Decades of tree and biomass research jointly conducted by Florida Statue University and Shell Energy have resulted in the planting of the largest single \u201cEnergy Crop Plantation\u201d in the entire<\/p>\n
United States. This Plantation spans approximately 130 acres and is home to over 250,000 planted trees including cottonwoods (native to the area) and eucalyptus (which are non-invasive) along with various row crops such as soybeans.<\/p>\n
This organization of \u201csupertrees\u201d was brought into being as a result of the University\u2019s joint research with other agencies including Shell, the US<\/p>\n
Department of Energy, the Common Purpose Institute, and groups of various individuals who are working to develop alternative energy sources (those not dependent on fossil fuels) for the future.<\/p>\n
This research is focused on the planting and processing of biomass energy supplies from fast-growing crops known as \u201cclosed loop biomass\u201d or simply \u201cenergy crops\u201d.<\/p>\n
The project seeks to develop \u201cpower plants\u201d such as wood-pulp or wood-fibre providing plants; clean biogas to be used by industries; plants such as sugarcane which can be used for ethanol development; and crops such as soybeans for biodiesel fuel production.<\/p>\n
University involvement in alternative energy research is also going on at Penn State University. At Penn State, special research is focused on the development of hydrogen power as a practical alternative energy source.<\/p>\n
The researchers involved are convinced that mankind is moving toward a hydrogen-fueled economy due to the need for us to reduce air pollution and find other sources of energy besides petroleum to power up the United States.<\/p>\n
Hydrogen energy burns clean and can be endlessly renewed, as it can be drawn from water and crop plants. Hydrogen power would thus be a sustainable energy resource to be found within the US infrastructure while the world\u2019s supply of (affordable) oil peaks and begins to decline.<\/p>\n
The University seeks to help with the commercial development of hydrogen-powered fuel cells, which would be usable in place of or in tandem with combustion engines for all of our motor vehicles.<\/p>\n
When President Bush recently announced his alternative energy initiative, he determined that the government would develop five \u201cSun Grant\u201d centres for concentrated research.<\/p>\n
Oregon State University has the honour of having been selected as one of these centres and has been allocated government grants of $20 million for each of the next four years to carry out its mission.<\/p>\n
OSU will lead the way in researching alternative energy as it represents the interests of the Pacific Islands, the US Pacific Territories, and nine western states.<\/p>\n
OSU President Edward Ray says, the research being conducted through OSU\u2019s Sun Grant centre will contribute directly to our meeting President Bush\u2019s challenge for energy independence.<\/p>\n
Specific research into alternative energy being conducted at OSU by various teams of scientists right now includes a project to figure out how to efficiently convert such products as straw into a source of renewable biomass fuel and another one aimed at studying how to efficiently convert wood fibres into liquid fuel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Decades of tree and biomass research jointly conducted by Florida Statue University and Shell Energy have resulted in the planting of the largest single \u201cEnergy Crop Plantation\u201d in the entire United States. This Plantation spans approximately 130 acres and is home to over 250,000 planted trees including cottonwoods (native to the area) and eucalyptus (which\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[191,192,786,1227,194,1208],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternative-energy","tag-alternative","tag-energy","tag-hydrogen","tag-plants","tag-power","tag-research"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/w1.affwebsites.com\/articledir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}