The Tallgrass Prairie Center restores native vegetation for the benefit of society and environment through research, education, and technology.

PRAIRIE POWER PROJECT


The past decade has seen a notable increase in the awareness of environmental issues, especially our effect on the global climate. The stated goal of our new administration is to reduce the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050. A meaningful step toward this goal could be achieved by reducing greenhouse gas and other harmful emissions from coal-fired power plants through co-firing with biomass. There are several programs in development to use herbaceous perennial plants as the source of this biomass, including the Prairie Power Project at the University of Northern Iowa Tallgrass Prairie Center.

Prairie Power is a five-year research project to study the use of low-input high-diversity (LIHD) native prairie plantings as a feedstock for biomass energy. A recent study published in the journal Science suggests that the use of LIHD fuels can result in higher biomass yields, a higher net energy balance, and lower environmental impacts compared to row cropped corn or a monoculture stand of switchgrass. While most other biomass energy projects take an agronomic view of maximizing yield of a single crop, the Prairie Power Project takes a more ecological approach valuing the conservation of native prairie species, carbon sequestration, the creation of wildlife habitat, and the reduction or elimination of fertilizer and pesticide use in addition to biomass yields. There are several partners assisting the Tallgrass Prairie Center with this project including the University of Northern Iowa Biology Department, the Black Hawk County Conservation Board, the National Soil Tilth Laboratory at Iowa State University, and Cedar Falls Utilities.

The Black Hawk County Conservation Board has leased 100 acres of marginal land (Cedar River floodplain) to the Tallgrass Prairie Center for this research project. The research site is located at the Cedar River Natural Resources Area, five miles south of Waterloo, Iowa. The land had been previously row cropped farmed for the last 10 years. The site has been divided into 48 approximately one-acre research plots. These plots will be planted with varying levels of diversity including a monoculture of Switchgrass, an all grass seed mix with the “big five” prairie grasses, a 16-species grasses and forbs mix, and a 32-species grasses and forbs mix, and the four diversity treatments will be replicated across three different soil types. After establishment, a portion of each plot will be harvested, pellitized and burned in Cedar Falls Utilities’ stoker furnace. Results from this experiment will be used to determine the most optimal mixture of native prairie vegetation for maximum biomass production on non-prime agriculture land while maintaining wildlife habitat and other prairie conservation benefits.

Email: dave.williams@uni.edu | Phone: 319-273-7957