| Richard Harris, NPR news. Relevant to GSS Energy Use chapter 9.
Excerpt: Millions of acres of marginal farmland in the Midwest — land
that isn't in good enough condition to grow crops — could be used to
produce liquid fuels made from plant material, according to a study in
Nature. And those biofuels could, in theory, provide about 25 percent of
the advanced biofuels required by a 2007 federal law. …G. Philip
Robertson and colleagues at Michigan State University's Kellogg
Biological Station have been looking at plants that don't require farm
fields. "First, we discovered that the grasses and flowers that take
over fields once you stop farming produce a fair amount of biomass,
especially if you provide them a little bit of fertilizer," Robertson
says. …Using these crops for fuel is much better for the atmosphere than
burning gasoline…. But biofuels could at best provide only a tiny
fraction of our energy needs. …The 27 million acres identified in the
latest study would provide less than 0.5 percent of our national energy
demand…. And the more we try to expand biofuels, the more we risk
displacing crops for food, or chopping down forests, which store a huge
amount of carbon. …Europe has recently recognized those potential
hazards and is scaling back its biofuels ambitions…. Read[/listen to]
the full article: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/16/169538570/could-some-midwest-land-support-new-biofuel-refineries |
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