Let’s do this same analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa! Who’s in?
[Taken from EESI newsletter titled Sustainable Bioenergy, Farms, & Forests.]
How much renewable biomass can the United States produce each year to meet its future bioenergy needs? Enough to displace 30 percent of its current petroleum use by 2030 or fulfill the 36 billion gallon per year renewable fuels mandate by 2022? At what price? Can it be done sustainably?
These are the types of questions addressed by the Department of Energy’s recently released “U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry.” The report updates the initial 2005 study which found that the United States could produce more than a billion bone-dry tons of biomass from agriculture and forestry – enough to displace 30 percent of U.S. petroleum use. The update reaches a similar finding as the original report using more rigorous analysis and realistic scenarios. The update provides county-by-county inventories for each of the lower 48 states, models different scenarios for the supply curve 2012-2030 based on various biomass prices at the farm gate/forest roadside and rates of growth in energy crop yields, and applies new sustainability criteria.
Biofuels Digest observes that one significant omission from the study is biomass that may be derived from algae as new technologies develop during the time period covered.
Read more from the Biofuels Digest summary here.
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The popularization of biomass fuels is fater than I thought.