over the past three decades, esf’s willow project has picked up a tremendous amount of steam. its numerous collaborators range from the u.s. department of agriculture to academic institutions to local businesses, and its research scope covers everything from science to economics.

if all goes well, shrub willow could become a key part of rural landscapes and economies, as well as a source of heat, and, looking further ahead, biofuels – all while being completely carbon neutral.

why willow?

shrub willow is a short rotation woody crop used to produce biomass. on a basic level, the plant stores energy from the sun. after harvest, this energy is harnessed by simple burning or conversion into other types of fuel. the fact that it’s a “short rotation” crop means that it can be harvested every three years or so, and can re-sprout from the roots upward of seven times before it requires replanting.

according to this informational video on the project’s website, one acre of a typical harvest contains enough energy to power the average home for a year: 

the willow plant’s consumption of carbon dioxide offsets any emissions put into the atmosphere during planting, processing and transport, making this a truly carbon neutral energy source. because 175 different species of shrub willow are available, mixing varieties in the same field provides resilience to different weather patterns and pests. willow is generally well-suited for the climate in the northern u.s., and is ideal to fill up marginal agricultural land – fields that aren’t high quality enough to be reserved for most food crops.

as esf researchers began to uncover the huge potential willow has for biomass in the region, other invaluable uses for the plant came to light, current project director timothy volk told planet forward. shrub willow can be used as an ecological engineering tool; for example, it makes an excellent roadside snow barrier and can be planted along stream banks to prevent erosion. it also has been shown to support diverse wildlife and an estimated 55 species of important pollinating insects.

in solvay, new york, just down the road from esf’s syracuse campus, willow has proven its value as a bioremediation agent. on the site of an old soda ash factory, hundreds of acres of chemical byproduct had been held in settling basins, causing harmful salts to leach into the local watershed. planting shrub willow on the site has eliminated the problem almost completely: today, the plants absorb most rainwater, and the salts, without water to carry them, stay put. the northeast, volk pointed out, has no shortage of post-industrial sites like these in need of remediation.  

looking ahead

currently, there are about 12,000 acres of shrub willow planted in northern new york, and two wood-fired power plants that utilize it in combination with other plant matter.

still, this energy source has a long way to go to reach its true potential. economically speaking, it’s hard for any source or renewable energy to compete with the low price of fossil fuels. in recent years, this issue has been somewhat alleviated by the usda’s biomass crop assistance program (bcap) which has allowed many farmers to grow shrub willow by partially subsidizing their efforts. this has allowed willow to begin establishing a presence on the rural landscape and in the energy production field.

while shrub willow doesn’t rival the price point of fossil fuels, it does offer one tantalizing advantage: the potential for energy independence and job growth in rural areas. this prospect has been one of the major drivers of funding for the research.

“you’re in essence buying your energy source from your neighbor down the road as opposed to paying someone from another state or country for your source of energy,” volk said.

on a community level, the most feasible place to start using willow biomass is simply burning it to heat community centers, schools, campuses, and the like. but to see willow as a truly lucrative part of the economy on a larger scale, we must extend our gaze a bit farther into the future.

“to make the economics work, we need to get away from making a single product – just heat, or just electricity, or just biofuels – out of any biomass,” volk said.

in addition to energy, wood contains various chemicals, which, if isolated, could be sold at significant value. by breaking the willow down into its components and extracting these chemicals, and then converting the remaining bulk into biofuels, much more monetary value can be gained from the same crop. this process has been completed extensively in lab settings, but industrial-scale facilities, known as “biorefineries,” are only just breaking free of the conceptual stage and are not yet common in the energy industry.

it may seem a distant vision, but with 31 years of study and research already under its belts, suny-esf’s willow biomass team is keeping its sight set firmly on a sustainable future.   

the watershed’s recovery in recent years is largely thanks to save the rain, a unique stormwater management program initiated in 2009 by onondaga county executive joanne “joanie” mahoney. by combining green solutions and community engagement with traditional water treatment methods, save the rain has put syracuse on the cutting edge of a growing movement of environmentally conscious water management across the nation.

