A nine-month study has found plant and forestry wastes and dedicated energy crops could replace nearly a third of U.S. gasoline use by 2030.
The research conducted by the Sandia National Laboratories and the General Motors Corp. was designed to discover whether and how much cellulosic biofuels could be sustainably produced.
Researchers said they assessed the feasibility, implications, limitations and enablers of annually producing 90 billion gallons of ethanol — an amount sufficient to replace more than 60 billion of the estimated 180 billion gallons of gasoline expected to be used annually by 2030.
Sandia researchers said they determined 21 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol could be produced per year by 2022 without displacing current crops.
The "90 Billion Gallon Study," which focused only on starch-based and cellulosic ethanol, found an increase to 90 billion gallons of ethanol could be sustainably achieved by 2030 within real-world economic and environmental parameters.
An executive summary of the research is available in PDF format at
http://hitectransportation.org/news/2009/Exec_Summary02-2009.pdf.
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