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Better agronomy for energy crops

I believe improved crop practices are a vital aspect in meeting our cellulosic feedstock needs. There are a few areas that offer significant potential:

1. crop rotation,
2. the use of polyculture plantations,
3. perennials as energy crops, and
4. better agronomic practices.

We address all four issues here. Though none of these have been extensively studied, early studies and knowledgeable speculation point to their likely utility. Further study of these techniques is urgently needed, especially the use of grasses or other biomass-optimized winter cover crops.

Crop rotation

I have proposed the usage of a 10 year x 10 year energy and row crop rotation. As row crops are grown in the usual corn/soy rotation, lands lose topsoil and get degraded, need increased fertilizer and water inputs, and decline in biodiversity. By growing no-till, deep-rooted perennial energy crops (like miscanthus or switchgrass -- see below) for ten years following a ten year row crop cycle, the carbon content of the soil and its biodiversity can be improved and the needs for inputs decreased. The land can then be returned to row crop cultivation after ten years of no-till energy crops.

Currently unusable degraded lands may even be reclaimed for agriculture using these techniques over a few decades. A University of North Dakota study highlights some of the benefits for food crops. I expect similar or even greater benefits for food crop/energy crop long cycle rotations, especially in soil carbon content:

The latest eco-buzzword

The Washington Post has a good article yesterday on the explosion in the use of the term "green-collar" jobs. You will no doubt be hearing much more of this term since it is a favorite of Clinton and Edwards; Me and the Center for American Progress are on the bandwagon; and even the super trendspotting Tom Friedman has glommed onto it.

No, it's not a perfect term. G-C jobs -- my effort to coin the ultimate eco-buzzword -- won't get you a green uniform and green power-ring like the Green Lantern Corps, although you will, coincidentally enough, be promoting green power. As the Post notes:

... while white-collar and blue-collar bring distinctive images to mind -- the mutual fund manager screaming into his BlackBerry, the coal miner coming home, coughing from a long day -- such iconic imagery is hard to find with the green-collar worker.

Still, the term, popularized by social activists like Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center, does have a powerful ring to it [sorry about that], so I expect it will be around for a while. I will try to limit use to, say, once a month.

A plea for some pepper in the climate change message

On national security, Brian Katulis says progressives need a story to tell, and Matt Yglesias says they need some confidence. On climate change I’d make basically the same points: the progressive line is too much prose and too little poetry, and it’s delivered from a defensive posture. I liked Bill Richardson’s energy plan, but every […]

Report warns of new security threats from climate change

Climate change will create a range of new security threats, including millions of displaced climate refugees, according to a new report from Britain’s Oxford Research Group. The report forecasts a tumultuous climate-changed future by as early as 2050 where some 200 million climate refugees fleeing environmental disasters in their homelands will try to immigrate to […]

Nuclear power plants in U.S. Southeast may face shutdowns due to drought

Nuclear reactors across the U.S. Southeast could be forced to slow production or shut down in the near future due to the effects of continuing drought in the region. Nuclear power plants require massive amounts of water to cool steam that turns the generators; the water usually arrives via large intake pipes from nearby rivers […]

EPA staff supported California auto-emissions waiver, documents show

As suspected, U.S. EPA employees last year told agency Administrator Stephen Johnson that California had “compelling and extraordinary conditions” that would justify a federal waiver allowing the state to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from autos, according to EPA documents reviewed by Senate staffers this week. Nonetheless, Johnson denied the state that waiver in December. The EPA […]

Why Al Gore isn’t running for president

As Hillary, Obama, and Edwards continue to slug it out in the early primary states, one name is conspicuously absent among the Democratic candidates to become the next president of the United States. Where is Al Gore? The man who received more votes than George W. Bush did in 2000, who served eight years as Bill Clinton's vice president, and whose climate change evangelism has been rewarded with an Oscar and Nobel Peace Prize has resolutely refused to enter the race, even though he might well have won it.

Ever since the documentary An Inconvenient Truth catapulted Gore to international superstardom in 2006, countless citizens and opinion leaders at home and abroad have urged him to pursue the presidency. For its 2007 Person of the Year issue, Time magazine asked Gore if he did not have "a moral obligation" to run, given the unparalleled power of the White House and the urgency of the climate crisis. Gore gave much the same answer he has been giving for months now: although he had "not completely ruled out the possibility," he did not expect to run for office; the best thing he could do to fight climate change was to stay focused on "changing public opinion."

Al Gore breaks his silence!

But not on the presidential race:

Research on changing behavior

Frank Zaski is a retired auto executive who has made something of a name for himself by pursuing a campaign to get shopping mall owners to turn down the heat. He put together some interesting thoughts on how to get people to use energy more wisely:

Kudos to Seventh Generation on a Hollywood moment

I’m not saying I paid good money to see 27 Dresses this weekend. Nor am I saying that its ending, however formulaic, made me cry. What I am saying is how nice it was to see a generous, nearly full-screen shot of a Seventh Generation cleaning product clutched in Katherine Heigl’s frenzied hand. Not to […]