Breeding and Selection of New Switchgrass Varieties for Increased Biomass Production

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Taliaferro, C.M.

2003-05-27

Switchgrass breeding and genetics research was conducted from 1992-2002 at the Oklahoma State University as part of the national DOE-Bioenergy Feedstock Development Program (BFDP) effort to develop the species as a bioenergy feedstock crop. The fundamental objective of the program was to implement and conduct a breeding program to increase biomass yield capability in switchgrass and develop cultivars for the central and southern United States. Supporting research objectives included: (1) switchgrass germplasm collection, characterization, and enhancement; (2) elucidation of cytogenetic and breeding behavior; and (3) identification of best breeding procedures.

2016 Bioenergy Industry Status Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Moriarty, Kristen L.; Milbrandt, Anelia R.; Warner, Ethan

This report provides a snapshot of the bioenergy industry status at the end of 2016. The report compliments other annual market reports from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy offices and is supported by DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). The 2016 Bioenergy Industry Status Report focuses on past year data covering multiple dimensions of the bioenergy industry and does not attempt to make future market projections. The report provides a balanced and unbiased assessment of the industry and associated markets. It is openly available to the public and is intended to compliment Internationalmore » Energy Agency and industry reports with a focus on DOE stakeholder needs.« less

Drought effects on composition and yield for corn stover, mixed grasses, and Miscanthus as bioenergy feedstocks

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Drought conditions in 2012 were some of the most severe in recent history. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of drought on quality, quantity, and theoretical ethanol yield (TEY) of three bioenergy feedstocks, corn stover, mixed perennial grasses from Conservation Reserve Program de...

Energy Potential of Biomass from Conservation Grasslands in Minnesota, USA

PubMed Central

Jungers, Jacob M.; Fargione, Joseph E.; Sheaffer, Craig C.; Wyse, Donald L.; Lehman, Clarence

2013-01-01

Perennial biomass from grasslands managed for conservation of soil and biodiversity can be harvested for bioenergy. Until now, the quantity and quality of harvestable biomass from conservation grasslands in Minnesota, USA, was not known, and the factors that affect bioenergy potential from these systems have not been identified. We measured biomass yield, theoretical ethanol conversion efficiency, and plant tissue nitrogen (N) as metrics of bioenergy potential from mixed-species conservation grasslands harvested with commercial-scale equipment. With three years of data, we used mixed-effects models to determine factors that influence bioenergy potential. Sixty conservation grassland plots, each about 8 ha in size, were distributed among three locations in Minnesota. Harvest treatments were applied annually in autumn as a completely randomized block design. Biomass yield ranged from 0.5 to 5.7 Mg ha−1. May precipitation increased biomass yield while precipitation in all other growing season months showed no affect. Averaged across all locations and years, theoretical ethanol conversion efficiency was 450 l Mg−1 and the concentration of plant N was 7.1 g kg−1, both similar to dedicated herbaceous bioenergy crops such as switchgrass. Biomass yield did not decline in the second or third year of harvest. Across years, biomass yields fluctuated 23% around the average. Surprisingly, forb cover was a better predictor of biomass yield than warm-season grass with a positive correlation with biomass yield in the south and a negative correlation at other locations. Variation in land ethanol yield was almost exclusively due to variation in biomass yield rather than biomass quality; therefore, efforts to increase biomass yield might be more economical than altering biomass composition when managing conservation grasslands for ethanol production. Our measurements of bioenergy potential, and the factors that control it, can serve as parameters for assessing the economic viability of harvesting conservation grasslands for bioenergy. PMID:23577208

Energycane production for biomass and bioenergy feedstocks in Louisiana

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The poster discusses the results of the first two years of energycane production research conducted in Winnsboro, LA, and Houma, LA, as part of the USDA NIFA AFRI grant. Energycane can contribute greatly to a year around bioenergy industry in Louisiana and other areas of the SE United States. As par...

The potential impacts of biomass feedstock production on water resource availability.

PubMed

Stone, K C; Hunt, P G; Cantrell, K B; Ro, K S

2010-03-01

Biofuels are a major topic of global interest and technology development. Whereas bioenergy crop production is highly dependent on water, bioenergy development requires effective allocation and management of water. The objectives of this investigation were to assess the bioenergy production relative to the impacts on water resource related factors: (1) climate and weather impact on water supplies for biomass production; (2) water use for major bioenergy crop production; and (3) potential alternatives to improve water supplies for bioenergy. Shifts to alternative bioenergy crops with greater water demand may produce unintended consequences for both water resources and energy feedstocks. Sugarcane and corn require 458 and 2036 m(3) water/m(3) ethanol produced, respectively. The water requirements for corn grain production to meet the US-DOE Billion-Ton Vision may increase approximately 6-fold from 8.6 to 50.1 km(3). Furthermore, climate change is impacting water resources throughout the world. In the western US, runoff from snowmelt is occurring earlier altering the timing of water availability. Weather extremes, both drought and flooding, have occurred more frequently over the last 30 years than the previous 100 years. All of these weather events impact bioenergy crop production. These events may be partially mitigated by alternative water management systems that offer potential for more effective water use and conservation. A few potential alternatives include controlled drainage and new next-generation livestock waste treatment systems. Controlled drainage can increase water available to plants and simultaneously improve water quality. New livestock waste treatments systems offer the potential to utilize treated wastewater to produce bioenergy crops. New technologies for cellulosic biomass conversion via thermochemical conversion offer the potential for using more diverse feedstocks with dramatically reduced water requirements. The development of bioenergy feedstocks in the US and throughout the world should carefully consider water resource limitations and their critical connections to ecosystem integrity and sustainability of human food. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Global land-use and market interactions between climate and bioenergy policies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Golub, A.; Hertel, T. W.; Rose, S. K.

2011-12-01

Over the past few years, interest in bioenergy has boomed with higher oil prices and concerns about energy security, farm incomes, and mitigation of climate change. Large-scale commercial bioenergy production could have far reaching implications for regional and global land use and output markets associated with food, forestry, chemical, and energy sectors, as well as household welfare. Similarly, there is significant interest in international agricultural and forestry based carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies, which could also provide revenue to developing countries and farmers in exchange for modifying land management practices. However, bioenergy and climate policies are being formulated largely independent of one another. Understanding the interaction between these potentially competing policy objectives is important for identifying possible constraints that one policy might place on the other, potential complementarities that could be exploited in policy design, and net land-use change and management implications over time. This study develops a new dynamic global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model GDyn-E-AEZ to assess the interaction between biofuels production and climate mitigation policies. The model is built on several existing CGE platforms, including 1) GTAP-AEZ-GHG model (Golub et al., 2009), 2) GTAP-BIO (Birur et al., 2008; Taheripour and Tyner, 2011), and 3) GDyn framework (Ianchovichina and McDougall, 2001) extended to investigate the role of population and per capita income growth, changing consumption patterns, and global economic integration in determining long-run patterns of land-use change. The new model is used to assess the effects of domestic and global bioenergy expansion on future land use, as well as sectoral, regional and global GHG emissions mitigation potential. Do bioenergy programs facilitate or constrain GHG mitigation opportunities? For instance, Golub et al. (2009) estimate substantial GHG mitigation potential in non-US forests (8.9 GtCO2yr-1 at $27/tCO2eq). Furthermore, a carbon tax could lead to input substitution in agricultural production away from land and fertilizer (e.g., in China, an approximate 20% reduction in paddy rice acreage and 10% reduction in crop production fertilizer use at the same GHG price). Both results run counter to the changes in land-use induced by biofuels. However, given the energy security benefits for bioenergy, this study also evaluate whether a land GHG policy could manage international indirect land-use leakage concerns for bioenergy. In addition to a global perspective, a US perspective is taken to evaluate the implications of joint and separate bioenergy and climate policies on domestic offset and bioenergy supplies. Preliminary results indicate that US biofuels mandate reduces the global abatement potential for agriculture and forestry and thereby imposes an additional cost on society. There are regional comparative advantages in biofuels production (as well as non-biofuels crops and timber production). There are also regional comparative advantages in land-based GHG mitigation. By modeling bioenergy and climate policies separately and simultaneously, this study assess the net comparative advantage regions have in meeting these two sets of goals.

A framework for selecting indicators of bioenergy sustainability

DOE PAGES

Dale, Virginia H.; Efroymson, Rebecca Ann; Kline, Keith L.; ...

2015-05-11

A framework for selecting and evaluating indicators of bioenergy sustainability is presented. This framework is designed to facilitate decision-making about which indicators are useful for assessing sustainability of bioenergy systems and supporting their deployment. Efforts to develop sustainability indicators in the United States and Europe are reviewed. The first steps of the framework for indicator selection are defining the sustainability goals and other goals for a bioenergy project or program, gaining an understanding of the context, and identifying the values of stakeholders. From the goals, context, and stakeholders, the objectives for analysis and criteria for indicator selection can be developed.more » The user of the framework identifies and ranks indicators, applies them in an assessment, and then evaluates their effectiveness, while identifying gaps that prevent goals from being met, assessing lessons learned, and moving toward best practices. The framework approach emphasizes that the selection of appropriate criteria and indicators is driven by the specific purpose of an analysis. Realistic goals and measures of bioenergy sustainability can be developed systematically with the help of the framework presented here.« less

More food, more bioenergy and fewer greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) - is it possible?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Long, S. P.

2012-12-01

Global demand for our four major food and feed crops is beginning to out-strip supply, at a time when year-on-year yield per unit area increases are stagnating and while emerging climate trends may further threaten supply. In this context it seems unlikely that in the medium term the continued use of land suited to food and feed production for bioenergy will be either socially acceptable or economically viable. It will be argued that the use of food crops, which have been developed to meet nutritional needs, for bioenergy is environmentally flawed and sub-optimal with respect to net GHGe. It will be shown that using Miscanthus, canes, agave and poplars as examples, there are many opportunities, some partially realized, to achieve very substantial quantities of bioenergy on abandoned or non-agricultural land, globally, with positive GHGe benefits and without unsustainable impacts on food production. Achieving all three goals will depend on new policies based on a holistic view of these demands on land rather than the disaggregated policy development based on single issues, which has characterised this arena in recent years.

