LONDON, June 27 (UPI) -- Though more than twice the number of vehicles are expected on the road by 2030 than today, that doesn't mean doubling of oil demand, BP said from London.
The International Energy Agency estimates the number of cars on the road will double by 2030. Philip New, president of biofuels development at BP, told delegates at a London conference that with better fuel efficiency and an increased use of hybrid vehicles, that won't mean consumers will use twice as much oil.
New said biofuels could eventually make up 9 percent of the global energy mix, which he said was about triple the current capacity.
"Done well, we don't think there are any resource constraints that make this an unachievable goal," he said.
The National Wildlife Federation in May said Washington failed to enforce laws that would protect sensitive ecosystems, adding some farmers are being encouraged to replace grasslands with corn to be used in the production of biofuels.
New said there was plenty of land available, with as much as 59 million hectares (more than 145 million acres) of abandoned agricultural land available in the United States alone.
"A sustainable, scalable, competitive, global industry is starting to emerge (that) can complement, indeed catalyze, the expansion of the worlds agricultural capacity, and make a material contribution to the challenge of meeting our primary energy needs in the coming decades," he said.
