Exploring impacts of process technology development and regional factors on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of corn stover ethanol

Abstract

. (2015) Exploring impacts of process technology development and regional factors on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of corn stover ethanol. Renewable Energy, 76 . pp. 726-734. ISSN 1879-0682 Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33577/1/Tech%20development%20and%20regional %20factors%20ethanol%20Resub%20FINAL2.pdf Copyright and reuse:The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. This article is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives licence and may be reused according to the conditions of the licence. For more details see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. design contribute to reducing the electricity co-product and associated emissions credit, which is also dependent on the GHG-intensity of regional electricity supply. Life cycle emissions vary between 1.5 and 22 gCO2eq./MJ ethanol (2011 design) depending on production location (98% to 77% reduction vs. gasoline). Using system expansion for co-product allocation, ethanol production in studied locations meet the Energy Independence and Security Act emissions requirements for cellulosic biofuels; however, regional factors and on-going technology developments significantly influence these results. Keywords: Life Cycle Assessment, Corn Stover, EthanolHighlights:  We evaluate the impacts of regional parameters and technology development on the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of corn stover-derived ethanol  The impacts of corn stover removal on soil carbon stocks and N2O emissions are the dominant regionally-dependent parameters  Biorefinery emissions based on the 2011 NREL design model are approximately double that of the preceding 2002 NREL model due to inclusion of greenhouse gas-intensive inputs (caustic, ammonia, glucose)  For all regions and process design models considered, corn-stover derived ethanol would meet the emissions reduction threshold of the US Energy Independence and Security Act when system expansion is used for co-product allocation.3

Life cycle assessment of ethanol production from miscanthus: A comparison of production pathways at two European sites

“…Regardless of the treatment pathway, enzyme production is a major contributor to the conversion‐related impacts for most categories. This is in line with other studies, which found life cycle results of lignocellulosic ethanol sensitive to impacts from enzyme provision (Gerbrandt et al, ; McKechnie et al, ; Wang, Littlewood, & Murphy, ). Related impacts are subject to uncertainty, as reported burdens for enzyme provision vary widely.…”

“…Over the last decade, the potential to produce transportation fuels from lignocellulosic feedstocks has been accentuated (van der . This trend is supported by the advancement of conversion technologies and coincides with ambiguity in sustainability considerations of sugar-or starch-based biofuels (McKechnie, Pourbafrani, Saville, & MacLean, 2015). Controversies related to these first generation feedstocks include concerns about food competition, land use change or intensive agricultural inputs and have directed the research focus towards lignocellulose-based solutions (Falano, Jeswani, & Azapagic, 2014).…”

“…This study focused on the Mediterranean region and did not consider the conversion pathway in detail (Schmidt, Fernando, Monti, & Rettenmaier, 2015), although the environmental performance of lignocellulosic ethanol is strongly influenced by the design of the conversion process. A large variety of options exist, mainly differing in the pretreatment step and influencing conversion conditions, yields, energy requirement, material demand and by-product generation (Falano et al, 2014;McKechnie et al, 2015).…”

Potential Reductions in Greenhouse Gas and Fine Particulate Matter Emissions Using Corn Stover for Ethanol Production in China

“…In this study, the overall life-cycle GHG emissions per unit of ethanol produced from corn stover were 245.5 kg of CO 2 -eq ton −1 , 738.7 g CO 2 -eq L −1 , or 34.7 g CO 2 -eq MJ −1 . The 34.7 g CO 2 -eq MJ −1 was similar to the value of 38.0 g CO 2 -eq MJ −1 , which was also based on the NREL bioethanol production process [44]. However, it was lower than the 65.3 g CO 2 -eq MJ −1 reported by Zhao et al [13] because the fertilizer quantity in this study was lower than in previously published studies.…”

Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas and Water Intensity of Cellulosic Biofuel Production Using Cholinium Lysinate Ionic Liquid Pretreatment

“…Biomass Production, and Logistics: In this study, we considered corn stover as a representative feedstock for biofuel production. We assume that farmers replace the nutrient content of harvested corn stover by applying additional fertilizers, as is common practice in the most widely-cited models and studies [41][42][43] . Assumptions for corn stover yield, energy demand for harvesting, and additional fertilizer requirements are presented in Supplementary Information A (Table S1).…”