‘The whole idea is to get to a carbon-neutral society’
Posted by Kurt Knebusch on December 14th, 2012
OARDC’s Dave Benfield talks about closing the carbon cycle by running cars on waste-produced, biogas-derived natural gas (video, 1:18), which OARDC is doing in a new demonstration project. Read the story.
