Grant to study willow as promising bioenergy crop

R&D
By Cornell University
Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The commercialization of shrub willow as a bioenergy crop could be years closer, thanks to a $1.37 million grant that will allow Cornell researchers to take advantage of the newly mapped shrub willow genome to study hybrid vigor and yield.

Larry Smart, associate professor of horticulture, has partnered with Christopher D. Town, professor at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Rockville, Md., to study the genetics of superior growth in hybrids of shrub willow, a fast-growing, perennial cool-climate woody plant.

"Determining the precise genetic mechanisms that produce hybrid vigor has been a scientific challenge for a century," said Smart.

Unlocking those mechanisms and then developing simple techniques for finding the genetic fingerprint for hybrid vigor in parent species could cut the time it takes to identify promising progeny, Smart said. And time is money; for farmers to adopt a new crop like shrub willow -- and for companies to accept the end product -- they need assurance of long-term profitability before taking on the associated higher risk.

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BCAP funding awarded to New York, North Carolina, Arkansas

Biomass Power & Thermal
By Luke Geiver
June 13, 2012

The USDA’s Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) is back in action. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced that two new project areas will be developed and another existing BCAP project area will be expanded through the help of a $9.6 million funding round.

In New York, ReEnergy Holding LLC will enroll 3,500 acres in a fast growing shrub willow that will be used to help the biomass power developer generate over 100 MW. The biomass company already has three facilities that have committed to purchasing the shrub feedstock. According to the USDA, the establishment of the energy willows will create roughly 144 jobs over the course of 11 years. Part of the project will include support from the “Come Farm With Us,” campaign, a program that targets new and beginning farmers form the St. Regis Mohawk reservation located only 15 miles from one of the committed facilities.

Chemtex International, a division of Gruppo Mossi & Ghisolfi, an advanced biofuels, biobased chemical and renewable energy developer based out of Italy, has been awarded roughly $4 million from the USDA to develop 4,000 acres of miscanthus and switchgrass in North Carolina. The energy crop project areas will be spread throughout 11 counties, and the energy crops will be used in part for Project Alpha, a 20 MMgy cellulosic ethanol biorefinery that will also produce onsite biogas for power generation, set for startup in 2014 in Sampson County, N.C.

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Willow biofuels program ignites with new boiler

R&D Magazine
By Cornell University
Friday, January 6, 2012

Prospects for meeting energy needs with a locally grown bioenergy crop are heating up on a Cornell campus.

Associate professor of horticulture Larry Smart's shrub willow bioenergy program is celebrating two milestones: a new $950,000 grant for breeding willow and installation of a boiler that will heat two buildings at Cornell's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in Geneva with willow biofuel produced right on campus.

"Willow is a renewable fuel option for people currently facing the high costs of heating with oil or propane," Smart said. "The scale of our demonstration plots and the new boiler would be appropriate for many businesses, municipalities, school districts, farms or non-farming landowners."

A recent land use assessment for the Northeast estimated that there are more than 6.9 million acres of idle or surplus agricultural land that is suitable for perennial bioenergy crop cultivation, without displacing acreage needed for food or feed production.

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Growing willows as biofuel

DemocratandChronicle.com
Jane Milliman • January 1, 2011

Normally the word "willow" brings to mind those huge weepers that hug stream banks or the sticks with big fuzzy buds you can harvest in the early spring. But here in upstate New York we have something called the Willow Biomass Project, which takes shrub willows out of the ornamentals (or weeds) realm and instead treats them as a renewable raw material for heat, biofuels and biodegradable polymers. The project, headed up at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, has been operating quietly for almost 20 years.

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Cutting-edge machine makes big bales of energy:

iStockAnalyst
Saturday, March 13, 2010 5:51 PM

The new biomass machine cuts brush to burn while opening habitat for sharp-tailed grouse and deer.

(Source: Duluth News-Tribune (Duluth, Minn.))By John Myers, Duluth News Tribune, Minn.

FLOODWOOD -- Steve Traeger drove the 200-horsepower, all-wheel-drive tractor into a wall of willow and alder and never flinched.

Brush and small trees bent and snapped, and the BioBaler towed behind the tractor was chewing it up and packing it tightly into half-ton bales as if it were hay.

"When you turn on your lights next week you'll be burning these bundles,'' said Paul Sandstrom of the Laurentian Resource Conservation and Development office, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Duluth.

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VT willow harvest promises cheap biomass fuel

Associated Press
By DAVE GRAM (AP) – 10-18-09

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — Middlebury College used to heat its buildings with oil, then switched to wood chips. Now it has planted a sustainable and relatively cheap fuel source — willow shrubs - that could help cut demand on the state's forests.

With a nine-acre patch of the fast-growing willows, the college is conducting a biomass energy experiment that seeks to answer the question: What if wood chip-burning heat systems lead to the deforestation of Vermont?

Willows, which grow faster than other trees and branch out when pruned, may be the answer — and may be a resource for other cold-weather states, too. So Jack Byrne, director of sustainability for the college, and business services director Tom Corbin have turned into farmers of sorts, planting tightly packed rows of willows in a field west of Middlebury's campus.

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NY energy crop project to develop regional bioenergy model

Biomass Magazine September 2009
By Anna Austin
Posted Sept. 9, 2009

A project in central New York aims to provide necessary data to those interested in growing energy crops or embracing them as fuel source, which includes estimates of total suitable land available by biomass type as well as the estimated cost and volume of shrub willow and various grasses that could be available to energy users in a specific region.

The project was launched in June and is funded by the New York Farm Viability Institute, a farmer-led nonprofit organization based in Syracuse, N,Y., that supports like projects to help farmers improve profitability. The NYFVI receives funds from state legislature and the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets.

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VVS to be bioenergy demonstration site

RomeSentinel.com (heart of New York State)

VERONA — Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School is growing its curriculum with a demonstration trial of shrub willow bioenergy crops.

Researchers at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) will be planting a 2.5 acre field of shrub willow adjacent to the high school, on Beacon Light Road, on Wednesday. The trial will show the potential of shrub willow to grow on marginal agricultural land and provide wood chips that can be used as fuel in power plants, for heating, and as a feedstock for cellulosic biofuels. The planting demonstration will begin at 1 p.m. and is open to growers, bioenergy professionals, and the interested public.

"VVS is the perfect site for a long-term demonstration of the growth potential of shrub willow varieties we’ve produced in our breeding program — it is easily accessible and in a region of the State where there is great interest in renewable energy technology and plenty of land suitable to grow willow" says Dr. Larry Smart, sssociate professor in Environmental and Forest Biology at SUNY-ESF and the project leader.

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