Abandoned Farmlands Could Hold the Key to Biofuel Production

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Biofuel production has raised controversy over deforestation concerns, but a report from The Carnegie Institution states that by using currently abandoned farmland, we could severely dip the environmental impact of creating new fields for biofuel growth.

The report states that much of the problem with the current agricultural biofuel growth is the fact that carbon-capturing trees (such as the Amazon rainforest in Brazil) is being hacked down to make farmland; this ultimately creates more carbon debt that biofuel can't answer in the near future. However, but utilizing land that's been abandoned, there is virtually no carbon debt created.

And the amount of land that's readily available is very encouraging:

The researchers estimate that globally up to 4.7 million square kilometers (approximately 1.8 million square miles) of abandoned lands could be available for growing energy crops.

While the yields of this currently unused land is highly variable on the conditions that surround the area, the researchers estimate the land yield could total the energy equivalent of 7 billion barrels of oil. That appears to if all the land produced 100% yield - but even a safe estimate of 50% yield is still 3.5 billion barrels of oil offset by 'waste' land.

As encouraging as this sounds, the researchers also exercised a warning about the biofuel growth:

The researchers estimate that the worldwide harvestable dry biomass could amount to as much as 2.1 billion tons, with a total energy content of about 41 exajoules. While this is a significant amount of energy, at best it would satisfy only about 8% of worldwide energy demand.

The energy output may not be enough to service the demands of 1st world nations like Canada, United States, and Europe, but the unused land is heavily based in North America, and could service less oil-demanding countries, like those in Sub-Saharan Africa. Considering the land is abandoned right now, the opportunity to turn it into cash or to ease a small portion of domestic energy is certainly appealing.

Ultimately, the researchers were encouraged by the potential the abandoned has - particularly with a food crisis that is growing because former food farms are being turned into biofuel farmland. But, as good as the news is, the researchers still came to a condemning conclusion of wide-scale demand for biofuel croplands:

We can't count on bioenergy to be a dominant contributor to the global energy system over the next few decades. Expanding beyond its sustainable limits would threaten food security and have serious environmental impacts.

So while the news is good, it has to be exercised with some caution.