Researchers: Diverse Feedstocks Key to Sustainable, Successful Biofuels Industry

(Ag Professional) ...Concerns about net energy and greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to its effect on food and feed pricing are driving researchers at the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of Illinois and at the University of California Berkeley to find cropping options that will produce ethanol sustainably and without taking more of the land currently used for food and feed production.

Sugarcane and Miscanthus top the list of bioenergy crops that could produce enough ethanol to replace the United States' use of petroleum and escape U.S. dependence on fossil fuels, said Stephen P. Long, Deputy Director of the EBI at the U of I and Gutsgell Professor of Crop Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

"As new technologies increase the efficiency and cost of ethanol production, possibilities are opening up to use a wider range of plants to create a larger renewable fuel supply," he said. "Instead of repurposing food and feed crops, we are looking for dedicated energy crops with high production and low inputs to develop a system that's environmentally and economically sustainable." READ MORE