Where will the Billion Tons of Biomass for Cellulosic Fuels Come From?
The government believes there is a billion tons of biomass waste to make cellulosic biofuels, chemicals, and generate electricity with. The United States lost 52 million acres of cropland between 1982 and 2002 (NCRS 2004). At that rate, all of the cropland will be gone in 140 years. There isnt enough biomass to replace 30% of our petroleum use. The potential biomass energy is miniscule compared to the fossil fuel energy we consume every year, about 105 exa joules (EJ) in the USA. If you burned every living plant and its roots, youd have 94 EJ of energy and we could all pretend we lived on Mars. Most of this 94 EJ of biomass is already being used for food and feed crops, and wood for paper and homes. Sparse vegetation and the 30 EJ in root systems are economically unavailable leaving only a small amount of biomass unspoken for (Patzek June 2006). Over 25% of the waste biomass is expected to come from 280 million tons of corn stover. Stover is whats left after the corn grain is harvested
