MICHIGAN STATE (US) — Land unfit for food crops can be prime real estate for biofuel plants—and could produce an estimated 5.5 billion gallons of ethanol in the Midwest alone.
In the current issue of Nature, a team of researchers shows that these “marginal” lands represent a huge untapped resource to grow mixed species cellulosic biomass.
“Understanding the environmental impact of widespread biofuel production is a major unanswered question both in the US and worldwide,” says Ilya Gelfand, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University.
“We estimate that using marginal lands for growing cellulosic biomass crops could provide up to 215 gallons of ethanol per acre with substantial greenhouse gas mitigation.”
The notion of making better use of marginal land has been around for nearly 15 years. However, this is the first study to provide an estimate for the greenhouse gas benefits as well as an assessment of the total potential for these lands to produce significant amounts of biomass, he adds.
Focusing on 10 Midwest states, Great Lakes Bioenergy researchers used 20 years of data from the Kellogg Biological Station LTER Site to characterize the comparative productivity and greenhouse gas impacts of different crops, including corn, poplar, alfalfa, and old field vegetation.
They then used a supercomputer to identify and model biomass production that could grow enough feedstock to support a local biorefinery with a capacity of at least 24 million gallons per year. The final tally of 5.5 billion gallons of ethanol represents about 25 percent of Congress’ 2022 cellulosic biofuels target, says Phil Robertson, co-author and professor of crop, soil, and microbial sciences at Michigan State University.
“The value of marginal land for energy production has been long-speculated and often discounted,” he says. “This study shows that these lands could make a major contribution to transportation energy needs while providing substantial climate and—if managed properly—conservation benefits.”
This also is the first study to show that grasses and other non-woody plants that grow naturally on unmanaged lands are sufficiently productive to make ethanol production worthwhile. Conservative numbers were used in the study, and production efficiency could be increased by carefully selecting the mix of plant species, Robertson adds.
“With conservation in mind, these marginal lands can be made productive for bioenergy production and, in so doing, contribute to avoid the conflict between food and fuel production,” says Cesar Izaurralde, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory soil scientist and adjunct professor at the University of Maryland.
Additional benefits for using marginal lands include:
- New revenue for farmers and other landowners
- No indirect land-use effects, where land in another part of the globe is cleared to replace land lost here to food production
- No carbon debt from land conversion if existing vegetation is used or if new perennial crops are planted directly into existing vegetation
The Department of Energy’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, the National Science Foundation, and MSU AgBioResearch funded the researcher. Additional researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland contributed to the study.
Source: Michigan State University