Biofuels

If you have filled up your tank with gas lately, you know that our reliance on fossil fuels for powering our cars, homes, and workplaces has become a serious problem. Here in the south, we are paying almost $4.00 a gallon for regular gasoline and, the once less expensive diesel fuel, is now costing even more than this per gallon. This is a special problem in our area as we are an agricultural community relying on diesel to prepare our fields, to plant and harvest our crops, and to then get our crops to market. In the pass several years, our prairie farms that normally grow rice, soybeans, and cotton, have had another crop added in greater amounts --- corn. Corn is being grown and harvested by farmers to use as a biofuel. Some of the problems with corn being grown in this manner is that it is also a food for people and farm animals so prices could go up for these consumers. Also corn can only be grown once a year during the warmer months. Because of this, scientists are looking for other solutions. One possible biofuel crop appeared in an article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on June 24, 2008. The plant is called switch grass. Read the article and conduct an internet search on this possible biofuel. Periodically during the next several months, you will be asked to post a response about this biofuel.