Biofuels

Adam Liska is an expert in biofuels, life cycle assessment, greenhouse gas emissions, and soils. He teaches about energy sciences, bioenergy, biofuels, and climate change. He has published more than 10 journal articles about corn-ethanol, sweet sorghum-ethanol, and cellulosic ethanol, which includes how biofuels made from crop residue can reduce soil carbon and increase carbon dioxide emissions compared to gasoline. He has also published more than five articles about the use of distillers grains for beef cattle feed in corn-ethanol production. (Updated November 2024)

F. John Hay, an extension educator in biological systems engineering, specializes in renewable energy and biofuels. He has taught both adults and youth about biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, bioenergy crops and small renewable energy systems. He is familiar with small wind turbines, solar PV and the economics of those systems. Hay also has developed curriculum for youth that uses renewable energy to teach engineerings and physics. (Updated November 2024)

Richard Perrin has three main areas of research: productivity within agriculture and whom it benefits; how biofuels affect agriculture, climate and the environment; and the Ogallala Aquifer’s potential to sustainably feed the burgeoning world population. In 2017, Perrin and a team of professors were granted a $5 million grant to research the psychology of water use in agriculture. Perrin is a Jim Roberts Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.