SURPLUS LAND: Degraded or marginal lands may not be able to productively support the growth of biofuel crops, contrary to previous reports.
Image: Flickr/Nicholas_T
There's money to be made in the barren corners of the world.
From the California desert to the badlands around Chernobyl, Ukraine, bioenergy is taking root in the form of moss and algae. In Ireland and Denmark, farmers are planting switchgrass and miscanthus in low-grade soil, hoping to turn a profit on biofuels markets.
Surplus land, or land unused in either conservation or agricultural production, offers an elegant solution to the food versus fuel arguments that have plagued bioenergy since its inception. If you can't grow food on it, the logic runs, why not plant fuel?
The problem, according to a new study in the journal BioRisk, is that the productive capacity of known surplus lands may be greatly overestimated. A number of caveats need to be taken into consideration when assessing land, particularly degraded, marginal or abandoned land, as a potential site for biofuels, the study finds.
"When we looked at the different estimates of [the size] of existing surplus land, we saw a huge variability of assessments," said Jens Dauber, a researcher at the Johann Heinrich von Thunen Institute of Biodiversity and lead author of the study. "The different groups of researchers were comparing different types of land, and there was no consensus over what is or isn't surplus land."
"If you want to make a better map of our land use -- who's living on the land, who's working on the land, what ecosystems services you're dealing with -- we might find out there's a whole lot of land we just can't convert into anything else," he added.
Putting the brakes on bioenergy
Many countries, particularly in Europe, include ambitious biofuel quotas as part of their short- and long-term renewable energy goals. This has catalyzed an aggressive top-down approach that often fails to properly assess the specific characteristics of a particular landscape, and sometimes leads to lower-than-expected yields, wasted investment and dissolution among farmers.
"Pressure is going to increase because many countries have set their bioenergy targets very high," Dauber said. "To meet our 2050 targets, we still don't know where we're going to plants the crops we need."
A collaborative work by 11 scientists in Europe and the United States, the BioRisk study identifies a series of caveats that must be taken into consideration when assessing the viability of surplus land for biofuel cultivation.
The study finds that availability of water resources, soil quality, conservation requirements, greenhouse gas emissions from disturbed soils and existing habitation or other human use are all factors that need to be taken into consideration -- and have sometimes been ignored -- when designating marginal land for the production of biofuel.
Even hearty species like switchgrass and miscanthus, perennial species that grow in regions unsuitable for agriculture, tend to yield less biomass when planted in nutrient-poor or degraded soil, Dauber said.
Coming at the problem from both sides
Rather than the top-down approach to bioenergy taken in the past, the study advocates a stronger role for local players, like farmers and regional governments, in assessing the viability of new projects.
These parties tend to better understand the complex interplay of water, soil and human use that accompanies any given landscape, Dauber said.
At the same time, action from the top -- from national governments or intergovernmental bodies -- is necessary to ensure long-term stability in bioenergy markets, he said.
"You have to create demand for crops," he added. "Perennial crops will be on the land for 10 to 20 years, and farmers need to know that in that time, there will still be customers to take their products."
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10 Comments
Add CommentThere is a very good reason why farmers leave marginal lands as pasture and woodlots. The land is usually to hilly, stone filled, or swampy. To drain, level, and remove all stone, to enable heavy machinery required to seed, husband, and harvest, from marginal lands. IT would seem to defeat any environmental goals.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides, it is already productive, as pasture for grazing animals, both domestic and wild. Unlike us they can convert grass to meat and milk. These marginal lands are a refuge for the wild kingdom. They also connect one woodland to another.
We should show some restraint in the conversions of such lands to fuel depots. GK
Why bother.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can produce clean and green zero environmental footprint ammonia (propane-like) fuel at 50 cents a gasoline eq gal using offpeak nuke power. An farm ammonia delivery system already covers the lower 48.
All biofuels come at enormous financal and environmental cost ripping up forest soils and carbon sinks destroying food production and land. It EROEI is around one - energy returned for energy invested. No green organization projects that biofuels will form even a small part of future energy needs.
If is gasoline you want Nuke hydrogen and cement plant emissions can also produce zero net carbon fuel like at a far lower cost than biofuels and without the environmental cost.
Wrong, if you include the total cost of mining, enriching. protection, health care and life time storage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's beyond the most expensive fuel.
The real cost is so high that as a fuel, it can not be justified.
Why grow anything, when we have more pond, lake and river, duct weeds and other plants that have already proven a good source for biofuels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's free to anyone who will just harvest the plants. I also read that's it's a good food for chickens and cows.
"Wrong, if you include the total cost of mining, enriching. protection, health care and life time storage."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually you don't have a clue - a common problem with the nonuker usually stemming from not have any science background at all.
Mining ,enriching costs, protection, and storage costs are all covered by the current 2 cents a kwh operating cost of nuclear power. Do you think countries like Australia with no nuclear power of their own are exporting uranium without covering their costs - far less than mining gold.
There are no health costs related to nuclear. In fact if the NRC was in charge of regulating the current wind/gas backup scam the units would have to be pulled off line do to way out of guideline radioactive releases from radon gas.
Yup lets rip up all our ponds and wild plant life so you can fuel your car. What will the ducks eat - who cares.
Morons
Unproductive land is not 'wasteland'. It is often the last refuge for native wildlife.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe should be returning more land to 'unproductive use'...not the reverse!
What does it take to grow crops on marginal land? And where does this fertilizer come from? And what is the cost of transporting the fertilizer?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's always night soil, but how does it get out to the field?
Exactly! We are overcrowding this planet as it is, why make it worse?
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBetter would be growing your own biomass in the form of hemp in your own yard or on waste land though there isn't really much waste land. But there is plenty of yard being wasted.
On old farm or marginal land it will take a yr or 2 to bring it up to good production but putting caron, sewage, manure, yard wastes into the ground and growing things like peanuts, soy, etc will bring it back fairly fast.
But really do we need this that much? Just 4kw of RE in the form of wind, PV, solar CSP, forest and yard wastes CHP can supply an eff home and EV's for transport for about $8k especially in a new built home or an upgraded older one. Then one has almost free power for 20-50 yrs!!
50% of plastics can be distilled into gasoline, diesel, propane and NG by simple equipment could solve the little liquid fuel one might need if most works on RE electricity. PV is already this price.
While Gen 4-5 nukes sound good they will never cost less than making your own power once these more simple than a moped or a home/building A/C run in reverse as an solar or biomass generator with heat as another product.
The tech is already here just needs education and mass production.
Distressing as it may be for farmers if crops are less successful than expected, and however much it may disillusion them, I imagine most of them would feel slighted by your suggestion ("sometimes leads to ... dissolution among farmers") that it provokes an increase in irresponsible hedonistic behaviour among them.
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