Photo by Don Alquist/The Daily Ardmoreite
Auburn Professor David Bransby right, explains the biofuel truck Friday at the Noble Foundation. At left is Wayne Keith, a partner in Renewable Energy Systems.

Alabama farmer Wayne Keith's 21-year-old, lime green Dodge pickup doesn't run on gasoline, diesel, electricity or solar cells. Instead it uses scrap wood, dry switchgrass, paper or just about any other combustible materials that contain carbon.

Basically, Keith uses a small gasifier mounted in the bed of his pickup to heat the raw materials, which are then converted to synthetic gas to run the truck.

Keith's truck was featured during a demonstration Friday near a test plot of switchgrass at the Noble Foundation. Keith, a partner in Renewable Energy Systems, has partnered with Auburn University for the "Coast-to-Coast and Back Renewable Energy Tour" to raise public awareness about renewable energy and its benefits.

"I'm doing this for less than a penny a mile. I can go two miles on a pound of wood," Keith said. "The gas is sweet and slow burning, and it has a high octane. You lose about 30 percent power."

"We just thought it would be a great opportunity for the public to become more aware of why we are working with switchgrass," said Joe Bouton, senior vice president and forage improvement division director at the foundation.

Noble scientists are collaborating with researchers at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University to develop crops like switchgrass so they can be efficiently refined to produce liquid biofuels. Switchgrass is a drought-resistant perennial plant that can grow on marginal land. Unlike corn, crops like switchgrass can be used to produce ethanol without impacting the nation's food supply.

"We think there's a great opportunity for farmers to produce this feedstock," Bouton said.

Auburn University professor David Bransby said a private-sector firm is close to opening a biomass refinery in Alabama that will become a model for the rest of the country.

"This bio-refinery will use between 300 and 400 tons of straw, switchgrass, wood, municipal solid waste and used car tires each day to produce Number 2 diesel," he said.

The renewable energy tour, which began in Charleston, S.C., will continue across the country until it reaches California. Following a brief West Coast swing, Keith will switch over to a second truck and participate in a three-day road race from Berkeley, Calif., to Las Vegas for vehicles powered by "non-commercially available fuels."

This article appeared in The Daily Ardmoreite, www.ardmoreite.com, on October 6, 2008.