Chapter 14 -- Case studies

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Production and use of bioenergy have increased significantly during the past few years, motivated by the global need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, ensure energy security, and strengthen rural economies. Public policies have been created to enable bioenergy expansion by indicating to inve...

7 CFR 1435.1 - Applicability.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS SUGAR PROGRAM General Provisions § 1435.1 Applicability... inventory disposition program to sell CCC inventory to bioenergy producers and exchange CCC inventory for...

Aquatic weeds as the next generation feedstock for sustainable bioenergy production.

PubMed

Kaur, Manpreet; Kumar, Manoj; Sachdeva, Sarita; Puri, S K

2018-03-01

Increasing oil prices and depletion of existing fossil fuel reserves, combined with the continuous rise in greenhouse gas emissions, have fostered the need to explore and develop new renewable bioenergy feedstocks that do not require arable land and freshwater resources. In this regard, prolific biomass growth of invasive aquatic weeds in wastewater has gained much attention in recent years in utilizing them as a potential feedstock for bioenergy production. Aquatic weeds have an exceptionally higher reproduction rates and are rich in cellulose and hemicellulose with a very low lignin content that makes them an efficient next generation biofuel crop. Considering their potential as an effective phytoremediators, this review presents a model of integrated aquatic biomass production, phytoremediation and bioenergy generation to reduce the land, fresh water and fertilizer usage for sustainable and economical bioenergy. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Changes in Soil Carbon Turnover after Five Years of Bioenergy Cropping Systems from a Long-Term Incubation Experiment and Radiocarbon Measurements.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szymanski, L. M.; Sanford, G. R.; Heckman, K. A.; Jackson, R. D.; Marin-Spiotta, E.

2016-12-01

In the face of climate change, the global production of bioenergy crops has increased in response to policies calling for non-fossil energy sources as a means to mitigate rising atmospheric carbon (C) concentrations. To provide overall C sequestration benefits, identifying biomass crops that can maintain or enhance soil resources is desirable for sustainable bioenergy production. The objective of our study was to compare the effects of four bioenergy cropping systems on SOM dynamics in two agricultural soils: Mollisols at the University of Wisconsin Agricultural Research Station in Arlington, Wisconsin and Alfisols at Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners, Michigan, USA. We used fresh soils collected in 2013 and archived soils collected in 2008 to measure differences among biofuel crops after 5 years of management. Using a 365-day laboratory soil incubation and radiocarbon measurements of bulk soil and respired C, we separated soils into three SOM pools and determined their corresponding turnover times. Total soil C respired from surface soils increased in the order: mixed species perennials > monoculture perennials > monoculture annuals. More C was associated with the active fraction in the sandy loam Alfisol and with the slow-cycling fraction in the silt loam Mollisol. Radiocarbon content of respired CO2 did not differ between corn and switchgrass, but did differ between 2008 and 2013. The respiration of more radiocarbon-depleted C after 5 years of cultivation may be due to an initial flux of young C following tillage in 2008 or to depletion of labile plant inputs with continued harvest. All bioenergy cropping systems lost soil C after 5 years. Monoculture perennial switchgrass systems did not provide significant C sequestration benefits, as expected, compared to monoculture annual corn systems. Bioenergy crop land-use change affects soil C dynamics, with implications for assessing C costs associated with biofuel production.

Modeling carbon dynamics and social drivers of bioenergy agroecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hunt, Natalie D.

Meeting society's energy needs through bioenergy feedstock production presents a significant and urgent challenge, as it can aid in achieving energy independence goals and mitigating climate change. With federal biofuel production standards to be met within the next decade, and with no commercial scale production or markets currently in place, many questions regarding the sustainability and social feasibility of bioenergy still persist. Clarifying these uncertainties requires the incorporation of biogeochemical, biophysical, and socioeconomic modeling tools. Chapter 2 validated the biogeochemical cycling model AGRO-BGC by comparing model estimates with empirical observations from corn and perennial C4 grass systems across Wisconsin and Illinois. AGRO-BGC, in its first application to an annual cropping system, was found to be a robust model for simulating carbon dynamics of an annual cropping system. Chapter 3 investigated the long-term implications of bioenergy feedstock harvest on soil productivity and erosion in annual corn and perennial switchgrass agroecosystems using AGRO-BGC and the soil erosion model RUSLE2. Modeling environments included biophysical landscape characteristics and management practices of bioenergy feedstock production systems. This study found that intensifying aboveground residue harvest reduces soil productivity over time, and the magnitude of these losses is greater in corn than in switchgrass systems. Results of this study will aid in the design of sustainable bioenergy feedstock management practices. Chapter 4 provided evidence that combining biophysical crop canopy characteristics with satellite-derived vegetation indices offers suitable estimates of crop canopy phenology for corn and soybeans in Southwest Wisconsin farms. LANDSAT based vegetation indices, when combined with a light use efficiency model, provide yield estimates in agreement with farmer reports, providing an efficient and accurate means of estimating crop yields from satellite data. The most important stakeholder in bioenergy sustainability and feasibility research is the farmer. Chapter 5 identified and measured the influence of bioenergy feedstock choice drivers using logistic regression choice models constructed from survey and geospatial data. The strongest choice drivers among farmers willing to participate in a proposed bioenergy feedstock production program included socioeconomic, biophysical, and environmental attitudes. Outcomes of this research will be useful in designing further bioenergy policy and economic incentives.

Sustainable corn stover harvest strategies for Midwest agricultural landscapes

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

To support emerging U.S. cellulosic bioenergy industries, 239 site-years of data from field studies at 36 sites in seven states were recently summarized in BioEnergy Research by the ARS Resilient Economic Agricultural Practices (REAP) team [formerly the Renewable Energy Assessment Project (REAP) tea...

Bioenergy Ecosystem Land-Use Modelling and Field Flux Trial

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McNamara, Niall; Bottoms, Emily; Donnison, Iain; Dondini, Marta; Farrar, Kerrie; Finch, Jon; Harris, Zoe; Ineson, Phil; Keane, Ben; Massey, Alice; McCalmont, Jon; Morison, James; Perks, Mike; Pogson, Mark; Rowe, Rebecca; Smith, Pete; Sohi, Saran; Tallis, Mat; Taylor, Gail; Yamulki, Sirwan

2013-04-01

Climate change impacts resulting from fossil fuel combustion and concerns about the diversity of energy supply are driving interest to find low-carbon energy alternatives. As a result bioenergy is receiving widespread scientific, political and media attention for its potential role in both supplying energy and mitigating greenhouse (GHG) emissions. It is estimated that the bioenergy contribution to EU 2020 renewable energy targets could require up to 17-21 million hectares of additional land in Europe (Don et al., 2012). There are increasing concerns that some transitions into bioenergy may not be as sustainable as first thought when GHG emissions from the crop growth and management cycle are factored into any GHG life cycle assessment (LCA). Bioenergy is complex and encapsulates a wide range of crops, varying from food crop based biofuels to dedicated second generation perennial energy crops and forestry products. The decision on the choice of crop for energy production significantly influences the GHG mitigation potential. It is recognised that GHG savings or losses are in part a function of the original land-use that has undergone change and the management intensity for the energy crop. There is therefore an urgent need to better quantify both crop and site-specific effects associated with the production of conventional and dedicated energy crops on the GHG balance. Currently, there is scarcity of GHG balance data with respect to second generation crops meaning that process based models and LCAs of GHG balances are weakly underpinned. Therefore, robust, models based on real data are urgently required. In the UK we have recently embarked on a detailed program of work to address this challenge by combining a large number of field studies with state-of-the-art process models. Through six detailed experiments, we are calculating the annual GHG balances of land use transitions into energy crops across the UK. Further, we are quantifying the total soil carbon gain or loss after land use change at 100 fieldsites which encapsulate a range of UK climates and soil types. Our overall objective is to use our measured data to parameterise and validate the models that we will use to predict the implications of bioenergy crop deployment in the UK up to 2050. The resultant output will be a meta-model which will help facilitate decision making on the sustainable development of bioenergy in the UK, with potential deployment in other temperate climates around the world. Here we report on the outcome of the first of three years of work. This work is based on the Ecosystem Land Use Modelling & Soil Carbon GHG Flux Trial (ELUM) project, which was commissioned and funded by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI). Don et al. (2012) Land-use change to bioenergy production in Europe: implications for the greenhouse gas balance and soil carbon. GCB Bioenergy 4, 372-379.

On the global limits of bioenergy and land use for climate change mitigation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Strapasson, Alexandre; Woods, Jeremy; Chum, Helena

Across energy, agricultural and forestry landscapes, the production of biomass for energy has emerged as a controversial driver of land-use change. We present a novel, simple methodology, to probe the potential global sustainability limits of bioenergy over time for energy provision and climate change mitigation using a complex-systems approach for assessing land-use dynamics. Primary biomass that could provide between 70 EJ year -1 and 360 EJ year -1, globally, by 2050 was simulated in the context of different land-use futures, food diet patterns and climate change mitigation efforts. Our simulations also show ranges of potential greenhouse gas emissions for agriculture,more » forestry and other land uses by 2050, including not only above-ground biomass-related emissions, but also from changes in soil carbon, from as high as 24 GtCO 2eq year-1 to as low as minus 21 GtCO 2eq year -1, which would represent a significant source of negative emissions. Based on the modelling simulations, the discussions offer novel insights about bioenergy as part of a broader integrated system. As a result, there are sustainability limits to the scale of bioenergy provision, they are dynamic over time, being responsive to land management options deployed worldwide.« less

On the global limits of bioenergy and land use for climate change mitigation

DOE PAGES

Strapasson, Alexandre; Woods, Jeremy; Chum, Helena; ...

