Biomass Crops Scifair Projects

Agriculture

The development of agriculture was one of the first steps humans took toward civilization. The invention of agriculture allowed humans to stabilize their access to food.

Solar House Experiments Kit	EDU 8405 Solar Power Science Kit	Windmill Science Fair Projects	SCG-125 Snap Circuits Green Alternative Energy
Ages 12 and up	Ages 10 and up	Age 10 thru college	Ages 8 and up

Objectives/Goals

Renewable, alternative energy sources such as photovoltaic and crop biomass (ethanol and biodiesel) are essentially solar energy conversion. If the efficacy of insolation conversion is modelled and calculated, then modern photovoltaic technology will prove to be more effective than any of the crop biomass sources.

Methods/Materials

This research is from a scientific point of view and does not consider the economics of building the production infrastructure, thus providing a theoretical upper limit of solar energy conversion efficiency by which to compare the long-term potential of each alternative. A model was constructed for each alternative for calculation, and data on the energy used and produced by each of the specific alternative energy sources was researched for input into the model.

Results

The results prove the hypothesis that photovoltaic technology is the most efficient for solar energy conversion at 15% to 20% for conventional solar cells. Sugarcane ethanol is a distant second at 0.183% followed by corn ethanol at 0.118% and soybean biodiesel at 0.0267%.

Conclusions/Discussion

This means that the land area for a photovoltaic farm is more than 100 times smaller than that required for a biomass farm to produce the same amount of energy. Not only is the land area smaller, but it also does not have to be arable or irrigated thereby promising a future that does not force us to choose between food and energy. Additional research and calculations indicate that photovoltaic farm area the size of California is sufficient to supply all the global annual energy demand. 3rd party contributor