WITHIN the next ten years, fields across Europe and North America could be dense with the dancing fronds of elephant grass, a crop with a serious chance of replacing coal and oil in electricity generation.

Trials have shown that the plant flourishes on most arable land, requires no fertiliser, suffers no pests or diseases and produces huge volumes of material that can be harvested using existing technology and burned in power stations.

New trials of Miscanthus giganteus in Illinois show that giving over just 10 per cent of the arable land to the grass-like plants could produce more than 60 tons of dry matter per hectare — enough to provide half of the state’s electricity, including the city of Chicago.

In Europe, where trials have been going on for longer, the expectations are more modest, the BA Science Festival in Dublin was told yesterday.

John Clifton-Brown, of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, in Aberystwyth, said that, if miscanthus were grown on 10 per cent of suitable land, it could generate 9 per cent of Europe’s electricity.

Professor Steve Long, of the University of Illinois, said that until now “biomass” crops had been thought to have limited potential. But miscanthus, a close relation to sugar cane, produced “quite exceptional” yields in the US trials.

“Its potential is not a minor one at all,” he said. “Miscanthus can meet a very significant proportion of electricity demand.”

The plant is a perennial and, once established, shoots to 4m (14ft) or more, crowned by a feathery silver-coloured foliage. The version tested is a hybrid of two species, which means that it is both vigorous and sterile.

The crop should prove profitable for farmers, with a onehectare field able to produce enough energy to replace 36 barrels of oil — at current prices, a yield would be worth $2,160 (£1,170) per hectare.

In Britain, ministers are sufficiently encouraged to have started a breeding programme on miscanthus to try to produce an optimum variety.

There are already some power stations in England designed to burn biomass crops. Professor Mike Jones, of Trinity College Dublin, said that miscanthus would be unsuitable for much of southern Europe, which lacks sufficient water, but further north, in a band across Europe that includes Britain and Ireland, where agricultural land is lying idle, there was no reason why the crop should not be widely planted within ten years.

The advantage with biomass crops is that they do not add to carbon dioxide emissions. As they grow they absorb carbon dioxide, and when they are burned they release it again, so they are “carbon-neutral”.

Using such crops to replace coal could help to meet the Kyoto global warming targets.

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