An energy crop that cleans toxic soil?

Australian researchers have developed a fast-growing giant napier grass that cleans up toxic soil, and can also be converted to ethanol for transport or combusted for electricity.

Grown at an experimental plantation at Shaoguan University in China, the grass is already being used to create electricity for 100 households. Researchers now have their eye on a new project in Nigeria to prove its international credentials.

The new strain of grass was created using plant tissue culture techniques to be fast growing and have a high energy value.

This plant grows well on degraded land and produces high yields. Researchers say it can be used for phytoremediation, which is the use of plants to extract particular minerals and metals from contaminated soils selectively, using their roots. This can lower the level of toxicity in the soil and make the land fit for human uses again, including for housing.

It’s a neat solution that potentially will simultaneously address multiple problems. We can probably expect to see more and more of these double and triple layer-type solutions, as crises increasingly converge.

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