the problem

during syracuse’s industrial-era development, onondaga lake was hit with a double blow, becoming a dumping ground for industrial chemical waste as well as sewage from the city. this traditional sacred site for the onondaga nation and 19th century tourist attraction was declared unfit for swimming by 1940, and fishing was banned in 1972. even after industrial dumping was halted, the problem of sewage remained; it was built into the city itself.

syracuse is one of about 770 cities in the united states with a combined sewer system (css), project coordinator madison quinn told planet forward. this means that the storm sewer and sanitary sewer systems combine underground. wastewater from homes and businesses mixes with rainwater, and it’s all treated together. this design, now outdated, was typical of the time when syracuse’s infrastructure was installed, and its inherent drawbacks plague many cities today.

“on a dry day, we have more than enough capacity to carry everything in the sewer, but when you have a sudden inflow of storm water, you really can overwhelm the system,” quinn said.

during this sort of event, called a combined sewer overflow (cso), the css is designed to spill the excess untreated water into local waterways that lead to the lake. the continual pollution from this type of overflow led to a 1989 federal consent judgment mandating that onondaga county upgrade its water treatment plant and prevent csos from occurring.

a novel approach

mahoney entered office in 2008 on the platform that there was a better way to solve the cso problem than the one that had been proposed. she halted construction of three water treatment plants and took the case back to court. the result was an amended consent judgment, and, in 2009, the official birth of save the rain.

traditional methods for water treatment typically consist solely of “gray” infrastructure: treatment plants, pipes, pumps, and the like. save the rain takes a different approach, combining smaller improvements on gray infrastructure with a variety of “green” infrastructure projects, such as rain gardens and green roofs, which capture rainfall during storms and prevent it from going into the sewers to begin with.

“it’s really about holding the water during the storm, and not releasing it into the sewer during that heavy flow period,” quinn said.

this is the key to preventing overflow events.

the 189 green infrastructure projects save the rain has completed to date capture 96.2% of cso volume — far ahead of its mandated goal of 95% capture by 2018 — and reduce total runoff by 123 million gallons every year.

saving money the green way

save the rain isn’t just a new, greener strategy — it has proven cheaper and more practical to implement than alternative gray infrastructure.

in quinn’s words: “it’s a misconception when people say you can be either environmentally friendly or cost effective.”

halting the construction of the three proposed treatment plants and instead implementing numerous green infrastructure projects has saved the county an estimated $20 million in capital alone, she said.

not only that, green infrastructure takes significantly less money and energy to maintain than gray infrastructure. it relies much more heavily on passive, gravity-powered processes and less active pumping. according to a 2014 analysis by the county’s green program manager, save the rain saves the county $225,000 in maintenance costs each year, and 51,510 kwh of energy.

building community while saving the rain

unlike a water treatment plant, save the rain has a positive impact that is easy to see when walking the city streets. rain gardens replace vacant lots. a huge green roof tops the oncenter, a downtown convention center and entertainment complex. parks are getting new basketball courts with porous pavement that absorbs water while reducing noises. a variety of green installations allow the capture of nearly all the rain that falls on the local rosamond gifford zoo.

the community has taken note, and is getting involved and giving back. save the rain hosts tree-planting events and gives away rain barrels so citizens can collect rainfall to water their plants or wash their car. it also has a partnership with onondaga earth corps, a local organization dedicated to educating youth to foster the next generation of environmentalists. the collaboration between the two organizations has resulted in between 500 and 900 trees being planted annually by local youth, according to oec program coordinator adrienne canino. in the realm of urban forestry, which is one of oec’s areas of focus, this is no small feat. through projects such as these, both ends of the partnership enjoy the benefits of working together.

