  {"id":9433,"date":"2012-09-05T09:29:29","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T19:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=9433"},"modified":"2021-03-04T13:57:29","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T23:57:29","slug":"uh-researching-hawaiis-biofuel-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2012\/09\/05\/uh-researching-hawaiis-biofuel-future\/","title":{"rendered":"<abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa researching <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">쮸떴눈첵<\/span>&#8217;s biofuel future"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z78zOwwVnU4?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" title=\"YouTube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Imagine if fields of tropical grass in <span aria-label=\"Waimanalo\">Waim&#699;nalo<\/span>, which grows like weeds year-round, could be turned into electricity, jet fuel or even gasoline for automobiles. The University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">쮸떴눈첵<\/span> at M&#257;noa&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctahr.hawaii.edu\">College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources<\/a> is in the process of determining if that dream could become a reality. <\/p>\n<p>The college is looking into locally produced, renewable energy that would end <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">쮸떴눈첵<\/span>&#8217;s severe dependence on foreign oil and serve as a model to the world. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;When people ask me is it economically viable at this point, I say we don&#8217;t have the answers yet,&rdquo; said Professor <strong>Andrew Hashimoto<\/strong> of <abbr>CTAHR<\/abbr>. &ldquo;That&#8217;s why we do the research.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p><abbr>CTAHR<\/abbr> and its project partners have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2012\/07\/25\/biofuel-project-receives-6-million-grant\/\">awarded a four-year, $6 million federal grant<\/a> for the research. This grant is part of a $41 million investment for 13 projects nationwide. The goal is to spur innovation in bio energy. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There is a big emphasis on the sustainability,&rdquo; said Hashimoto. &ldquo;How much input? What&#8217;s the impact on carbon by these processes? What&#8217;s the impact on the environment? What&#8217;s the impact on the communities that sustain these processes? It&#8217;s a very comprehensive project.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>It starts with the fast growing tropical grass and a lot of questions. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&#8217;s not so much finding the best crop but really which crops do the best in the different environments,&rdquo; said Hashimoto. &ldquo;And it&#8217;s not only yield but how much input is required like water, fertilizer, pest control and things like that.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Researchers are also looking into the harvesting, pre-processing and the conversion of the grass or biomass into fuel like diesel and gasoline. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We need to convert biomass from a solid form to something we can use in our everyday life,&rdquo; said Professor <strong>Scott Turn<\/strong> of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hnei.hawaii.edu\/\"><span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">쮸떴눈첵<\/span> Natural Energy Institute<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>A research reactor operated by <abbr>HNEI<\/abbr> converts the biomass into carbon monoxide and hydrogen that can be made to produce electricity or be converted into liquid fuel. It is one of the many conversion methods being examined. No stone is being left unturned as <abbr>UH<\/abbr> researchers look into every aspect of biofuel and its future in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">쮸떴눈첵<\/span>. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Getting off of petroleum is very important for us,&rdquo; said Turn. &ldquo;For energy security, for economic development and to help put some of our agriculture lands back into production.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&#8217;s really going to come down to the economics and basically, the sustainability,&rdquo; said Hashimoto. &ldquo;Are you benefiting the environment and the community as well as economically?&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Those are among the questions the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> researchers hope to have answered in the next two to four years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa&#8217;s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources examining the use of fast-growing tropical grasses for biofuel production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,12],"tags":[974,212,294,73,9],"class_list":["post-9433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-video","tag-biofuel","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-hawaii-natural-energy-institute","tag-sustainability","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9433"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136646,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9433\/revisions\/136646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}