Word: biomass
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...study makes the case that ethanol isn't even the greenest way to use biomass as a fuel. In an article published in the May 8 issue of Science, researchers from the Carnegie Institution, Stanford University and the University of California-Merced (UCM) used life-cycle analysis - which takes into account the entire impact of a biofuel from field to vehicle - to show that converting biomass to electricity (to power electric cars) produces 80% more transportation energy than turning it into ethanol (to power a flex-fuel car), with a carbon footprint that is half as small. (Bioelectricity is created...
...every acre of land planted with an energy crop - like corn or switchgrass - turning that biomass into electricity gives you more "miles per acre" than converting it to liquid ethanol, which is how biomass is used today, according to the study. A small SUV powered by bioelectricity could travel nearly 14,000 miles on the energy produced by an acre of switchgrass, while an ethanol-powered SUV could go only 9,000 miles. "It looks like converting biomass to electricity, instead of using it to make ethanol, makes the most sense for both transport and the climate," says Elliott Campbell...
...carbon, too, bioelectricity was a winner. On average, the carbon offset from using bioelectricity is 100% bigger than the offset for using ethanol. (Even though biomass releases carbon when it is burned, just like oil, when new plants are growing they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing the overall carbon footprint.) "It's simply the case that bioelectricity is just a lot more efficient than using ethanol, in most ways," says Campbell...
...Science study doesn't take into account other impacts that bioelectricity might have compared to ethanol, like water consumption or air pollution. Growing biomass, even on marginal agricultural land, does require water, as does making electricity. There's a bigger problem - electric cars still remain few and far between, while there are already millions of U.S. vehicles on the road that can run on an ethanol blend. Creating the sort of infrastructure that can support electric cars on a mass scale won't be cheap, and it's not a cost that Campbell and his colleagues included in their study...
Island Lessons A tour of Samso feels a bit like a greatest hits collection of Denmark's successful energy policies. The island features district heating plants fired by waste biomass such as straw. The plants provide heat to homes in lieu of more polluting oil-burning furnaces. When the sun is shining - which, admittedly, is not often - solar thermal panels provide hot water. Wind power is everywhere - on land, where towering turbines shade cows on a dairy farm, and offshore, where 10 turbines greet the incoming ferries like a row of sentinels. Many of the turbines are owned collectively...