2017-05-24

Across energy, agricultural and forestry landscapes, the production of biomass for energy has emerged as a controversial driver of land-use change. We present a novel, simple methodology, to probe the potential global sustainability limits of bioenergy over time for energy provision and climate change mitigation using a complex-systems approach for assessing land-use dynamics. Primary biomass that could provide between 70 EJ year -1 and 360 EJ year -1, globally, by 2050 was simulated in the context of different land-use futures, food diet patterns and climate change mitigation efforts. Our simulations also show ranges of potential greenhouse gas emissions for agriculture,more » forestry and other land uses by 2050, including not only above-ground biomass-related emissions, but also from changes in soil carbon, from as high as 24 GtCO 2eq year-1 to as low as minus 21 GtCO 2eq year -1, which would represent a significant source of negative emissions. Based on the modelling simulations, the discussions offer novel insights about bioenergy as part of a broader integrated system. As a result, there are sustainability limits to the scale of bioenergy provision, they are dynamic over time, being responsive to land management options deployed worldwide.« less

Amy Schwab | NREL

Science.gov Websites

strategic scenario planning and analysis Program portfolio analysis Program management, planning and strategic execution Change management and operational improvement Research Interests Bioenergy supply chains management, organizational improvement, and program and project management. Prior Work Experience Consultant

76 FR 64839 - Sugar Program; Feedstock Flexibility Program for Bioenergy Producers

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-10-19

... increase and that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) use in Mexico continues to be strong (but not as strong..., in- process sugar products such as beet thick juice or cane syrup are eligible. Since the program...

Nitrogen Recycling and Flowering Time in Perennial Bioenergy Crops

PubMed Central

Schwartz, Christopher; Amasino, Richard

2013-01-01

Perennials have a number of traits important for profitability and sustainability of a biofuel crop. Perennialism is generally defined as the ability to grow and reproduce in multiple years. In temperate climates, many perennial plants enter dormancy during winter and recycle nutrients, such as nitrogen, to below ground structures for the next growing season. Nitrogen is expensive to produce and application of nitrogen increases the potent greenhouse gas NOx. Perennial bioenergy crops have been evaluated for biomass yields with nitrogen fertilization, location, year, and genotype as variables. Flowering time and dormancy are closely related to the N recycling program. Substantial variation for flowering time and dormancy has been identified in the switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) species, which provides a source to identify the genetic components of N recycling, and for use in breeding programs. Some studies have addressed recycling specifically, but flowering time and developmental differences were largely ignored, complicating interpretation of the results. Future studies on recycling need to appreciate plant developmental stage to allow comparison between experiments. A perennial/annual model(s) and more environmentally controlled experiments would be useful to determine the genetic components of nitrogen recycling. Increasing biomass yield per unit of nitrogen by maximizing recycling might mean the difference for profitability of a biofuel crop and has the added benefit of minimizing negative environmental effects from agriculture. PMID:23626592

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dale, Virginia H.; Efroymson, Rebecca Ann; Kline, Keith L.

A framework for selecting and evaluating indicators of bioenergy sustainability is presented. This framework is designed to facilitate decision-making about which indicators are useful for assessing sustainability of bioenergy systems and supporting their deployment. Efforts to develop sustainability indicators in the United States and Europe are reviewed. The first steps of the framework for indicator selection are defining the sustainability goals and other goals for a bioenergy project or program, gaining an understanding of the context, and identifying the values of stakeholders. From the goals, context, and stakeholders, the objectives for analysis and criteria for indicator selection can be developed.more » The user of the framework identifies and ranks indicators, applies them in an assessment, and then evaluates their effectiveness, while identifying gaps that prevent goals from being met, assessing lessons learned, and moving toward best practices. The framework approach emphasizes that the selection of appropriate criteria and indicators is driven by the specific purpose of an analysis. Realistic goals and measures of bioenergy sustainability can be developed systematically with the help of the framework presented here.« less

Bioenergy Feedstock Development Program Status Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kszos, L.A.

2001-02-09

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Bioenergy Feedstock Development Program (BFDP) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a mission-oriented program of research and analysis whose goal is to develop and demonstrate cropping systems for producing large quantities of low-cost, high-quality biomass feedstocks for use as liquid biofuels, biomass electric power, and/or bioproducts. The program specifically supports the missions and goals of DOE's Office of Fuels Development and DOE's Office of Power Technologies. ORNL has provided technical leadership and field management for the BFDP since DOE began energy crop research in 1978. The major components of the BFDP include energymore » crop selection and breeding; crop management research; environmental assessment and monitoring; crop production and supply logistics operational research; integrated resource analysis and assessment; and communications and outreach. Research into feedstock supply logistics has recently been added and will become an integral component of the program.« less

Support for the 4th Pan-American Congress on Plants and Bioenergy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Carpita, Nicholas C.

Intellectual Merit: Following the success of the first three Pan-American Congresses on Plants and BioEnergy held biennially, the 4th congress will be held at the University of Guelph, Canada June 4-7, 2014. We aim to continue a tradition of showcasing major advances in energy crop improvement yet keep in perspective the realities of the economic drivers and pressures that govern the translation of scientific success into a commercial success. The congress is endorsed by the American Society of Plant Biologists and the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists. The program will cover a range of disciplines, including algal and plant systemsmore » for bioenergy, plant genetics and genomics, gene discovery for improvement of bioenergy production and quality, regulatory mechanisms of synthesis and degradation, strategies for 3rd generation biofuel production and the promise of synthetic biology in production of biofuels and bio-based products, cropping systems and productivity for biomass production, and mitigation of environmental impacts of bioenergy production. Broader Impacts: We are requesting support to generate stipends for domestic and permanent-resident students, post-doctorals, and pre-tenured faculty members to attend and benefit from the outstanding program. The stipends will be limited to registration and on-site lodging costs, with partial support for travel in instances of great need. So that as great a number can benefit as possible, airfare costs will be provided for only applicants with great need. ASPB has endorsed this meeting and will assist in advertising and promoting the meeting. ASPB has a long-standing commitment to increase participation and advance the careers in plant biology of women, minorities and underrepresented scientists, and they will assist us in identifying worthy candidates.« less

Water quality effects of short-rotation pine management for bioenergy feedstocks in the southeastern United States

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Griffiths, Natalie A.; Jackson, C. Rhett; Bitew, Menberu M.

There is growing interest in renewable and domestically produced energy which motivates the evaluation of woody bioenergy feedstock production. In the southeastern U.S., woody feedstock plantations, primarily of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), would be intensively managed over short rotations (10–12 years) to achieve high yields. The primary differences in managing woody feedstocks for bioenergy production vs for pulp/sawtimber production include a higher frequency of pesticide and fertilizer applications, whole-tree removal, and greater ground disturbance (i.e., more bare ground during stand establishment and more frequent disturbance). And while the effects of pulp/sawtimber production on water quality are well-studied, the effects ofmore » growing short-rotation loblolly pine on water quality and the efficacy of current forestry Best Management Practices (BMPs) have not been evaluated for this emerging management system. We used a watershed-scale experiment in a before-after, control-impact design to evaluate the effects of growing loblolly pine for bioenergy on water quality in the Upper Coastal Plain of the southeastern U.S. Intensive management for bioenergy production and implementation of current forestry BMPs occurred on ~50% of two treatment watersheds, with one reference watershed in a minimally managed pine forest. Water quality metrics (nutrient and pesticide concentrations) were measured in stream water, groundwater, and interflow (i.e., shallow subsurface flow) for a two-year pre-treatment period, and for 3.5 years post-treatment. After 3.5 years, there was little change to stream water quality. Here, we report on observations where there were a few occurrences of saturated overland flow, but there were sediments and water dissipated within the streamside management zones in over 75% of these instances. Stream nutrient concentrations were low and temporal changes mainly reflected seasonal patterns in nitrogen cycling. Nitrate concentrations increased in groundwater post-treatment to < 2 mg N L -1, and these concentrations were below the U.S. drinking water standard (10 mg N L -1). Applied pesticides were almost always below detection in streams and groundwater. Overall, these findings highlight that current forestry BMPs can protect stream water quality from intensive pine management for bioenergy in the first 3.5 years. However, groundwater quality and transit times need to be considered in these low-gradient watersheds of the southeastern U.S. that are likely to become an important location for woody bioenergy feedstock production.« less

Water quality effects of short-rotation pine management for bioenergy feedstocks in the southeastern United States

DOE PAGES

Griffiths, Natalie A.; Jackson, C. Rhett; Bitew, Menberu M.; ...

2017-06-12

There is growing interest in renewable and domestically produced energy which motivates the evaluation of woody bioenergy feedstock production. In the southeastern U.S., woody feedstock plantations, primarily of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), would be intensively managed over short rotations (10–12 years) to achieve high yields. The primary differences in managing woody feedstocks for bioenergy production vs for pulp/sawtimber production include a higher frequency of pesticide and fertilizer applications, whole-tree removal, and greater ground disturbance (i.e., more bare ground during stand establishment and more frequent disturbance). And while the effects of pulp/sawtimber production on water quality are well-studied, the effects ofmore » growing short-rotation loblolly pine on water quality and the efficacy of current forestry Best Management Practices (BMPs) have not been evaluated for this emerging management system. We used a watershed-scale experiment in a before-after, control-impact design to evaluate the effects of growing loblolly pine for bioenergy on water quality in the Upper Coastal Plain of the southeastern U.S. Intensive management for bioenergy production and implementation of current forestry BMPs occurred on ~50% of two treatment watersheds, with one reference watershed in a minimally managed pine forest. Water quality metrics (nutrient and pesticide concentrations) were measured in stream water, groundwater, and interflow (i.e., shallow subsurface flow) for a two-year pre-treatment period, and for 3.5 years post-treatment. After 3.5 years, there was little change to stream water quality. Here, we report on observations where there were a few occurrences of saturated overland flow, but there were sediments and water dissipated within the streamside management zones in over 75% of these instances. Stream nutrient concentrations were low and temporal changes mainly reflected seasonal patterns in nitrogen cycling. Nitrate concentrations increased in groundwater post-treatment to < 2 mg N L -1, and these concentrations were below the U.S. drinking water standard (10 mg N L -1). Applied pesticides were almost always below detection in streams and groundwater. Overall, these findings highlight that current forestry BMPs can protect stream water quality from intensive pine management for bioenergy in the first 3.5 years. However, groundwater quality and transit times need to be considered in these low-gradient watersheds of the southeastern U.S. that are likely to become an important location for woody bioenergy feedstock production.« less

Wood bioenergy and soil productivity research

Treesearch

D. Andrew Scott; Deborah S. Page-Dumroese

2016-01-01

Timber harvesting can cause both short- and long-term changes in forest ecosystem functions, and scientists from USDA Forest Service (USDA FS) have been studying these processes for many years. Biomass and bioenergy markets alter the amount, type, and frequency at which material is harvested, which in turn has similar yet specific impacts on sustainable productivity....

