Scientists propose huge Highland biofuels farms
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

Planting Asian elephant grass across the Highlands could provide enough biofuel to drive every vehicle in Scotland and perhaps the whole of the UK, experts will tell a conference in Glasgow this week.

Monster Miscanthus grass, which grows up to four metres high, could be the ideal crop to grow on marginal land for conversion into liquid fuels, they say. Because it won't compete with food crops, they claim it will avoid the environmental problems plaguing current biofuels.

Environmentalists, however, are concerned about the potential impact on wildlife and the landscape. They also question whether making fuel for cars would be the best way of using energy crops such as elephant grass.

Some of the world's leading biofuels scientists are gathering at the University of Glasgow today to help launch the university's new Solar and Bioenergy Research Centre. The centre aims to develop renewable fuels to minimise climate pollution.

"Growing crops such as willow, poplar or elephant grass in marginal areas of Scotland could fuel the UK," said Dr Peter Dominy, a plant biologist at the university and one of the conference organisers.

"In theory, planting an area the size of the Highlands would generate as much energy as that currently used in UK transportation."

Dominy argued that these kinds of crops wouldn't displace food production as they could be grown on land unsuitable for growing food.

"Many of the environmental problems currently attributed to biofuels would disappear," he claimed.

Steve Long, professor of crop science at the University of Illinois in the US, is investigating the use of elephant grass as a fuel, and is speaking at this week's conference. "It has the potential to replace Scotland's oil use for transportation," he told the Sunday Herald.

Professor Jay Keasling from the University of Berkeley in the US is investigating ways of ungluing wood so that its sugars can be more easily released to make fuels for vehicles. If that is successful, it could boost the prospects for biofuels farms in remoter areas of Scotland.

But the environmental group WWF Scotland has doubts. It supports the use of plants to produce renewable energy - but only if they can be grown without negative environmental and social impacts.

WWF Scotland's food expert Adam Harrison agreed that elephant grass and willow could produce large amounts of energy. "But they must be grown to strict sustainability standards," he said. "Large-scale developments could still have unacceptable impacts on the landscape, on water, soils and wildlife."

Harrison pointed out that burning biomass crops to generate heat and power yielded more energy than processing them into liquid fuels. "It makes far more sense at the moment for Scotland to use its existing forests for sustainable energy through things like wood chips than it does to invest in creating new crops to exploit biofuels which are yet to be proven outside the laboratory," he argued.

Research is also taking place at Glasgow University into how to imitate the natural process of photosynthesis in order to convert solar power into fuels. Professor Richard Cogdell, a university biochemist, said: "To be able to achieve this is one of the major challenges that mankind faces for its long-term survival as fossil fuels run out."