CEE Professor John Schwartz has published an article in Auburn Speaks about the outcome of five-year, $15M grant with the USDA Agricultural and Food Research initiative program, with a focused research call on sustainable bioenergy for the nation.
The lead group was UTIA’s Center for Renewable Carbon with Dr. Tim Rials as the Center Director and Project Principal Investigator. The successful grant was a team, consisting of UTK, Auburn University and North Carolina State University. Oak Ridge National Laboratory planned a support role from the Center for Bioenergy Sustainability under the leadership of Dr. Virginia Dale.
This research directly correlated with research at ORNL, where the field data collected helped calibrate ORNL’s model, the Biomass Location for Optimal Sustainability Model (BLOSM). Schwartz and his students worked with Dr. Virginia Dales’ research group to monitor three streams near Vonore, Tennessee, for several years to collect watershed-scale samples analyzed for sediment and nutrient water quality.
The team monitored runoff water quantity and quality from three switchgrass field plots for over a year on the Thompson Farm, also near Vonore, Tennessee. Results of the water quantity/quality analyses were used to calibrate the SWAT and BLSOM models. The full article is available here: www.auburnspeaks.org/on-biofuels