Land-use legacies regulate decomposition dynamics following bioenergy crop conversion

DOE PAGES

Kallenbach, Cynthia M.; Stuart Grandy, A.

2014-07-14

Land-use conversion into bioenergy crop production can alter litter decomposition processes tightly coupled to soil carbon and nutrient dynamics. Yet, litter decomposition has been poorly described in bioenergy production systems, especially following land-use conversion. Predicting decomposition dynamics in postconversion bioenergy production systems is challenging because of the combined influence of land-use legacies with current management and litter quality. To evaluate how land-use legacies interact with current bioenergy crop management to influence litter decomposition in different litter types, we conducted a landscape-scale litterbag decomposition experiment. We proposed land-use legacies regulate decomposition, but their effects are weakened under higher quality litter andmore » when current land use intensifies ecosystem disturbance relative to prior land use. We compared sites left in historical land uses of either agriculture (AG) or Conservation Reserve Program grassland (CRP) to those that were converted to corn or switchgrass bioenergy crop production. Enzyme activities, mass loss, microbial biomass, and changes in litter chemistry were monitored in corn stover and switchgrass litter over 485 days, accompanied by similar soil measurements. Across all measured variables, legacy had the strongest effect (P < 0.05) relative to litter type and current management, where CRP sites maintained higher soil and litter enzyme activities and microbial biomass relative to AG sites. Decomposition responses to conversion depended on legacy but also current management and litter type. Within the CRP sites, conversion into corn increased litter enzymes, microbial biomass, and litter protein and lipid abundances, especially on decomposing corn litter, relative to nonconverted CRP. However, conversion into switchgrass from CRP, a moderate disturbance, often had no effect on switchgrass litter decomposition parameters. Thus, legacies shape the direction and magnitude of decomposition responses to bioenergy crop conversion and therefore should be considered a key influence on litter and soil C cycling under bioenergy crop management.« less

Maintaining site productivity during biofuel harvest operations

Treesearch

Deborah Page-Dumoese; Mark Kimsey

2012-01-01

Demand for forest biomass for bioenergy production and other uses is expected to increase to four times the current level in the next one to five years. The search for alternative energy sources, including forest bioenergy, increases pressure on the productive capacity of our western forestlands. The questions are: Can forest soils in the western U.S. support more...

Geospatial assessment of bioenergy land use and its impacts on soil erosion in the U.S. Midwest.

PubMed

SooHoo, William M; Wang, Cuizhen; Li, Huixuan

2017-04-01

Agricultural land use change, especially corn expansion since 2000s, has been accelerating to meet the growing bioenergy demand of the United States. This study identifies the environmentally sensitive lands (ESLs) in the U.S. Midwest using the distance-weighted Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) associated with bioenergy land uses extracted from USDA Cropland Data Layers. The impacts of soil erosion to downstream wetlands and waterbodies in the river basin are counted in the RUSLE with an inverse distance weighting approach. In a GIS-ranking model, the ESLs in 2008 and 2011 (two representative years of corn expansion) are ranked based on their soil erosion severity in crop fields. Under scenarios of bioenergy land use change (corn to grass and grass to corn) on two land types (ESLs and non-ESLs) at three magnitudes (5%, 10% and 15% change), this study assesses the potential environmental impacts of bioenergy land use at a basin level. The ESL distributions and projected trends vary geographically responding to different agricultural conversions. Results support the idea of re-planting native prairie grasses in the identified High and Severe rank ESLs for sustainable bioenergy management in this important agricultural region. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The DOE Bioenergy Research Centers: History, Operations, and Scientific Output

DOE PAGES

Slater, Steven C.; Simmons, Blake A.; Rogers, Tamara S.; ...

2015-08-20

Over the past 7 years, the US Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research has funded three Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs). These centers have developed complementary and collaborative research portfolios that address the key technical and economic challenges in biofuel production from lignocellulosic biomass. All three centers have established a close, productive relationship with DOE's Joint Genome Institute (JGI). This special issue of Bioenergy Research samples the breadth of basic science and engineering work required to underpin a diverse, sustainable, and robust biofuel industry. In this report, which was collaboratively produced by all three BRCs, we discuss themore » BRC contributions over their first 7 years to the development of renewable transportation fuels. In additon, we also highlight the BRC research published in the current issue and discuss technical challenges in light of recent progress.« less

Chapter 9, Land and Bioenergy in Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), Bioenergy & Sustainability: bridging the gaps.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Woods J, Lynd LR; Laser, M; Batistella M, De Castro D

In this chapter we address the questions of whether and how enough biomass could be produced to make a material contribution to global energy supply on a scale and timeline that is consistent with prominent low carbon energy scenarios. We assess whether bioenergy provision necessarily conflicts with priority ecosystem services including food security for the world s poor and vulnerable populations. In order to evaluate the potential land demand for bioenergy, we developed a set of three illustrative scenarios using specified growth rates for each bioenergy sub-sector. In these illustrative scenarios, bioenergy (traditional and modern) increases from 62 EJ/yr inmore » 2010 to 100, 150 and 200 EJ/yr in 2050. Traditional bioenergy grows slowly, increasing by between 0.75% and 1% per year, from 40 EJ/yr in 2010 to 50 or 60 EJ/ yr in 2050, continuing as the dominant form of bioenergy until at least 2020. Across the three scenarios, total land demand is estimated to increase by between 52 and 200 Mha which can be compared with a range of potential land availability estimates from the literature of between 240 million hectares to over 1 billion hectares. Biomass feedstocks arise from combinations of residues and wastes, energy cropping and increased efficiency in supply chains for energy, food and materials. In addition, biomass has the unique capability of providing solid, liquid and gaseous forms of modern energy carriers that can be transformed into analogues to existing fuels. Because photosynthesis fixes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, biomass supply chains can be configured to store at least some of the fixed carbon in forms or ways that it will not be reemitted to the atmosphere for considerable periods of time, so-called negative emissions pathways. These attributes provide opportunities for bioenergy policies to promote longterm and sustainable options for the supply of energy for the foreseeable future.« less

Willow bioenergy plantation research in the Northeast

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

White, E.H.; Abrahamson, L.P.; Kopp, R.F.

1993-12-31

Experiments were established in Central New York in the spring of 1987 to evaluate the potential of Salix for biomass production in bioenergy plantations. Emphasis of the research was on developing and refining establishment, tending and maintenance techniques, with complimentary study of breeding, coppice physiology, pests, nutrient use and bioconversion to energy products. Current yields utilizing salix clones developed in cooperation with the University of Toronto in short-rotation intensive culture bioenergy plantations in the Northeast approximate 8 oven dry tons per acre per year with annual harvesting. Successful clones have been identified and culture techniques refined. The results are nowmore » being integrated to establish a 100 acre Salix large-scale bioenergy farm to demonstrate current successful biomass production technology and to provide plantations of sufficient size to test harvesters; adequately assess economics of the systems; and provide large quantities of uniform biomass for pilot-scale conversion facilities.« less

Reconciling food security and bioenergy: priorities for action

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kline, Keith L.; Msangi, Siwa; Dale, Virginia H.

Addressing the challenges of understanding and managing complex interactions among food security, biofuels, and land management requires a focus on specific contextual problems and opportunities. The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals prioritize food and energy security and bioenergy links these two priorities. Effective food security programs begin by clearly defining the problem and asking, What options will be effective to assist people at high risk? Headlines and cartoons that blame biofuels for food insecurity reflect good intentions but mislead the public and policy makers because they obscure or miss the main drivers of local food insecurity and opportunities formore » biofuels to contribute to solutions. Applying sustainability guidelines to bioenergy will help achieve near- and long- term goals to eradicate hunger. Priorities for achieving successful synergies between bioenergy and food security include (1) clarifying communications with clear and consistent terms, (2) recognizing that food and bioenergy do not compete for land but food and bioenergy systems can and do work together to improve resource management, (3) investing in innovations to build capacity and infrastructure such as rural agricultural extension and technology, (4) promoting stable prices that incentivize local production, (5) adopting flex crops that can provide food along with other products and services to society, and (6) engaging stakeholders in identifying and assessing specific opportunities for biofuels to improve food security. In conclusion, systematic monitoring and analysis to support adaptive management and continual improvement are essential elements to build synergies and help society equitably meet growing demands for both food and energy.« less

Reconciling food security and bioenergy: priorities for action

DOE PAGES

Kline, Keith L.; Msangi, Siwa; Dale, Virginia H.; ...

2016-06-14

Addressing the challenges of understanding and managing complex interactions among food security, biofuels, and land management requires a focus on specific contextual problems and opportunities. The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals prioritize food and energy security and bioenergy links these two priorities. Effective food security programs begin by clearly defining the problem and asking, What options will be effective to assist people at high risk? Headlines and cartoons that blame biofuels for food insecurity reflect good intentions but mislead the public and policy makers because they obscure or miss the main drivers of local food insecurity and opportunities formore » biofuels to contribute to solutions. Applying sustainability guidelines to bioenergy will help achieve near- and long- term goals to eradicate hunger. Priorities for achieving successful synergies between bioenergy and food security include (1) clarifying communications with clear and consistent terms, (2) recognizing that food and bioenergy do not compete for land but food and bioenergy systems can and do work together to improve resource management, (3) investing in innovations to build capacity and infrastructure such as rural agricultural extension and technology, (4) promoting stable prices that incentivize local production, (5) adopting flex crops that can provide food along with other products and services to society, and (6) engaging stakeholders in identifying and assessing specific opportunities for biofuels to improve food security. In conclusion, systematic monitoring and analysis to support adaptive management and continual improvement are essential elements to build synergies and help society equitably meet growing demands for both food and energy.« less

Changes in N-Transforming Archaea and Bacteria in Soil during the Establishment of Bioenergy Crops

PubMed Central

Mao, Yuejian; Yannarell, Anthony C.; Mackie, Roderick I.

