Arid Land Development of Sweet Sorghum as a Renewable Feedstock

The desired short term benchmarks/outcomes of this project are to: (1) Demonstrate the feasibility of using tertiary-treated sewage effluent for irrigation; (2) Determine which sorghum line should be utilized in arid Southwest; (3) Improve stabilization of sweet sorghum juice as a feedstock for ethanol production; (4) Complete mass (water and nutrients), and energy balances for growth and production of sweet sorghum in arid climates; (5) Derive preliminary estimates of costs and returns of using sweet sorghum to produce ethanol; (6) Improve the efficiency of juice fermentation; and (7) Transfer technology to Pinal Energy The long term outcomes are to: (1) Work with advisory board to prioritize feedstocks for arid Southwestern US; (2) Evaluate scale up to full production size at a commercial ethanol plant; (3) Identify which phases of the production process have the greatest scope for cost reductions; and (4) Determine economic feasibility of additional production facilities in the Southwestern United States (SW).

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Program information: Advanced Research, Biobased Research

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $200000
• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  Department of Transportation
  1200 New Jersey Avneue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Johnson, Shawn

• Principal Investigators:

  Ogden, Kimberly

• Start Date: 20090401
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20110331

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Arid land; Biomass fuels; Costs; Ethanol; Feasibility analysis; Fermentation; Grasses; Irrigation; Production
• Geographic Terms: Southwestern States
• Subject Areas: Economics; Energy; Environment; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01575658
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Department of Transportation
• Files: RIP, USDOT
• Created Date: Sep 10 2015 8:46AM