The Potential Climate Impact of Biofuels
In the U.S., first-generation biofuels or those made from growing food crops specifically to produce energy are the dominant type of biofuels created, over advanced biofuels, which can be created from agricultural wastes and residues. However, first-generation biofuels such as ethanol or biodiesel also have large land footprints, which drive climate-harming emissions when land is converted from natural landscapes, such as forests or grasslands, to specifically grow crops for biofuels.
The U.S. currently grows corn and soybeans, the two most dominant biofuel feedstock crops, on 178 million acres of farmland concentrated mostly in Midwest states — including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
When corn and soy are used to create transportation fuels, they require significant land use for minimal fuel supply. Of the 92 million acres of corn grown in the U.S., roughly one-third about 30 million acres or about the size of the state of Mississippi is used for ethanol production. However, despite this massive land footprint, ethanol from corn only supplied 4% of U.S. transportation fuel in 2022. And while more than 40% of the U.S. soybean oil supply has been used for biofuels each year since 2022, biodiesel made from soybeans supplied less than 1% of U.S. transportation fuel in 2022.
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