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Published online 26 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.862

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Renewable technologies increase energy sprawl

Biofuels will have the greatest impact on land use and habitat, study finds.

Amanda Leigh Mascarelli

Millions of hectares of land will be needed to meet growing energy demands in the United States over the next two decades, according to new 'energy sprawl' estimates. The researchers behind the study say that biomass production for fuel or electricity generation will have the biggest impact on landscape and habitats.

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  • And yet it need not be. Consider electricity as an alternative. Imagine it is 2050 and instead of biofuels, we went with electric vehicles. The US population is 420 million, with VMT of 9300 miles per capita, that is 3.9 trillion miles. The EV fleet averages 300 Wh/mi plug-to-wheels, 325 Wh/mi plant-to-wheels, so that requires 1270 TWh. The capacity factor of a 5 MW turbine with a 126 m diameter rotor in 7–8.5 m/s wind speeds is 0.294–0.425. Use 30% for this calculation, so you need 483 GW, or 96,600 5MW turbines. The US produced 96,318 aircraft in 1944; we could surely produce this many turbines by 2050. The footprint on the ground or ocean floor/surface of 5 MW wind turbine is about 13–20 m². Multiplying to find the land area required results in 1.93 km². Compare this with the 210,000-700,000 km² mentioned in the article. Which would you choose? Even the total area of a wind farm (not just the footprint) is a small fraction the biofuel footprint, but since the land around a turbine can be dual-use, the area of the wind farm is not a primary issue anyway.

    • 29 Aug, 2009
    • Posted by: Earl Killian