Reed canary grass (RCG) is a relatively common and robust grass crop that is easy to grow and harvest, even in land that is marginal (too wet, for example) for other crops. It can be grown efficiently in the sub-arctic regions of Sweden and Finland. RCG takes two years to establish, then produces at peak yields for eight to thirteen years with no additional planting or fertilisation.
One hundred thousand tonnes of RCG is equivalent to more than 400 gigawatt hours of energy. RASLRES will use RCG as a combustible fuel source to produce heat. Using household-scale and small-scale industrial boilers, this will provide hot water for existing hot water-based heating systems. The fuel behaves much like wood fuel, but produces a little more ash and, in briquette form, will cost less than wood pellets.
Because there is a huge amount of underutilised or unutilised farm land throughout much of the NPP area, RCG provides farmers and land owners with the chance to put these idle farmland resources back to work and produce a renewable, low-carbon source of energy. In the northern part of Sweden, for example, unutilised farm land is capable of producing 100,000s of tonnes of RCG fuel each year. And because RASLRES will target unused or idle farm land, this new crop will not compete with food-crop production.
One challenge that RASLRES will address when piloting the production and use of RCG is the need for a slightly more capable fuel stoker/burner system than that used for wood pellets – namely, a stoker/burner able to handle small RCG briquettes. Another challenge will simply be introducing a new fuel type into a region that is mostly familiar with burning wood (logs, pellets, chip) for heat; this is a classic information challenge.
