Solar panels on land used for biofuels: enough electricity for all cars/trucks

4 months ago

Biofuels currently use a significant amount of land (32 million hectares, roughly the size of Germany or Poland) but only meet 3-4% of global transport energy demand.
Replacing biofuel crops with solar panels on the same land could generate 32,000 TWh of electricity annually—23 times more energy than biofuels currently provide.
Solar panels are far more efficient than biofuel crops, converting 15-25% of sunlight into electricity compared to less than 1% for photosynthesis in plants.
Electrifying all global road transport (cars and trucks) would require about 7,000 TWh annually, meaning solar panels on biofuel land could power all road transport using just a quarter of the available land.
Electric vehicles are much more energy-efficient than combustion engines, using only one-third of the energy for the same distance traveled.
The remaining three-quarters of the land could be repurposed for other uses like food production, aviation biofuels, or rewilding.
Current biofuel production is dominated by the US, Brazil, and the EU, with sugarcane, corn, and oil crops as primary feedstocks.
Biofuels' climate benefits are often limited when considering land use opportunity costs, as the same land could sequester carbon if rewilded.
The analysis highlights the need to rethink land use efficiency, as solar power offers a far greater energy yield per hectare than biofuels for transport decarbonization.

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