“it’s really exciting to have people engaged in this,” quinn says.

the community’s involvement in caring for their environment and water was one of the first goals set forth by mahoney and, quinn believes, is the key to the program’s success.

a model city

the status quo for stormwater and cso management has changed since 2009. according to quinn, more recent consent judgments in other cities require from the get-go the green infrastructure that mahoney had to revisit court for permission to use in syracuse.

the approach taken in syracuse, one of the first of its kind, worked. the city has transformed from an epicenter of pollution to an environmental pioneer. and people are taking notice.

in 2011, the epa named the city a green infrastructure partner community, holding it as an example of how to effectively implement green infrastructure, and onondaga county received the u.s. water prize in 2013.

all these successes don’t mean that save the rain is done, though. though the lake may never be the pristine body of water it once was, it has potential to recover further. for the sake of the watershed and the benefit of the city, save the rain is still churning out new projects.

said quinn: “we want to continue to improve water quality and there are still a lot of areas with a lot of impervious surface, a lot of paved areas, and we want to add more green space.”

mit’s open agriculture initiative is drawing on the very societal changes that have distanced average citizens from traditional agriculture to close the gap in knowledge and control what we eat. as the principal investigator of the project, caleb harper, explains in his ted talk, the concept has two main components. the first is the “food computer,” an indoor controlled environment used to grow produce using a specific “climate recipe” of specifications tailored to each plant. these recipes come from the second – perhaps even more revolutionary – part of the project: an open-source platform where farming information and instructions can be shared online across the entire user community.

it’s still in its conceptual stages, but openag provides a glimpse of a potential future of food – one that takes advantage of the rapid changes that characterize our modern world. here’s what it brings to the table:

networking and data science can take food to a new level

mit’s media lab is a place, harper himself pointed out, “historically known not for anything about biology, but everything about digital life.” though it’s an untraditional source for a proposed solution to the global food crisis – something that raises a few eyebrows in the horticultural community – openag’s strong computer-based foundation is what sets it apart.

modern advances in computing power are so rapid they are often modeled as exponential. in the past 10 years, american social media usage has increased almost tenfold, according to pew research. the constant sharing of our experiences and ideas, using that increasingly affordable and powerful computer networking, is a telltale characteristic of today’s younger generations.

the idea of the climate recipe applies these patterns to food production. a food computer can manipulate variables such as humidity, temperature, oxygen, and carbon dioxide levels, and monitor each plant’s response to an extent not possible in outdoor farms. this yields a precise formula for how to obtain larger, tastier crops. with the correct equipment in place, this climate recipe can be shared and improved upon globally, allowing a dialogue between trained experts, students, and civilians about the food we all eat.

urbanization and population growth are at an all time high

according to the un’s 2014 world urbanization prospects report, 54 percent of the global population lives in urban areas, up from 30 percent in 1950. this figure is expected to increase to 66 percent by 2050. when openag states a mission to “create more farmers” they’re not talking about opposing this global trend by transplanting people back to rural areas – they hope to bring farms into cities.

one of openag’s food computers could bring a small-scale farm of sorts into the home, apartment, or classroom, with no outdoor space required. taking this a step further, openag has proposed larger models: the mid-sized “food server” could supply a restaurant, and the even bigger “food data center” could provide a distributor with supply locally, reducing costly transport.

feeding urban populations is a spatial problem

the efficiency of modern urban life comes with its own set of sustainability challenges, and when it comes to food, transportation is huge. an analysis by the natural resources defense council found that food transported into the state of california alone results in almost 250 thousand tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year, and an often-cited statistic from iowa state university states that food travels an average of 1,500 miles from farm to table.

it’s true that figures like these are estimates calculated from limited samples – but the important takeaway is that our food travels quite far to reach us and harms the environment on the way. if average people could grow almost any type of produce in a box in their own homes, the size of this issue could be significantly reduced.

taking food production indoors also could lift considerable weight from the environment when it comes to habitat loss. according to the world wildlife fund, about 50 percent of the habitable land on earth has been converted into farms, or 38 percent of its overall land area. indoor farming technologies such as those posited by openag and others already in action, such as urban farming company aerofarms, allow a more efficient use of space. additionally, vertical farming — the ability to expand farming in all directions of 3d space, not just along the ground — is gaining popularity for indoor farming operations.

what’s next?

with its technology foundation set, openag’s next challenge is to make the jump to the general market. according to its website, version 2 of the food computer is currently in production, though none of openag’s members were able to comment on when they believe their proposed cheaper, more user-friendly version will be available, or what exactly it will cost.

but it is possible for a determined individual to build and run a food computer today. until it’s available commercially, instructions for so-called “nerd farmers” to build their own are available online. this growing community has expanded to six continents, and visitors to the project’s forum number in the thousands.