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Cultivating Collaboration: Mid-Project Summary for the Grass2Gas Project

Cultivating Collaboration: Mid-Project Summary for the Grass2Gas Project

C-CHANGE is the Consortium for Cultivating Human And Naturally reGenerative Enterprises. Collaborating institutions work to build science-based partnerships for meeting 21st-century challenges in agriculture, technology, and innovation. Partnerships are needed to meet the goals of delivering abundant, affordable, and safe food and energy to 10 billion people while also returning value to people and the land. A major project outcome of C-CHANGE is Grass2Gas (hereafter, simply G2G), a multi-institutional, transdisciplinary partnership working to evaluate the potential of a new bio-based value chain on U.S. farms, with emphasis on the generation of biogas, potentially upgraded to renewable natural gas (RNG), and other associated bioproducts through the anaerobic digestion (AD) of herbaceous biomass combined with manure. Initiated in 2020, the G2G project is funded by a five-year, $10 million grant (Award No. 2020-68012-31824) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture(USDA-NIFA). It represents a partnership between Iowa State University; Penn State University; Roeslein Alternative Energy, LLC; USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment; and 33 partner organizations.

 

 

Abstract

A mid-project update on the Grass2Gas project. The Consortium for Cultivating Human And Naturally reGenerative Enterprises (C-CHANGE) is a multi-institutional partnership working to create new value chains on U.S. farms, with emphasis on the generation of nutritious food, renewable energy, sustainable bioproducts, improved rural economic outcomes, and protection of the environment. A subset of C-CHANGE, Grass2Gas is advancing research, education, and extension to support development of a new biobased value chain centered on anaerobic digestion as conversion technology. The multi-institutional team is assessing ways in which perennial and winter crops can be used more widely as feedstock for anaerobic digestion. The novelty of the project lies in leveraging a successful business model based on the digestion of manure to encompass new agricultural feedstocks, more diverse products, and increased value throughout the supply chain.

 

DOI

https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/entities/publication/b18de0ff-dede-4b20-97a4-038c1763d5fd