What’s the most viable crop in terms of long-term sustainable growth in the United States’ southeast region?

It’s pine trees. The area of the country that includes the deep south and its lush agricultural resources can grow pine trees seemingly endlessly. And if the southeast can figure out a way to economically convert pine trees to energy, it could be a powerful region in the renewable energy solution for the U.S.

Steve Taylor, a professor and head of the Auburn University Department of Biosystems Engineering (say what?) as well as director of the Bioenergy and Bioproducts Center (say what again?) says that the technology is already available and there’s actually enough forest residue (we’re not even talking about full, live pine trees) to produce enough fuel to entirely alleviate the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

However, for that process to effectively work, the various industries that work on alternative fuels and the U.S. forest industry would need to find a way to live in harmony. HCL Clean Tech, a U.S.-Israeli biofuels technology development center, is contracted with the Southern Research Institute to build the very first U.S. pilot plant to produce low-cost, fermentable sugars that can be used for biofuels from North Carolina pine trees.

It’s not even necessarily a project that would require the foresting of new pine trees. The parts of trees that aren’t used for lumber (ie needles, small branches, bark, wood chips, sawdust and pulping liquors) could be more than enough to produce the “feedstock” required for biofuel. And using pine residue rather than corn or other ingestible vegetation for biofuel will ensure that food prices don’t rise as a result of the effort.

Colorado-based Range Fuels Inc. is already beginning production on a commercial scale ethanol plant that will produce fuel from pine tree residue. The plant will be in Georgia, the heart of the American Southeast.

What does this all mean? It’s not butter, or beef, or whiskey being used for biofuel, but it does mean that potentially your left over Christmas tree could be put to use creating fuel!

Source: Tiny Green Bubble