Trump administration pauses a moonshot push to grow biofuel crops with less fertilizer
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Scientists in Kansas, Missouri and other states were poised to start research to cut U.S. reliance on fertilizer imports, keep biofuel farming cost-competitive and tackle a potent greenhouse gas.
The U.S. Department of Energy had a vision: Slash in half the amount of a potent greenhouse gas that enters the atmosphere when growing corn and sorghum for biofuel.
That gas — nitrous oxide — mostly comes from spraying chemical fertilizer onto fields. So in practice, achieving the agency’s goal meant figuring out how to grow those crops with dramatically less nitrogen fertilizer, but without cutting into harvests.
If that sounds ambitious, it’s because the idea came from a branch of the energy department that officials like to call the Moonshot Factory.
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