18
Biodiversity, Ecology, & Global Change
Bioenergy, Biodiversity, Food and Global Change Mitigation
– Can we have it all?
Brazil has successfully replaced over 40% of its petroleum with ethanol in a largely and increasingly renewable manner, and without impact on staple crops. Can the USA do the same? Although the USA currently produces more ethanol, the current system based on corn lacks sustainability or carbon mitigation, with significant negative indirect effects on global biodiversity and animal feed supply. The emergence of technical capacity to convert celluloses to fuels, opens the use of a much wider range of plant feedstocks that can be grown in our climate, and including plants that can be grown on abandoned land or land unsuited to agriculture. Proposed feedstocks range from restored prairie to highly productive monocultures of perennial energy grasses and trees, depending on the location. Facts indicate that the latter solution on abandoned or degraded agricultural land may come closest to allowing the USA to address all four areas of the title.
