When petroleum becomes unfeasible the world will need a diversity of different energy options. Grain sorghum could possibly be one of many crops that are harvested for ethanol conversion, but how will that affect our land. Stripping the land of its cover and nutrient soruce could have serious consequences on the next generations of crop grown on the land. Removing the crop leaves the soil with little to no carbon to replace the last amount of carbon given to the previous years plants.

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The calibration done in the past ten weeks has been productive in finding the answer to how this “carbon poaching” will affect the soil and future crops, but it is far from being finished. The next phase in this model will be to calibrate the organic carbon levels in the soil. Then to simulate real scenarios in order to test the validity of the model. Once the model has proven it is reliable then it can be used to simulate different scenarios that have not taken place to see how removing stover from the land affects the SOC. Hopefully this reseach will give the world more knowledge in determing if this practice of “carbon poaching” is worth the benefits.