Bioelectricity Promises More "Kilometers per Hectare" than Ethanol

May 8, 2009 by timbercommunity

Strategic decision: Vehicles that run on biomass into ethanol or biomass into electricity.

Biofuels such as ethanol offer an alternative to petroleum for powering our cars, but growing energy crops to produce them can compete with food crops for farmland, and clearing forests to expand farmland will aggravate the climate change problem. How can we maximize our "kilometers per hectare"  from biomass?

Researchers writing in the online edition of the May 7 Science magazine say the best bet is to convert the biomass to electricity, rather than ethanol. Using the biomass to produce electricity for electric vehicles would produce 81% more transportation than using the same amount of biomass to produce next generation ethanol for internal combustion engine vehicles. The electricity option also has a greater potential for reducing CO2 emission than ethanol.
Source: Carnegie Institution for Science
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