Energy and land use impacts of sustainable transportation scenarios

This study compares the land use impacts of sustainable transportation scenarios. Energy efficiency is calculated for four hypothetical, renewable fuel cycles possible for light vehicles: (1) renewable electricity to electrolytic hydrogen to fuel cell vehicles, (2) renewable electricity to battery electric vehicles, (3) biomass gasified to hydrogen to fuel cell vehicles and (4) biomass liquefied to biofuel to fuel cell vehicles. A presumption of 200 W/m2 nominal average insolation allows comparison of the fuel cycle efficiencies on a land use basis. The two electricity-based fuel cycles show much higher calculated efficiencies (and lower land uses) than the biomass-based fuel cycles. The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier improves the performance of the biomass resource, but does not show a distinct advantage in performance of the electricity resource. Finally, gross land use is calculated for the particular instance of the U.S. light vehicle fleet, for each of the four fuel cycles.