Could sunflowers turn Chicago vacant lots into a source for biofuels?

Medill Reports Chicago
by Drew Kann

Nov 20, 2012   Read more

Legume, sunflower, camelina rotation may intensify bioenergy yields, returns

Biofuels Digest
Isabel Lane
April 16, 2012

In Florida, combining the planting of a biofuels crop with a legume and a short-season oilseed crop may make an intensive and short rotation of crops economically profitable, according to research performed by plant pathologist Dan Chellemi.

During 2010, he added a legume cover crop, which would supply part of the nitrogen, into the rotation with sunflowers. Once the sunflowers were harvested, he returned with Camelina sativa, a deep-rooted 70-day mustard crop known for producing seeds with high oil and high protein content. Because camelina also is a good nutrient forager, Chellemi applied no nitrogen to the plots. Chellemi indicated that while the data is preliminary and not yet conclusive, results warrant continuing trials this season.

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New equipment can help researchers brew biofuel

Clemson University
Published: September 7, 2010

CLEMSON — A new piece of equipment for the Clemson University biosystems engineering program will help researchers conduct novel research on new biomass sources, such as algae and fungi, that may supply biofuels of the future.

“The new $125,000 mobile biofuels processing plant delivered from Piedmont Biofuels in North Carolina is a state-of-the-art pilot facility that will not only give us a valuable research tool for working with plants, microbes and waste oils, but also will be useful to demonstrate biofuels production for local producers, bioenergy industrial partners and to the public,” said biosystems engineer Terry Walker. “We had our initial successful run last week using waste algal and sunflower oils from Martek Biosciences in Kingstree and then used the biofuel to cycle back to a generator to achieve net-zero production.”

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Sunflower DNA Map: Fuel And Food Source Of The Future?

The Huffington Post
DIRK LAMMERS 01/22/10 03:32 AM

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A $10.5 million research project aimed at mapping the DNA sequence of sunflowers could one day yield a towering new variety for both food and fuel.

Researchers envision crossbreeding a standard sunflower with the Silverleaf species out of Texas to produce a hybrid with bright yellow flowers bursting with tasty seeds and thick stalks filled with complex sugars that can be turned into ethanol.

The wild, drought-resistant Silverleaf is known for its woody stalks, which can grow up 15 feet tall and 4 inches in diameter.

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Sunflowers bring hope – and possible eco-benefits – to New Orleans

The Christian Science Monitor
By Judy Lowe
07.09.09

Talk about multitasking — sunflowers planted on previously blighted vacant lots are providing not just beauty, but it’s hoped that they will also be able to remove contaminants from the soil and provide green jobs, plus – as a bonus – the seeds can be harvested and turned into environmentally friendly biofuel.

That’s a pretty big order even for such a large plant. But projects planting sunflowers in vacant lots are already under way in New Orleans and Pittsburgh. And expansion to Cleveland may be next.

So far, the nonprofit group that’s behind all this, GTECH, has partnered with a number of organizations – including Carnegie Mellon University. Their goals: reclaim vacant land, empower communities, and translate ideas into action.

Will Bradshaw of Green Coast Enterprise, a partner with GTECH in New Orleans’ Project Sprout, told Living on Earth that sunflowers were chosen specifically for the project becauset they “create hope. People have a direction connection to them,” he said. They remember their grandmothers or other relatives growing sunflowers. And they signal a brighter future.

Scientists aren’t necessarily agreed on whether sunflowers can remove lead or other contaminants from soil, so turning sunflower seeds into biofuel seems the most promising green possibility.

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CMU Grads Grow Sunflowers For Biodiesel

KDKA-TV (Pittsburgh)
Oct 14, 2008 8:44 pm US/Eastern

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Where you once saw vacant lots -- strewn with garbage and broken glass -- you may find something new in the neighborhood -- sunflowers. Acres of sunflowers growing in Lawrenceville, Hazelwood, East Liberty and Larimer.

Why all the sunflowers? It's the seeds.

"An acre of sunflowers can produce close to 100 gallons of straight vegetable oil per year and so the hope is that these seeds can be crushed into vegetable oil and processed into bio-deisel," says Andrew Butcher, one of the founders a company called G-Tech.

G-Tech was started by some recent Carnegie Mellon grads, who want to turn the problem of abandoned urban properties into part of the solution to the nation's energy crisis -- by crushing the sunflower seeds into sunflower oil and converting that into clean burning bio-fuel.

"Definitely cleaner than gas," says Butcher. "Emissions from bio-deisel are know to have an 80 percent better impact on carbon emissions."

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