Energy crops

Solutions to climate change: using trees and grasses to capture carbon and produce energy

26 January 2010 

A unique £1.1 million research project has begun to understand how coppiced trees and grass crops can be used for renewable energy and also trap carbon in the soil long term.

Led by Professor Gail Taylor, from the University of Southampton, a team of scientists will track the fate of carbon captured by plants and grasses via photosynthesis, as it flows through the plant to soil inhabited by micro-organisms, before becoming locked into organic matter within the soil.

The team will also compare the process to arable food crops, like wheat, and will test the idea that these ‘bioenergy’ crops are better at retaining soil carbon for the long-term.

Unlike existing food crops that are harvested after just a few months, trees and grasses spend decades growing before they are harvested and release trapped CO₂, making the process more effective.

"Scientists now believe that CO₂, is an important greenhouse gas and a major cause of climate change so it’s vital we develop ways of removing it from the atmosphere," comments Professor Gail Taylor, from the University’s School of Biological Sciences.

"Using trees and grasses is an efficient and cost effective way of doing this, whilst providing a source of energy and off-setting CO₂, emissions from equivalent fossil fuels. Our research has already shown that bioenergy crops could potentially reduce carbon emissions by several million tonnes in the UK over the next decade."

'Carbon opportunity maps' will be developed to identify the most effective areas of the countryside where bioenergy crops could most effectively be grown. The crops could then be combusted alongside coal in power stations to produce electricity, producing fewer CO₂, emissions than fossil fuels, or used in heating systems.

In the future, bioenergy crops could be turned into liquid fuels such as bioethanol, avoiding the conflict between food and fuel when grain crops are used for these purposes.

The project is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) as part of its Living with Environmental Change research programme.

The team is made up of scientists from the University of Warwick, Rothamsted Research Centre for Bioenergy and Climate Change, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the University of East Anglia, the University of Edinburgh and the Aberystwyth University.

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Rothamsted Research is an institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council