Gallons of Agriculture

In national scales, 2030 is tomorrow.

An in-depth study by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors Corp. has found that plant and forestry waste and dedicated energy crops could sustainably replace nearly a third of our gasoline by the year 2030. ScienceBlog

Sandia’s 90 Billion Gallon Study assumes 75 billion gallons would be ethanol made from nonfood cellulosic feedstocks and 15 billion gallons from corn-based ethanol. The study examined four sources of biofuels: agricultural residue, such as corn stover and wheat straw; forest residue; dedicated energy crops, including switchgrass; and short rotation woody crops, such as willow and poplar. It examines the costs of producing, harvesting, storing and transporting these sources to newly built bio-refineries.

First, cellulose to sugar, then fermentation to ethanol