The hard work of our Chief Agronomist Dr. David Cornett, coupled with that of our engineering team headed by Eberhard Lucke from Lucke Consulting Technology Services, has paid off in the first of several steps to a definitive white paper on hemp for energy.  Today we released the Executive Summary which shares why we are excited about hemp for energy – as are the companies that we are partnering with to purchase renewable natural gas.  Here are a few highlights from the Executive Summary:

  • We are NOT in the food verses fuel fight.  We’ll never take the very valuable hemp grain/seeds and put them in a biodigester.
  • Hemp gives off about 82 MMBTU of methane per acre (assuming US planting practices)
  • We have to look at the energy it takes to plant a crop plus the amount of energy it takes to harvest. Hemp has a 4:6 output/input ratio compared to 3:3 for corn and 2:2 to canola oil seed.
  • Add the bonus of soil remediation and sequestering more CO2 per ton of dry mass than a tree its easy to see why we are excited!

Would you like a copy of the Executive Summary?  Write us at [email protected]