2011-01-01

Widespread adaptation of biomass production for bioenergy may influence important biogeochemical functions in the landscape, which are mainly carried out by soil microbes. Here we explore the impact of four potential bioenergy feedstock crops (maize, switchgrass, Miscanthus X giganteus, and mixed tallgrass prairie) on nitrogen cycling microorganisms in the soil by monitoring the changes in the quantity (real-time PCR) and diversity (barcoded pyrosequencing) of key functional genes (nifH, bacterial/archaeal amoA and nosZ) and 16S rRNA genes over two years after bioenergy crop establishment. The quantities of these N-cycling genes were relatively stable in all four crops, except maize (the only fertilized crop), in which the population size of AOB doubled in less than 3 months. The nitrification rate was significantly correlated with the quantity of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) not bacteria (AOB), indicating that archaea were the major ammonia oxidizers. Deep sequencing revealed high diversity of nifH, archaeal amoA, bacterial amoA, nosZ and 16S rRNA genes, with 229, 309, 330, 331 and 8989 OTUs observed, respectively. Rarefaction analysis revealed the diversity of archaeal amoA in maize markedly decreased in the second year. Ordination analysis of T-RFLP and pyrosequencing results showed that the N-transforming microbial community structures in the soil under these crops gradually differentiated. Thus far, our two-year study has shown that specific N-transforming microbial communities develop in the soil in response to planting different bioenergy crops, and each functional group responded in a different way. Our results also suggest that cultivation of maize with N-fertilization increases the abundance of AOB and denitrifiers, reduces the diversity of AOA, and results in significant changes in the structure of denitrification community. PMID:21935454

Social acceptability of bioenergy in the U.S

Treesearch

J. Peter Brosius; John Schelhas; Sarah Hitchner

2013-01-01

Global interest in bioenergy development has increased dramatically in recent years, due to its promise to reduce dependence on fossil fuel energy supplies, its contribution to global and national energy security, its potential to produce a carbon negative or neutral fuel source and to mitigate climate change, and its potential as a vehicle for rural development....

Identification of bioconversion quantitative trait loci in the interspecific cross Sorghum bicolor × Sorghum propinquum.

PubMed

Vandenbrink, Joshua P; Goff, Valorie; Jin, Huizhe; Kong, Wenqian; Paterson, Andrew H; Feltus, F Alex

2013-09-01

For lignocellulosic bioenergy to be economically viable, genetic improvements must be made in feedstock quality including both biomass total yield and conversion efficiency. Toward this goal, multiple studies have considered candidate genes and discovered quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with total biomass accumulation and/or grain production in bioenergy grass species including maize and sorghum. However, very little research has been focused on genes associated with increased biomass conversion efficiency. In this study, Trichoderma viride fungal cellulase hydrolysis activity was measured for lignocellulosic biomass (leaf and stem tissue) obtained from individuals in a F5 recombinant inbred Sorghum bicolor × Sorghum propinquum mapping population. A total of 49 QTLs (20 leaf, 29 stem) were associated with enzymatic conversion efficiency. Interestingly, six high-density QTL regions were identified in which four or more QTLs overlapped. In addition to enzymatic conversion efficiency QTLs, two QTLs were identified for biomass crystallinity index, a trait which has been shown to be inversely correlated with conversion efficiency in bioenergy grasses. The identification of these QTLs provides an important step toward identifying specific genes relevant to increasing conversion efficiency of bioenergy feedstocks. DNA markers linked to these QTLs could be useful in marker-assisted breeding programs aimed at increasing overall bioenergy yields concomitant with selection of high total biomass genotypes.

Simulation of Biomass Yield and Soil Organic Carbon under Bioenergy Sorghum Production

PubMed Central

Dou, Fugen; Wight, Jason P.; Wilson, Lloyd T.; Storlien, Joseph O.; Hons, Frank M.

2014-01-01

Developing sustainable management practices including appropriate residue removal and nitrogen (N) fertilization for bioenergy sorghum is critical. However, the effects of residue removal and N fertilization associated with bioenergy sorghum production on soil organic carbon (SOC) are less studied compared to other crops. The objective of our research was to assess the impacts of residue removal and N fertilization on biomass yield and SOC under biomass sorghum production. Field measurements were used to calibrate the DNDC model, then verified the model by comparing simulated results with measured results using the field management practices as agronomic inputs. Both residue removal and N fertilization affected bioenergy sorghum yields in some years. The average measured SOC at 0–50 cm across the treatments and the time-frame ranged from 47.5 to 78.7 Mg C ha−1, while the simulated SOC was from 56.3 to 67.3 Mg C ha−1. The high correlation coefficients (0.65 to 0.99) and low root mean square error (3 to 18) between measured and simulated values indicate the DNDC model accurately simulated the effects of residue removal with N fertilization on bioenergy sorghum production and SOC. The model predictions revealed that there is, in the long term, a trend for higher SOC under bioenergy sorghum production regardless of residue management. PMID:25531758

Phytozome Comparative Plant Genomics Portal

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Goodstein, David; Batra, Sajeev; Carlson, Joseph

2014-09-09

The Dept. of Energy Joint Genome Institute is a genomics user facility supporting DOE mission science in the areas of Bioenergy, Carbon Cycling, and Biogeochemistry. The Plant Program at the JGI applies genomic, analytical, computational and informatics platforms and methods to: 1. Understand and accelerate the improvement (domestication) of bioenergy crops 2. Characterize and moderate plant response to climate change 3. Use comparative genomics to identify constrained elements and infer gene function 4. Build high quality genomic resource platforms of JGI Plant Flagship genomes for functional and experimental work 5. Expand functional genomic resources for Plant Flagship genomes

Sustainable Biofuel Crops Project, Final Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Juhn, Daniel; Grantham, Hedley

2014-05-28

Over the last six years, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has developed the Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) Approach to help countries design and implement sustainable bioenergy policies and strategies. The BEFS Approach consists of two sets of multidisciplinary and integrated tools and guidance (the BEFS Rapid Appraisal and the BEFS Detailed Analysis) to facilitate better decision on bioenergy development which should foster both food and energy security, and contribute to agricultural and rural development. The development of the BEFS Approach was for the most part funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food andmore » Agriculture. Recognizing the need to provide support to countries that wanted an initial assessment of their sustainable bioenergy potential, and of the associated opportunities, risks and trade offs, FAO began developing the BEFS-RA (Rapid Appraisal). The BEFS RA is a spreadsheet–based assessment and analysis tool designed to outline the country's basic energy, agriculture and food security context, the natural resources potential, the bioenergy end use options, including initial financial and economic implications, and the identification of issues that might require fuller investigation with the BEFS Detailed Analysis.« less

Spatio-temporal Eigenvector Filtering: Application on Bioenergy Crop Impacts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, M.; Kamarianakis, Y.; Georgescu, M.

2017-12-01

A suite of 10-year ensemble-based simulations was conducted to investigate the hydroclimatic impacts due to large-scale deployment of perennial bioenergy crops across the continental United States. Given the large size of the simulated dataset (about 60Tb), traditional hierarchical spatio-temporal statistical modelling cannot be implemented for the evaluation of physics parameterizations and biofuel impacts. In this work, we propose a filtering algorithm that takes into account the spatio-temporal autocorrelation structure of the data while avoiding spatial confounding. This method is used to quantify the robustness of simulated hydroclimatic impacts associated with bioenergy crops to alternative physics parameterizations and observational datasets. Results are evaluated against those obtained from three alternative Bayesian spatio-temporal specifications.

Challenges and models in supporting logistics system design for dedicated-biomass-based bioenergy industry.

PubMed

Zhu, Xiaoyan; Li, Xueping; Yao, Qingzhu; Chen, Yuerong

2011-01-01

This paper analyzed the uniqueness and challenges in designing the logistics system for dedicated biomass-to-bioenergy industry, which differs from the other industries, due to the unique features of dedicated biomass (e.g., switchgrass) including its low bulk density, restrictions on harvesting season and frequency, content variation with time and circumambient conditions, weather effects, scattered distribution over a wide geographical area, and so on. To design it, this paper proposed a mixed integer linear programming model. It covered from planting and harvesting switchgrass to delivering to a biorefinery and included the residue handling, concentrating on integrating strategic decisions on the supply chain design and tactical decisions on the annual operation schedules. The present numerical examples verified the model and demonstrated its use in practice. This paper showed that the operations of the logistics system were significantly different for harvesting and non-harvesting seasons, and that under the well-designed biomass logistics system, the mass production with a steady and sufficient supply of biomass can increase the unit profit of bioenergy. The analytical model and practical methodology proposed in this paper will help realize the commercial production in biomass-to-bioenergy industry. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Projected gains and losses of wildlife habitat from bioenergy-induced landscape change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Tarr, Nathan M.; Rubino, Matthew J.; Costanza, Jennifer K.; McKerrow, Alexa; Collazo, Jaime A.; Abt, Robert C.

2016-01-01

Domestic and foreign renewable energy targets and financial incentives have increased demand for woody biomass and bioenergy in the southeastern United States. This demand is expected to be met through purpose-grown agricultural bioenergy crops, short-rotation tree plantations, thinning and harvest of planted and natural forests, and forest harvest residues. With results from a forest economics model, spatially explicit state-and-transition simulation models, and species–habitat models, we projected change in habitat amount for 16 wildlife species caused by meeting a renewable fuel target and expected demand for wood pellets in North Carolina, USA. We projected changes over 40 years under a baseline ‘business-as-usual’ scenario without bioenergy production and five scenarios with unique feedstock portfolios. Bioenergy demand had potential to influence trends in habitat availability for some species in our study area. We found variation in impacts among species, and no scenario was the ‘best’ or ‘worst’ across all species. Our models projected that shrub-associated species would gain habitat under some scenarios because of increases in the amount of regenerating forests on the landscape, while species restricted to mature forests would lose habitat. Some forest species could also lose habitat from the conversion of forests on marginal soils to purpose-grown feedstocks. The conversion of agricultural lands on marginal soils to purpose-grown feedstocks increased habitat losses for one species with strong associations with pasture, which is being lost to urbanization in our study region. Our results indicate that landscape-scale impacts on wildlife habitat will vary among species and depend upon the bioenergy feedstock portfolio. Therefore, decisions about bioenergy and wildlife will likely involve trade-offs among wildlife species, and the choice of focal species is likely to affect the results of landscape-scale assessments. We offer general principals to consider when crafting lists of focal species for bioenergy impact assessments at the landscape scale.

Exploring the Potential for Sustainable Future Bioenergy Production in the Arkansas-White-Red River Basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baskaran, L.; Jager, H.; Kreig, J.

