CEDAR FALLS -- The tallgrass prairies of Iowa very nearly disappeared, but some researchers believe the unique features could make a comeback and, in the process, take care of some of the country's fuel needs.

The Tallgrass Prairie Center at the University of Northern Iowa is researching ways to turn grasses into biomass fuels used to generate electricity.

"When you hear about biomass, you usually hear only about switchgrass, but we're looking at using prairie plants including wildflowers," said Dave Williams, manager of the center's Prairie Institute.

The Tallgrass Prairie Center is working with Cedar Falls Utilities on the project. Earlier this year, they secured $300,000 in state funding to start the project, and the two groups will likely go back to the Iowa Power Fund board to seek additional money.

The Tallgrass Prairie Center's work will piggyback on a study done by David Tilman, an ecology professor at the University of Minnesota, published in Science magazine. He looked at how productive mixed prairie plantings could be in producing biomass for ethanol or for burning to produce electricity.

The research discovered mixed prairie could produce more than twice the biomass than single-species planting, such as switchgrass.

In addition, scientists are excited that a prairie planting alternative could result in a carbon-negative system, meaning more carbon is stored in the plants' deep roots than released in the atmosphere while producing electricity or ethanol.

Tilman's study was conducted on small, hand-weeded plots of land. The Tallgrass Prairie Center would like to expand the scope.

"We want to do this on a practical scale for farmers," said Daryl Smith, a biology professor at UNI and director of the Tallgrass Prairie Center. "They're not going to go out and weed hundreds of acres."

As in Tilman's study, the Tallgrass Prairie Center will start its experiments on sandy, marginal agricultural land. They will plant 100 acres in the Cedar River Wildlife Area north of La Porte City.

Smith believes using the prairie plantings on marginal agricultural land would be beneficial on several levels, reducing soil erosion and producing more energy, healthy soils and better habitat for wildlife.

They plan on planting a few different mixtures of prairie plantings and switchgrass, then comparing which is most productive.

State Sen. Bill Dotzler helped the prairie center gain initial funding.

"You almost get a trifecta with this -- you clean the streams, you provide habitat for pheasants and other wildlife and you produce an alternative fuel," Dotzler said.

The research will evaluate how the prairie grass stands can sustain harvest. In a typical prairie planting, a prescribed burn every two to three years maintains the stand's health. Researchers will evaluate whether the prairies need the burning less with harvest or whether parts of the stand should be harvested each year in a rotation.

The research will also go into how the grasses are turned into a usable fuel. Experiments will turn the biomass into pellets or cubes and examine how the new fuel burns.

Electric generation would require massive amounts of biomass. Smith estimates the 100-acre field will provide just enough fuel for an eight-hour test burn at Cedar Falls Utilities.

CFU has two coal-burning plants, Streeter Station 6 and 7. Streeter Station 6, the older of the two plants, has the ability to burn 100 percent biomass.

The utility has experimented with burning various forms of biomass during the past several years, including corn cobs, oat hulls, cornstalks and switchgrass. CFU also worked at refining methods for producing cubes or pellets of biomass to make them into a form that can be burned in the power plant's stoker units.

"It's not a product that's commercially available in the quantities we need," CFU spokesperson Betty Zeman said.

Most recently, CFU has worked to establish a supply chain of biomass material for burning in Streeter Station 6.

Zeman said studying the prairie plants as biomass fuel will be done with an eye toward making the concept practical.

"We're working on both research and the commercializing of that research," Zeman said.

Dotzler said the Power Fund came out of a growing interest in alternative fuels and concern for reducing the reliance on coal and oil.

"It's not going to be the whole answer, but I think burning the native plants could be an important part of the whole puzzle," Dotzler said.

Contact Jon Ericson at (319) 291-1461 or jonathan.ericson@wcfcourier.com.

{M3Open House

The Tallgrass Prairie Center will have an open house Sept. 19 from 3 to 5 p.m. Visitors can learn more about the center's programs, including prairie restoration, roadside vegetation management programs and seed production for prairie grasses and wildflowers. The center is located on West 27th Street, on the south side of the road, west of the McLeod Center.