In 2005, this question was answered in a federally sponsored report, jointly endorsed by the U.S. DOE and the USDA. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), in conjunction with the USDA Forest Service, the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) generated a report called the “Biomass as Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry: The Technical Feasibility of a Billion-Ton Annual Supply.”
Commonly referred to as the “Billion Ton” study, the report was the impetus behind the 2006 DOE initiative coined “30x’30” and is a systematic approach to assessing the nation’s goal of producing approximately 60 billion gallons of ethanol from biomass to replace 30 percent of the petroleum used for transportation fuel by 2030.
Tom Foust, biomass program technology manager for the NREL, the nation’s primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development headquartered in Golden, Colo., believes that the Billion Ton study was critical in setting the standard for creating its blueprint of success within the industry. “I think what makes the [Billion Ton] study unique above other studies is that we brought in all the different people,” says Foust, who was a major contributor to both the Billion Ton study and the 30x’30 initiative. “It was an open forum and everybody was allowed to contribute their ideas and concerns. Other studies just didn’t provide the political buy-in that this study did.”
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Inside the Numbers
The short answer to the aforementioned question is yes. Looking at just forest and agricultural land alone—the two largest potential sources of biomass—the report found the potential for approximately 1.3 billion dry tons per year of biomass. That is more than enough to meet one-third of the current demand for fuels in the transportation sector well into the 21st century, when large-scale bioenergy and biorefinerey industries are likely to exist. The report observed that this long-term annual supply of biomass is about a sevenfold increase over the 200 million dry tons of biomass per year currently used, leaving the remaining 1.1 billion dry tons for future production of bioenergy and biobased products. The study involved all the lower 48 states, excluding Hawaii and Alaska.
“Our report answers several key questions,” says Robert Perlack, lead author of the report and a research scientist at the ORNL’s Environmental Division, a DOE-managed research and development facility headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that focuses on researching bioenergy efficiency and security in the country. “We wanted to know how large a role biomass could play, whether the United States had the land resources and whether such a plan would be economically viable,” he says. “The study shows that there is a significant resource available to support a large-scale biorefinery industry.”
According to the report, agriculture and forestry account for 79 percent of the total resource base and collectively could supply up to 15 percent of U.S. energy demand by 2030 without impeding food, feed and fiber production, assuming relatively modest changes in agricultural and forestry practices are met.
Agricultural areas account for approximately 46 percent of the entire land base in the United States. Of that land, 26 percent is considered grassland and 20 percent is classified as cropland. The report estimates that agricultural land can supply 998 million sustainable dry tons of biomass resources annually. In contrast, forestlands have the potential to contribute an estimated 33 percent of land acreage and approximately 367 million tons of biomass per year.
Forest residues were one of the main components of the research, according to Bryce Stokes, national program leader for the national USDA Forest Operations in Washington, D.C., and also a major contributor to the study. Forestry waste could potentially supply one-third of the nation’s biomass energy demand. “We could considerably go up to one-half of that demand, if not higher,” Stokes says. “We have the potential to do more, especially if we go into woody crops and if we start producing wood for energy.”
Researchers were careful to factor environmental sustainability issues into their assessment, leaving out roadless areas and environmentally sensitive land relevant to forestry. In addition, variables such as soil quality, wind erosion and tillage practices were accounted for on the agricultural side. According to Perlack, if the environmental constraints were relaxed the biomass resource availability would be even larger.
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