2016-12-01

Bioenergy production in the US has been projected to increase in the next few years and this has raised concerns over environmentally sustainable production. Specifically, there are concerns that managing lands to produce bioenergy feedstocks in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB) may have impacts over the water quality in the streams draining these lands and hamper with efforts to reduce the size of the Gulf of Mexico's "Dead Zone" (hypoxic waters). However, with appropriate choice of feedstocks and good conservation practices, bioenergy production systems can be environmentally and economically sustainable. We evaluated opportunities for producing 2nd generation cellulosic feedstocks that are economically sustainable and improve water quality in the Arkansas-White-Red (AWR) river basin, which is major part of the MARB. We generated a future bioenergy landscape by downscaling county-scale projections of bioenergy crop production produced by an economic model, POLYSYS, at a market price of $60 per dry ton and a 1% annual yield increase. Our future bioenergy landscape includes perennial grasses (switchgrass and miscanthus), short-rotated woody crops (poplar and willow) and annual crops (high yield sorghum, sorghum stubble, corn stover and wheat straw). Using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) we analyzed changes in water quality and quantity by simulating a baseline scenario with the current landscape (2014 land cover) and a future scenario with the bioenergy landscape. Our results over the AWR indicate decreases in median nutrient and sediment loadings from the baseline scenario. We also explored methods to evaluate if conservation practices (such as reducing fertilizer applications, incorporating filter strips, planting cover crops and moving to a no-till system) can improve water quality, while maintaining biomass yield. We created a series of SWAT simulations with varying levels of conservation practices by crop and present our methods towards identifying future scenarios that may minimize water quality and maximize biomass yields.

The role of bioenergy in a climate-changing world

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Souza, Glaucia Mendes; Ballester, Maria Victoria R.; de Brito Cruz, Carlos Henrique

Bioenergy has been under intense scrutiny over the last ten years with significant research efforts in many countries taking place to define and measure sustainable practices. We describe here the main challenges and policy issues and provide policy recommendations for scaling up sustainable bioenergy approaches globally. The 2016 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs defined under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) will not reach global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission targets of 2 °C. Sustainable biomass production can make a significant contribution. Substantive evidence exists that many bioenergy cropping systems can bring multiple benefitsmore » and off-set environmental problems associated with fossil fuels usage as well as intensive food production and urbanization. We provide evidence that there are many approaches to land use for bioenergy expansion that do not lead to competition for food or other needs. We should focus on how to manage these approaches on a synergistic basis and how to reduce tradeoffs at landscape scales. Priorities include successful synergies between bioenergy and food security (integrated resource management designed to improve both food security and access to bioenergy), investments in technology, rural extension, and innovations that build capacity and infrastructure, promotion of stable prices to incentivize local production and use of double cropping and flex crops (plants grown for both food and non-food markets) that provide food and energy as well as other services. The sustainable production of biomass requires appropriate policies to secure long-term support to improve crop productivity and also to ensure environmental as well as economic and social benefits of bioenergy cropping systems. Continuous support for cropping, infrastructure, agricultural management and related policies is needed to foster positive synergies between food crops and bioenergy production. In comparison to fossil fuels, biofuels have many positive environmental benefits. Potential negative effects caused by land-use change and agriculture intensification can be mitigated by agroecological zoning, best management practices, the use of eco-hydrology and biodiversity-friendly concepts at field, watershed and landscape scales. Global climate and environmental changes related to the use of fossil fuels and inequitable development make it unethical not to pursue more equitable energy development that includes bioenergy. Here, to achieve sustainable development, competitiveness and costs of bioenergy production need to be addressed in a manner that considers not only economic gains but also development of local knowledge and social and environmental benefits.« less

The role of bioenergy in a climate-changing world

DOE PAGES

Souza, Glaucia Mendes; Ballester, Maria Victoria R.; de Brito Cruz, Carlos Henrique; ...

2017-02-24

Bioenergy has been under intense scrutiny over the last ten years with significant research efforts in many countries taking place to define and measure sustainable practices. We describe here the main challenges and policy issues and provide policy recommendations for scaling up sustainable bioenergy approaches globally. The 2016 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs defined under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) will not reach global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission targets of 2 °C. Sustainable biomass production can make a significant contribution. Substantive evidence exists that many bioenergy cropping systems can bring multiple benefitsmore » and off-set environmental problems associated with fossil fuels usage as well as intensive food production and urbanization. We provide evidence that there are many approaches to land use for bioenergy expansion that do not lead to competition for food or other needs. We should focus on how to manage these approaches on a synergistic basis and how to reduce tradeoffs at landscape scales. Priorities include successful synergies between bioenergy and food security (integrated resource management designed to improve both food security and access to bioenergy), investments in technology, rural extension, and innovations that build capacity and infrastructure, promotion of stable prices to incentivize local production and use of double cropping and flex crops (plants grown for both food and non-food markets) that provide food and energy as well as other services. The sustainable production of biomass requires appropriate policies to secure long-term support to improve crop productivity and also to ensure environmental as well as economic and social benefits of bioenergy cropping systems. Continuous support for cropping, infrastructure, agricultural management and related policies is needed to foster positive synergies between food crops and bioenergy production. In comparison to fossil fuels, biofuels have many positive environmental benefits. Potential negative effects caused by land-use change and agriculture intensification can be mitigated by agroecological zoning, best management practices, the use of eco-hydrology and biodiversity-friendly concepts at field, watershed and landscape scales. Global climate and environmental changes related to the use of fossil fuels and inequitable development make it unethical not to pursue more equitable energy development that includes bioenergy. Here, to achieve sustainable development, competitiveness and costs of bioenergy production need to be addressed in a manner that considers not only economic gains but also development of local knowledge and social and environmental benefits.« less

Precipitation partitioning in short rotation bioenergy crops: implications for downstream water availability.

Treesearch

Peter Caldwell; Chelcy F. Miniat; Doug Aubrey; Rhett Jackson; Jeff McDonnell; Ken W. Krauss; James S. Latimer

2016-01-01

The southern United States is a potential leader in producing biofuels from intensively managed, short rotation (8–12 years) woody crops such as southern pines, and native and non-native hardwoods. However, their accelerated development under intensive management has raised concerns that fast-growing bioenergy crops could reduce recharge to stream flows and groundwater...

DOE-INES New Planet Bioenergy Technical Report Final Public Version 7-22-16

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Niederschulte, Mark; Russell, Kelly; Connors, Keith

INEOS Bio and New Planet Energy Florida formed a joint venture company called INEOS New Planet BioEnergy (“INPB”) in 2009. This venture’s intent was to demonstrate at commercial scale INEOS Bio’s third-generation technology (the “Bio Process”) that converts a variety of lignocellulosic feedstocks into bioethanol and renewable electricity. INPB applied for and was awarded a $50,000,000 Department of Energy (“DOE”) grant in 2009 to support the construction of the commercial demonstration plant. The grant was a cost-sharing arrangement requiring at least 50% equity participation by the grantee. INPB completed construction of the Indian River BioEnergy Center in Vero Beach, Floridamore » in June, 2012. The facility is designed to produce 8 million gallons per year of fuel-grade bioethanol and 6MW of electrical power, with upwards of 2MW exported to the electrical grid. Construction of the Indian River BioEnergy Center was completed on-time and within its capital budget of $121 million.« less

Investment risk in bioenergy crops

DOE PAGES

Skevas, Theodoros; Swinton, Scott M.; Tanner, Sophia; ...

2015-11-18

Here, perennial, cellulosic bioenergy crops represent a risky investment. The potential for adoption of these crops depends not only on mean net returns, but also on the associated probability distributions and on the risk preferences of farmers. Using 6-year observed crop yield data from highly productive and marginally productive sites in the southern Great Lakes region and assuming risk neutrality, we calculate expected breakeven biomass yields and prices compared to corn ( Zea mays L.) as a benchmark. Next we develop Monte Carlo budget simulations based on stochastic crop prices and yields. The crop yield simulations decompose yield risk intomore » three components: crop establishment survival, time to maturity, and mature yield variability. Results reveal that corn with harvest of grain and 38% of stover (as cellulosic bioenergy feedstock) is both the most profitable and the least risky investment option. It dominates all perennial systems considered across a wide range of farmer risk preferences. Although not currently attractive for profit-oriented farmers who are risk neutral or risk averse, perennial bioenergy crops.« less

Investment risk in bioenergy crops

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Skevas, Theodoros; Swinton, Scott M.; Tanner, Sophia

Here, perennial, cellulosic bioenergy crops represent a risky investment. The potential for adoption of these crops depends not only on mean net returns, but also on the associated probability distributions and on the risk preferences of farmers. Using 6-year observed crop yield data from highly productive and marginally productive sites in the southern Great Lakes region and assuming risk neutrality, we calculate expected breakeven biomass yields and prices compared to corn ( Zea mays L.) as a benchmark. Next we develop Monte Carlo budget simulations based on stochastic crop prices and yields. The crop yield simulations decompose yield risk intomore » three components: crop establishment survival, time to maturity, and mature yield variability. Results reveal that corn with harvest of grain and 38% of stover (as cellulosic bioenergy feedstock) is both the most profitable and the least risky investment option. It dominates all perennial systems considered across a wide range of farmer risk preferences. Although not currently attractive for profit-oriented farmers who are risk neutral or risk averse, perennial bioenergy crops.« less

75 FR 11836 - Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-03-12

... (NOCP); additional payment for advanced biofuel produced from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009. SUMMARY: RBS is announcing additional payments to advanced biofuel producers determined eligible in Fiscal... biofuel produced in FY 2009, the request must include: Form RD 9005-3, ``Advanced Biofuel Program Payment...

7 CFR 1435.604 - Eligible sugar buyer.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Eligible sugar buyer. 1435.604 Section 1435.604... OF AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS SUGAR PROGRAM Feedstock Flexibility Program § 1435.604 Eligible sugar buyer. (a) To be considered an eligible sugar buyer, the bioenergy producer...

Climate regulation, energy provisioning and water purification: Quantifying ecosystem service delivery of bioenergy willow grown on riparian buffer zones using life cycle assessment.

