To produce ethanol from grass, fuel farmers need land on which to grow the grass. But with over 7 billion hungry mouths on this planet, high quality farmland is needed more urgently to fill bellies than gas tanks.
Luckily for the would-be fuel farmer, many grasses can thrive in areas where corn or rice would wither and die. Recent research suggests there may be enough of that land to provide over 50% of our current liquid fuel needs.
Researchers at the University of Illinois analyzed land-use maps to determine just how much land was suitable for growing biofuel crops without encroaching on agricultural lands. Lead researcher, Ximing Cai, and his team looked first at marginal lands, like abandoned and degraded farmland.
An estimated 790 million acres of worn-out cropland are now lying unused and could be converted to biofuel crops without putting more land under the plow or encroaching on existing farms, they report.
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