Public release date: 31-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 202-872-6042 American Chemical Society

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2012 The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series explains that meeting current biofuel production targets with existing technology would require devoting almost 80 percent of current farmland in the U.S. to raising corn for ethanol production or converting 60 percent of existing rangeland to biofuels.

Based on a report by W. Kolby Smith, Ph.D., and colleagues in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology, the new podcast is available without charge at iTunes and from http://www.acs.org/globalchallenges.

Smith and colleagues explain that the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) set a goal of increasing U.S. biofuel production from 40 to 136 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2022. They point out, however, that gaps exist in the ability to establish realistic targets for biofuel production, which the law fills with assumptions about technological developments and the availability and productivity of farmland. In an effort to establish more accurate estimates, they used satellite data about climate, plant cover and usable land to determine how much biofuel the U.S. could produce.

The satellite analysis found that meeting the EISA goals with current technology would require farmers to plant biofuel crops on 80 percent of their farmed land or plant biofuel crops on 60 percent of the land currently used to raise livestock. Both options would significantly reduce the amount of food U.S. farmers produce. The changes also could lead to more polluted freshwater and accelerate global climate change, the report indicated.

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Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions is a series of podcasts describing some of the 21st century's most daunting problems, and how cutting-edge research in chemistry matters in the quest for solutions. Global Challenges is the centerpiece in an alliance on sustainability between ACS and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Global Challenges is a sweeping panorama of global challenges that includes dilemmas such as providing a hungry, thirsty world with ample supplies of safe food and clean water; developing alternatives to petroleum to fuel society; preserving the environment and assuring a sustainable future for our children and improving human health.

For more entertaining, informative science videos and podcasts from the ACS Office of Public Affairs, view Prized Science, Spellbound, Science Elements and Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Meeting biofuel production targets could change agricultural landscape