PubMed

Styles, David; Börjesson, Pål; D'Hertefeldt, Tina; Birkhofer, Klaus; Dauber, Jens; Adams, Paul; Patil, Sopan; Pagella, Tim; Pettersson, Lars B; Peck, Philip; Vaneeckhaute, Céline; Rosenqvist, Håkan

2016-12-01

Whilst life cycle assessment (LCA) boundaries are expanded to account for negative indirect consequences of bioenergy such as indirect land use change (ILUC), ecosystem services such as water purification sometimes delivered by perennial bioenergy crops are typically neglected in LCA studies. Consequential LCA was applied to evaluate the significance of nutrient interception and retention on the environmental balance of unfertilised energy willow planted on 50-m riparian buffer strips and drainage filtration zones in the Skåne region of Sweden. Excluding possible ILUC effects and considering oil heat substitution, strategically planted filter willow can achieve net global warming potential (GWP) and eutrophication potential (EP) savings of up to 11.9 Mg CO 2 e and 47 kg PO 4 e ha -1 year -1 , respectively, compared with a GWP saving of 14.8 Mg CO 2 e ha -1 year -1 and an EP increase of 7 kg PO 4 e ha -1 year -1 for fertilised willow. Planting willow on appropriate buffer and filter zones throughout Skåne could avoid 626 Mg year -1 PO 4 e nutrient loading to waters.

Bioenergy Sustainability in China: Potential and Impacts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhuang, Jie; Gentry, Randall W.; Yu, Gui-Rui; Sayler, Gary S.; Bickham, John W.

2010-10-01

The sustainability implications of bioenergy development strategies are large and complex. Unlike conventional agriculture, bioenergy production provides an opportunity to design systems for improving eco-environmental services. Different places have different goals and solutions for bioenergy development, but they all should adhere to the sustainability requirements of the environment, economy, and society. This article serves as a brief overview of China’s bioenergy development and as an introduction to this special issue on the impacts of bioenergy development in China. The eleven articles in this special issue present a range of perspectives and scenario analyses on bioenergy production and its impacts as well as potential barriers to its development. Five general themes are covered: status and goals, biomass resources, energy plants, environmental impacts, and economic and social impacts. The potential for bioenergy production in China is huge, particularly in the central north and northwest. China plans to develop a bioenergy capacity of 30GW by 2020. However, realization of this goal will require breakthroughs in bioenergy landscape design, energy plant biotechnology, legislation, incentive policy, and conversion facilities. Our analyses suggest that (1) the linkage between bioenergy, environment, and economy are often circular rather than linear in nature; (2) sustainability is a core concept in bioenergy design and the ultimate goal of bioenergy development; and (3) each bioenergy development scheme must be region-specific and designed to solve local environmental and agricultural problems.

Bioenergy grass feedstock: current options and prospects for trait improvement using emerging genetic, genomic, and systems biology toolkits

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

For lignocellulosic bioenergy to become a viable alternative to traditional energy production methods, rapid increases in conversion efficiency and biomass yield must be achieved. Increased productivity in bioenergy production can be achieved through concomitant gains in processing efficiency as well as genetic improvement of feedstock that have the potential for bioenergy production at an industrial scale. The purpose of this review is to explore the genetic and genomic resource landscape for the improvement of a specific bioenergy feedstock group, the C4 bioenergy grasses. First, bioenergy grass feedstock traits relevant to biochemical conversion are examined. Then we outline genetic resources available bioenergy grasses for mapping bioenergy traits to DNA markers and genes. This is followed by a discussion of genomic tools and how they can be applied to understanding bioenergy grass feedstock trait genetic mechanisms leading to further improvement opportunities. PMID:23122416

Bioenergy grass feedstock: current options and prospects for trait improvement using emerging genetic, genomic, and systems biology toolkits.

PubMed

Feltus, Frank Alex; Vandenbrink, Joshua P

2012-11-02

For lignocellulosic bioenergy to become a viable alternative to traditional energy production methods, rapid increases in conversion efficiency and biomass yield must be achieved. Increased productivity in bioenergy production can be achieved through concomitant gains in processing efficiency as well as genetic improvement of feedstock that have the potential for bioenergy production at an industrial scale. The purpose of this review is to explore the genetic and genomic resource landscape for the improvement of a specific bioenergy feedstock group, the C4 bioenergy grasses. First, bioenergy grass feedstock traits relevant to biochemical conversion are examined. Then we outline genetic resources available bioenergy grasses for mapping bioenergy traits to DNA markers and genes. This is followed by a discussion of genomic tools and how they can be applied to understanding bioenergy grass feedstock trait genetic mechanisms leading to further improvement opportunities.

Biomass and biofuels in China: Toward bioenergy resource potentials and their impacts on the environment

DOE PAGES

Qin, Zhangcai; Zhuang, Qianlai; Cai, Ximing; ...

2017-08-31

We present that bioenergy can be a promising solution to the energy, food and environment trilemma in China. Currently this coal-dependent nation is in urgent need of alternative fuels to secure its future energy and improve the environment. Biofuels derived from crop residues and bioenergy crops emerge as a great addition to renewable energy in China without compromising food production. This paper reviews bioenergy resources from existing conventional crop (e.g., corn, wheat and rice) residues and energy crops (e.g., Miscanthus) produced on marginal lands. The impacts of biofuel production on ecosystem services are also discussed in the context of biofuel'smore » life cycle. It is estimated that about 280 million metric tons (Mt) of crop residue-based biomass (or 65 Mt of ethanol) and over 150 Mt of energy crop-based ethanol can become available each year, which far exceeds current national fuel ethanol production (<2 Mt year -1) and the 2020 national target of 10 Mt year -1. Review on environmental impacts suggested that substituting fossil fuels with biofuels could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution (e.g., particulate matter). However, the impacts of biofuel production on biodiversity, water quantity and quality vary greatly among biomass types, land sources and management practices. Improved agricultural management and landscape planning can be beneficial to ecosystem services. Lastly, a national investigation is desirable in China to inventory technical and economic potential of biomass feedstocks and evaluate the impacts of biofuel production on ecosystem services and the environment.« less

Biomass and biofuels in China: Toward bioenergy resource potentials and their impacts on the environment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Qin, Zhangcai; Zhuang, Qianlai; Cai, Ximing

We present that bioenergy can be a promising solution to the energy, food and environment trilemma in China. Currently this coal-dependent nation is in urgent need of alternative fuels to secure its future energy and improve the environment. Biofuels derived from crop residues and bioenergy crops emerge as a great addition to renewable energy in China without compromising food production. This paper reviews bioenergy resources from existing conventional crop (e.g., corn, wheat and rice) residues and energy crops (e.g., Miscanthus) produced on marginal lands. The impacts of biofuel production on ecosystem services are also discussed in the context of biofuel'smore » life cycle. It is estimated that about 280 million metric tons (Mt) of crop residue-based biomass (or 65 Mt of ethanol) and over 150 Mt of energy crop-based ethanol can become available each year, which far exceeds current national fuel ethanol production (<2 Mt year -1) and the 2020 national target of 10 Mt year -1. Review on environmental impacts suggested that substituting fossil fuels with biofuels could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution (e.g., particulate matter). However, the impacts of biofuel production on biodiversity, water quantity and quality vary greatly among biomass types, land sources and management practices. Improved agricultural management and landscape planning can be beneficial to ecosystem services. Lastly, a national investigation is desirable in China to inventory technical and economic potential of biomass feedstocks and evaluate the impacts of biofuel production on ecosystem services and the environment.« less

Extension Professionals' Perspectives on Supporting Feedstock Production for Biofuels: Concerns, Challenges, and Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Townsend, Patricia A.; Haider, Nora M.; Asah, Stanley T.; Zobrist, Kevin W.

2016-01-01

The development of successful bioenergy programs will depend on informed and prepared Extension professionals who are willing and equipped to provide technical support. A survey of Extension professionals in the Pacific Northwest revealed barriers to program development, including limits on time and knowledge and concerns about economic returns…

ACMECS Bioenergy Network: Implementing a transnational science-based policy network on bioenergy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bruckman, Viktor J.; Haruthaithanasan, Maliwan; Kraxner, Florian; Brenner, Anna

2017-04-01

Despite the currently low prices for fossil energy resulting from a number of geopolitical reasons, intergovernmental efforts are being made towards a transition to a sustainable bio-economy. The main reasons for this include climate change mitigation, decreasing dependencies fossil fuel imports and hence external market fluctuations, diversification of energy generation and feedstock production for industrial processes. Since 2012, the ACMECS bioenergy network initiative leads negotiations and organizes workshops to set up a regional bioenergy network in Indochina, with the aim to promote biomass and -energy markets, technology transfer, rural development and income generation. Policy development is guided by the International Union of Forest Research Institutions (IUFRO) Task Force "Sustainable Forest Bioenergy Network". In this paper, we highlight the achievements so far and present results of a multi-stakeholder questionnaire in combination with a quantitative analysis of the National Bioenergy Development Plans (NBDP's). We found that traditional fuelwood is still the most important resource for generating thermal energy in the region, especially in rural settings, and it will remain an important resource even in 25 years. However, less fuelwood will be sourced from natural forests as compared to today. NBDP's have a focus on market development, technology transfer and funding possibilities of a regional bioenergy strategy, while the responses of the questionnaire favored more altruistic goals, i.e. sustainable resource management, environmental protection and climate change mitigation, generation of rural income and community involvement etc. This is surprising, since a sub-population of the (anonymous) questionnaire respondents was actually responsible drafting the NBDP's. We therefore suggest the following measures to ensure regulations that represent the original aims of the network (climate change mitigation, poverty alleviation, sustainable resource use, diversification of energy generation): i) More communication between policy makers and the other stakeholders, ii) Invitation of stakeholders representing rural communities to participate in this process, iii) development of sustainability criteria, vi) feedback cycles ensuring more intensive discussion of policy drafts, v) association of an international board of experts to provide scientifically sound feedback and input and vi) establishment of a local demonstration region, containing various steps in the biomass/bioenergy supply chain including transboundary collaboration in the ACMECS region.

Logistics system design for biomass-to-bioenergy industry with multiple types of feedstocks.

