Who wouldn’t want to shovel switchgrass pellets all winter — and for marginal savings on the fossil fuel bill?
ClimateProgress: Northeasterners should switch from oil, gas to switchgrass pellets for heating
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JunkScience.com 
Right. Then, after a couple years of harvesting and burning switchgrass, start using petroleum fuel and artificial fertilisers to remediate the loss of biomass from the land. Or will the entire NW be left fallow after the first year?
The performance is cost and CO2 reduction. What about PM (10 & 2.5) and the other priority pollutants? This report has nothing but blinders. The “moral advantage” of not using food seems to ignore that the acreage devoted to switchgrass may well be taken from food production. It also ignores the comments Gene has made on standard farming practices.
When did they start giving doctorates in boxes of Cracker Jacks?
“When did they start giving doctorates in boxes of Cracker Jacks?” In 2010, when they ran out of Peace Prizes.
Switchgrass pellets would seem to have nearly all the disadvantages of burning, well, grass — smoke, carbon monoxide, ash to dispose of. And all the curses of biofuels: high water use to produce, no net gain on energy or CO2, land turned from real use to phony rent-seeking feel-good stuff.
If we could burn trash cleanly and economically, that would be a step in the right direction. But growing the trash to burn it is a lot like running paper through the printer so it can be scratch paper.
The whole point of _pelleted_ wood (or grass) fuel is that you DON’T have to shovel it. Screw feeders and hoppers work just fine here in the 21st century. On the other hand, particulates could be a problem, as Bob already mentioned. Will the EPA do human inhalation tests with wood fires?