An energy crop is a plant grown as a low-cost and low-maintenance harvest used to make biofuels, such as bioethanol, or combusted for its energy content to generate electricity or heat. Energy crops are generally categorized as woody or herbaceous plants; many of the latter are grasses (Graminaceae).
Commercial energy crops are typically densely planted, high-yielding crop species where the energy crops will be burnt to generate power. Woody crops such as willow or poplar are widely utilised, as well as temperate grasses such as Miscanthus and Pennisetum purpureum (both known as elephant grass). If carbohydrate content is desired for the production of biogas, whole-crops such as maize, Sudan grass, millet, white sweet clover and many others, can be made into silage and then converted into biogas.
Through genetic modification and application of biotechnology plants can be manipulated to create greater yields, reduce associated costs and require less water. However, high energy yield can be realized with existing cultivars.
Famous quotes containing the words energy and/or crops:
“While the State becomes inflated and hypertrophied in order to obtain a firm enough grip upon individuals, but without succeeding, the latter, without mutual relationships, tumble over one another like so many liquid molecules, encountering no central energy to retain, fix and organize them.”
—Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)
“Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book before they write another. Instead of cultivating the earth for wheat and potatoes, they cultivate literature, and fill a place in the Republic of Letters. Or they would fain write for fame merely, as others actually raise crops of grain to be distilled into brandy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)