Greater Transportation Energy and GHG Offsets from Bioelectricity Than Ethanol
Author: J. E. Campbell, D. B. Lobell, C. B. Field
Author Affiliation: College of Engineering, University of California, Merced
Submitted: Thu, 09/17/2009 - 19:18
Edited: Thu, 09/17/2009 - 19:19
Published in: Science Magazine on 22 May 2009
Copyright Status: Not disclosed Link to source material: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1168885 Description:
The quantity of land available to grow biofuel crops without affecting food prices or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from land conversion is limited. Therefore, bioenergy should maximize land-use efficiency when addressing transportation and climatechange goals. Biomass could power either internal combustion or electric vehicles, but the relative land-use efficiency of these two energy pathways is not well quantified. Here, we show that bioelectricity outperforms ethanol across a range of feedstocks,conversion technologies, and vehicle classes. Bioelectricity produces an average of 81% more transportation kilometers and 108% more emissions offsets per unit area of cropland than does cellulosic ethanol. These results suggest that alternative bioenergypathways have large differences in how efficiently they use the available land to achievetransportation and climate goals. Login to post comments
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