Miles Per Acre: Is Electricity Better than Ethanol?

Filed in archive Biomass on May 10, 2009

Science Daily recently looked at the question: How can we maximize our "Miles per acre" from biomass? While it is possible to turn biomass into ethanol to burn in internal combustion engine cars, researchers writing in the online edition of the journal Science on May 7 said that converting biomass to electricity, rather than ethanol, can increase the "miles per acre" we get from the biomass by as much as 80%.

Bioelectricity was the clear winner in the transportation-miles-per-acre comparison, regardless of whether the energy was produced from corn or from switchgrass, a cellulose-based energy crop. For example, a small SUV powered by bioelectricity could travel nearly 14,000 highway miles on the net energy produced from an acre of switchgrass, while a comparable internal combustion vehicle could only travel about 9,000 miles on the highway.

Of course, the problem is that internal combustion engines already dominate the roads, while electric cars are few and far between...


© frankh