Transcript Slide 1

Climate Change
FOSSIL fuels
Now:
~300 million years ago (before dinosaurs!):
Coal
Oil
Burning Fossil Fuels
puts EXTRA carbon
dioxide into the
atmosphere
CO2
Carbon dioxide cycles naturally
CO2
Carbon from grass
is converted to CO2
by herbivores and decomposers
CO2
Climate Change SOLUTION?
• Bioenergy or Biofuels or Grassoline
CO2
When using grassoline as a fuel,
CO2 that is produced
would have been released
into the atmosphere
naturally through other processes
CO2
BioEnergy SusTainability
Experiment
The BEST Experiment Question:
Is Grassoline Sustainable?
Or
How green is grassoline?
The BEST Experiment Question:
Is Grassoline Sustainable?
or
• What kind of grass to make grassoline
from?—lots of species (prairie) or just
one species (switchgrass)?
• Should we fertilize to make the grass
grow bigger? Will doing this create
other kinds of pollution?
• What will happen to the ecosystem
when we cut the grass (to make fuel)?
Research
Plots
Block Layout
FERTILIZED
FERTILIZED
FERTILIZED
FERTILIZED
PRAIRIE
SWITCH
PRAIRIE
SWITCH
HARVESTED
HARVESTED
SWITCH
PRAIRIE
SWITCH
PRAIRIE
HARVESTED
HARVESTED
Planting the plots!
Harper Creek school district
Planting the plots!
Olivet school district
Biofuel Video
http://www.ndep.us/Biofuel