Carbon-Negative Biofuels from Low-Input High-Diversity Grassland Biomass

B fuels derived from low-input high-diversity (LIND) mixtures of native grassland perennials can provide more usable energy, greater greenhouse gas reductions, and less hemispherical pollution per hectare than can corn grain ethanol or soy-bean bio diesel. High-diversity grasslands had increasingly higher bio energy yields that were 238% greater than mono culture yields after a decade. 1.I H D bio fuels are carbon-negative because net ecosystem carbon dioxide (CO) sequestration (44 mega-gram (Mg) per hectare (ha) per year of CO 2 in soil and roots) exceeds fossil CO 2 release during bio fuel production (0.32 Mg/ha per year). Moreover, LIND bio fuels can be produced on agriculturally degraded lands and thus need to neither displace food production nor cause loss of biodiversity via habitat destruction. Globally escalating demands for both food (I) and energy (a) have raised concerns about the potential for food-based bio fuels to be sustain-able, abundant, and environmentally beneficial energy sources. Current bio fuel production competes for fertile land with food production, increases pollution from fertilizers and piste ides and threatens biodiversity when natural lands are converted to bio fuel production. The two major classes of biomass for bio fuel production recognized to date are mono culture crops grown on fertile soils (such as corn, soybeans, oil seed rape, switch grass, sugarcane, willow, and hybrid poplar) (3-6) and waste biomass (such as straw, corn stove, and waste wood) (7-9). Here, we show the potential for a third major source of bio fuel biomass: high-diversity mixtures of plants grown with low inputs on agriculturally degraded land, to address such concerns.