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By Anna Austin
The New York State Energy and Research Development Authority has
released a renewable fuel road map for New York that indicates there is
potentially 1 million to 1.68 million acres of nonforest land that can
be used for bioenergy feedstock production in New York.
The 140-page document assesses the prospects for the expansion of
biofuel production within the state while focusing on biomass resource
availability and economic and environmental impacts. The road map
considers 11 key issues, including stakeholder input, analysis of
sustainable feedstock production in New York, feedstock transportation
and logistics, life-cycle analysis and public health and biofuel
industry economic impacts and analysis.
The road map’s lower estimate of available biomass crop land (1
million acres) assumes that no cropland is used for new bioenergy
feedstock production, rather new production lands come from abandoned
farmland, old pasture, and scrub and shrub lands not currently used for
production. The estimate also assumes that only about half of New York
landowners would be interested in production. The higher estimate of
1.68 million acres assumes additional land (approximately 0.68 million
acres) becomes available by the year 2020 due to projected increased
crop and milk yields but on less land, freeing some current crop land
for lignocellulosic energy feedstocks.
Another potential feedstock source the report considers is municipal
solid waste (MSW) for ethanol production. Using data from two New York
State MSW characterization studies and a U.S. EPA waste characterization
study, estimates of waste biomass available for ethanol production were
extrapolated from the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation Waste Management Plan 2000 update. The road map calculates
that if New York were to convert only the yard waste and paper waste
fraction that’s not currently being recycled into ethanol, it could
possibly yield 426 MMgy of ethanol in the short term and 524 MMgy in the
long term, depending upon the conversion process used.
Overall, New York lands could potentially provide 5.6 to 16 percent
of estimated 2020 in-state gasoline consumption, assuming that the
technological barriers to commercial-scale production of lignocellulosic
ethanol are overcome by the year 2020, according to the road map. It
also finds that New York-derived biomass could support four large-scale
centralized lignocellulosic biorefineries (capacity ranging from 90 MMgy
to 354 MMgy) or up to 24 smaller capacity (60 MMgy) biorefineries.
The Renewable Fuels Roadmap and Sustainable Biomass Feedstock supply
For New York can be accessed at www.nyserda.org.