USDA Approves CRP Biomass Pilot Projects

March 27, 2002

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said today that switchgrass may soon create energy in Illinois and Oklahoma and promote a cleaner environment as she announced approval of two Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) biomass pilot projects for the two states at a meeting in Chicago here with more than 300 area farmers and agribusiness representatives.

"Both projects promote the use of a renewable fuel and a cleaner environment," said Veneman "The grass is easily obtained compared to coal, a fossil fuel. Burning switchgrass instead of coal reduces the amount of coal-related pollutants emitted into the air."

Veneman made the announcement during a trip to Chicago to meet with farmers and to tour the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

As part of a project called "Converting Illinois CRP Grass Biomass Into Energy," switchgrass will be harvested from a CRP project located in the Illinois River watershed near Havana, Ill. Biomass from the switchgrass will then be made into pellets and used to co-fire traditional coal energy sources.

In Oklahoma, the "Converting CRP Grasses into Energy Pilot Project" is working with partners to locate markets for agricultural biomass and, at the same time, studying methods of combining CRP grass pellets with Oklahoma's high sulphur coal to determine if a lower sulphur product can be developed and marketed to power companies. The grass is primarily Old World Bluestem and includes some native grass mixtures grown on CRP acres in a 5-county area in the Oklahoma panhandle.

The Illinois and Oklahoma CRP biomass pilot projects are added to four USDA CRP biomass pilot projects approved on March 21, 2001, in Iowa, Minn., New York and Pennsylvania. The prior projects include developing warm and cool season grasses as a source of renewable energy in Iowa, growing of hybrid poplar trees on CRP to be used for biomass energy in Minnesota, growing willow biomass crops in New York, and producing switchgrass for sale to a local cooperative's coal-fired fluid-bed combuster that is used for burning alternative fuels in Pennsylvania.