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Originally Posted by C_steam
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1.5 acres will support one cow or the production of about 60,000 litres of biodiesel.
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Doesn't sound too far fetched.
1.5 acres = .6 hectare so 1 hectare will produce 100,000 litres.
1 hectare = 10,000 square metres so 1 square metre produces 10 litres.
Assume big plants spaced at 15cm intervals, say 45 plants per square metre. So each plant, assuming only 1 crop per year, needs to produce 230ml - somewhere around a third of a pint.
(someone check the maths!) |
Your arithmetic seems fine to me.
But this article suggests that 60,000 litres per acre is a bit of a stretch.
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High yield
There are two key indicators in evaluating crops for biofuel production: the fuel yield per acre and the net energy yield of the biofuels, after
subtracting the energy used in both production and refining. For ethanol, the top yields per acre are 714 gallons from sugar beets in France and 662 gallons per acre for sugarcane in Brazil. U.S. corn comes in at 354 gallons per acre, or roughly half the beet and cane yields.
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http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2573
714 US gallons is about 2,700 Litres.