How Tobacco Could Be Used to Produce Energy

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By Chris Bickers

A new and potentially lucrative use for tobacco will soon be put into commercial production in the United States. Tyton BioEnergy Systems of Danville, Va., will contract with farmers to grow what it calls “energy” tobacco, says Conor Hartman, a Tyton vice president. It will be used for the manufacture of bio-products, including green chemicals, ethanol, and biodiesel.

For now, the energy tobacco will be delivered to a pilot-scale extractor in Danville. Later, there will be a commercial-scale extractor in Raeford, NC, once it is complete.

The cost of producing energy tobacco should be much lower than that of flue-cured, burley or any of the dark types. Economies will be achieved in:

– Plant production. The savings will be 100%, since farmers won’t produce their own plants. Tyton will provide them.

– Sucker control. Another area of 100% savings because suckers won’t be controlled. But topping is desirable.

– Curing. Again, 100% savings. There won’t be any on-farm curing. Tyton will take delivery of fresh cut tobacco straight from the field.

– Harvesting. It will be drastically different from current tradition, but again there will be a considerable saving at the farmer level. Farmers will harvest with a silage chopper, probably once in mid summer and once more at the end of the season, rather than either pulling the leaves from the stalks or cutting the stalks and hanging them in a barn.

But there will be no change in control of insects and diseases. Fertility programs may need to be changed, but Tyton leaders don’t expect a significant increase in total fertilizer per acre.

A Non-Conventional Production Program

Farmers will set out their energy tobacco with a traditional transplanter. The plant density is still to be determined but will be several times what is normal in conventional tobacco. The first harvest would take place in mid summer, probably in July. Tyton’s testing yielded good results this past summer when the cooperating farmer used a John Deere tractor with a Kemper header.

“We are very pleased with how that worked,” says Hartman. “It is our aim to minimize the labor needed and maximize mechanization. It will be ideal if our farmers can use existing machinery.” The header cuts stalks and leaves together, and the silage chopper shreds both stalks and leaves and into smaller pieces which are blown into a truck or conveyance and transported to the extractor.

“We leave enough of the plant that it can regenerate, and we harvest it again at the end of the season,” he says.

Initial Plantings in Virginia, NC

For 2016, Tyton tobacco will be processed in the extractor in Danville, says Hartman. The contracting farmers will come mainly from that area. But the company expects to expand across the tobacco belt in the coming years and eventually take tobacco belt production into states where tobacco belt it has not been traditionally grown. For now, the contracting farmers will most likely be current or former tobacco growers and the crop will be grown on farms on which tobacco has been produced.

Tyton has developed its own varieties, derived from flue-cured breeding material. They will be planted on all Tyton farms. It would seem likely that this type of tobacco will appeal to growers who can amass comparatively large acreages. “A farmer could probably do this economically on a fairly small scale, but with mechanization the advantages will come to those planting on a very large scale,” says Hartman.

Tyton tobacco is high in sugar and oil and can simultaneously be used to produce both biofuel and other valuable green chemicals. Tyton BioEnergy Systems has developed a unique extraction process that can “revolutionize the economics of the biofuel and green chemical industries.” Tyton’s core business is producing sugars, oil, protein and biochar from the energy tobacco grown by its contracting farmers.

For more information, go to the Tyton website at www.tytonbio.com.