PubMed

Zhu, Xiaoyan; Yao, Qingzhu

2011-12-01

It is technologically possible for a biorefinery to use a variety of biomass as feedstock including native perennial grasses (e.g., switchgrass) and agricultural residues (e.g., corn stalk and wheat straw). Incorporating the distinct characteristics of various types of biomass feedstocks and taking into account their interaction in supplying the bioenergy production, this paper proposed a multi-commodity network flow model to design the logistics system for a multiple-feedstock biomass-to-bioenergy industry. The model was formulated as a mixed integer linear programming, determining the locations of warehouses, the size of harvesting team, the types and amounts of biomass harvested/purchased, stored, and processed in each month, the transportation of biomass in the system, and so on. This paper demonstrated the advantages of using multiple types of biomass feedstocks by comparing with the case of using a single feedstock (switchgrass) and analyzed the relationship of the supply capacity of biomass feedstocks to the output and cost of biofuel. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biological nitrogen fixation and biomass accumulation within poplar clones as a result of inoculations with diazotrophic endophyte consortia.

PubMed

Knoth, Jenny L; Kim, Soo-Hyung; Ettl, Gregory J; Doty, Sharon L

2014-01-01

Sustainable production of biomass for bioenergy relies on low-input crop production. Inoculation of bioenergy crops with plant growth-promoting endophytes has the potential to reduce fertilizer inputs through the enhancement of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF). Endophytes isolated from native poplar growing in nutrient-poor conditions were selected for a series of glasshouse and field trials designed to test the overall hypothesis that naturally occurring diazotrophic endophytes impart growth promotion of the host plants. Endophyte inoculations contributed to increased biomass over uninoculated control plants. This growth promotion was more pronounced with multi-strain consortia than with single-strain inocula. Biological nitrogen fixation was estimated through (15)N isotope dilution to be 65% nitrogen derived from air (Ndfa). Phenotypic plasticity in biomass allocation and branch production observed as a result of endophyte inoculations may be useful in bioenergy crop breeding and engineering programs. © 2013 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2013 New Phytologist Trust.

Bringing Advanced Computational Techniques to Energy Research

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mitchell, Julie C

2012-11-17

Please find attached our final technical report for the BACTER Institute award. BACTER was created as a graduate and postdoctoral training program for the advancement of computational biology applied to questions of relevance to bioenergy research.

A perspective on renewable bioenergy from photosynthetic algae as feedstock for biofuels and bioproducts

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Laurens, Lieve M. L.; Chen-Glasser, Melodie; McMillan, James D.

There has been substantial technical progress in developing algae-based bioenergy in recent years and a large part of industry and academic research and deployment projects have pivoted away from a pure biofuels strategy. This letter summarizes the findings of a recently completed, comprehensive report, that represents a collaborative effort of at least 20 co-authors, where we analyzed the prospects for using microalgae and macroalgae as feedstocks for biofuels and bioenergy production. The scope of this report includes a discussion of international activities advancing bioenergy and non-energy bioproducts from algae, progress on the use of macroalgae (both cast and cultivated seaweeds)more » for biogas applications, distinct biochemical and thermochemical conversion pathways, multi-product biorefining opportunities, as well as a thorough review of process economics and sustainability considerations. It is envisioned that a higher value algal biomass-based bioproducts industry will provide the additional revenue needed to reduce the net cost of producing algae-based biofuels. As such, a biorefinery approach that generates multiple high-value products from algae will be essential to fully valorize algal biomass and enable economically viable coproduction of bioenergy. Furthermore, to accelerate the implementation of algae-based production, minimizing energy, water, nutrients and land use footprints of integrated algae-based operations needs to be a primary objective of larger scale demonstrations and future research and development.« less

A perspective on renewable bioenergy from photosynthetic algae as feedstock for biofuels and bioproducts

DOE PAGES

Laurens, Lieve M. L.; Chen-Glasser, Melodie; McMillan, James D.

2017-04-15

There has been substantial technical progress in developing algae-based bioenergy in recent years and a large part of industry and academic research and deployment projects have pivoted away from a pure biofuels strategy. This letter summarizes the findings of a recently completed, comprehensive report, that represents a collaborative effort of at least 20 co-authors, where we analyzed the prospects for using microalgae and macroalgae as feedstocks for biofuels and bioenergy production. The scope of this report includes a discussion of international activities advancing bioenergy and non-energy bioproducts from algae, progress on the use of macroalgae (both cast and cultivated seaweeds)more » for biogas applications, distinct biochemical and thermochemical conversion pathways, multi-product biorefining opportunities, as well as a thorough review of process economics and sustainability considerations. It is envisioned that a higher value algal biomass-based bioproducts industry will provide the additional revenue needed to reduce the net cost of producing algae-based biofuels. As such, a biorefinery approach that generates multiple high-value products from algae will be essential to fully valorize algal biomass and enable economically viable coproduction of bioenergy. Furthermore, to accelerate the implementation of algae-based production, minimizing energy, water, nutrients and land use footprints of integrated algae-based operations needs to be a primary objective of larger scale demonstrations and future research and development.« less

2015 Bioenergy Market Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Warner, Ethan; Moriarty, Kristi; Lewis, John

This report is an update to the 2013 report and provides a status of the markets and technology development involved in growing a domestic bioenergy economy as it existed at the end of 2015. It compiles and integrates information to provide a snapshot of the current state and historical trends influencing the development of bioenergy markets. This version features details on the two major bioenergy markets: biofuels and biopower and an overview of bioproducts that enable bioenergy production. The information is intended for policy-makers as well as technology developers and investors tracking bioenergy developments. It also highlights some of themore » key energy and regulatory drivers of bioenergy markets.« less

Coupling aquaculture with forest plantations for food, energy, and water resiliency.

PubMed

Shifflett, Shawn Dayson; Culbreth, Allison; Hazel, Dennis; Daniels, Harry; Nichols, Elizabeth Guthrie

2016-11-15

Freshwater aquaculture and forest bioenergy markets are expanding globally in areas concurrently experiencing human population growth, urbanization and water shortages. Coupling these agroecosystems can improve food, energy, and water resiliency by enhancing ecosystem services through fertilization, water-reuse, carbon storage, and bioenergy via biomass production. This study evaluated how a model aquaculture-managed forest plantation could (1) provision fish and woody biomass; (2) regulate carbon, groundwater infiltration, and groundwater quality; and (3) support nutrient cycling over a two-year period. A 0.5-hectare hardwood bioenergy plantation was established with 12 Populus spp. genotypes adjacent to a 0.6-hectare freshwater aquaculture operation (hybrid striped bass, Morone chrysops×M. saxatilis); pond waters were land-applied on the plantation for two years. The aquaculture operation produced ~3.5Mg of fish and trees yielded 5.9Mgha(-1)yr(-1) of oven-dry biomass, sequestered 2.9Mg carbon (C) ha(-1)yr(-1) and stored 0.028Mg nitrogen (N) ha(-1)yr(-1). Biomass productivity, carbon storage, and nitrogen storage differed significantly among the evaluated Populus genotypes. Land application of pond water increased groundwater infiltration by 60% relative to the previous year. The integrated system regulated chlorophyll a, total organic carbon, and nitrogen in groundwater at concentrations below regulatory limits. This study demonstrated that coupled agroecosystems could deliver productive yields of food and bioenergy as well as support water re-use while meeting water quality regulations. More research is needed to evaluated long-term sustainability and economic viability of this coupled system and other land management practices that seek to improve food, energy, and water resiliency. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Alternative scenarios of bioenergy crop production in an agricultural landscape and implications for bird communities.

PubMed

Blank, Peter J; Williams, Carol L; Sample, David W; Meehan, Timothy D; Turner, Monica G

2016-01-01

Increased demand and government mandates for bioenergy crops in the United States could require a large allocation of agricultural land to bioenergy feedstock production and substantially alter current landscape patterns. Incorporating bioenergy landscape design into land-use decision making could help maximize benefits and minimize trade-offs among alternative land uses. We developed spatially explicit landscape scenarios of increased bioenergy crop production in an 80-km radius agricultural landscape centered on a potential biomass-processing energy facility and evaluated the consequences of each scenario for bird communities. Our scenarios included conversion of existing annual row crops to perennial bioenergy grasslands and conversion of existing grasslands to annual bioenergy row crops. The scenarios explored combinations of four biomass crop types (three potential grassland crops along a gradient of plant diversity and one annual row crop [corn]), three land conversion percentages to bioenergy crops (10%, 20%, or 30% of row crops or grasslands), and three spatial configurations of biomass crop fields (random, clustered near similar field types, or centered on the processing plant), yielding 36 scenarios. For each scenario, we predicted the impact on four bird community metrics: species richness, total bird density, species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) density, and SGCN hotspots (SGCN birds/ha ≥ 2). Bird community metrics consistently increased with conversion of row crops to bioenergy grasslands and consistently decreased with conversion of grasslands to bioenergy row crops. Spatial arrangement of bioenergy fields had strong effects on the bird community and in some cases was more influential than the amount converted to bioenergy crops. Clustering grasslands had a stronger positive influence on the bird community than locating grasslands near the central plant or at random. Expansion of bioenergy grasslands onto marginal agricultural lands will likely benefit grassland bird populations, and bioenergy landscapes could be designed to maximize biodiversity benefits while meeting targets for biomass production.

Changing patterns of health in communities impacted by a bioenergy project in northern Sierra Leone.

PubMed

Knoblauch, Astrid M; Hodges, Mary H; Bah, Mohamed S; Kamara, Habib I; Kargbo, Anita; Paye, Jusufu; Turay, Hamid; Nyorkor, Emmanuel D; Divall, Mark J; Zhang, Yaobi; Utzinger, Jürg; Winkler, Mirko S

2014-12-01

Large private sector investments in low- and middle-income countries are often critically evaluated with regards to their environmental, social, human rights, and health impacts. A health impact assessment, including a baseline health survey, was commissioned by the Addax Bioenergy Sierra Leone project in 2010. As part of the monitoring, a follow-up survey was conducted three years later. A set of health indicators was assessed at six impacted and two control sites. Most of these indices improved, particularly at the impacted sites. The prevalences of stunting, wasting, and Plasmodium falciparum in children under five years of age decreased significantly at impacted sites (all p < 0.05) and non-significantly at control sites. Anemia in children and in women of reproductive age (15-49 years) decreased significantly at impacted and control sites (p < 0.05 and p < 0.001, respectively). Health facility-based deliveries increased significantly at the impacted sites (p < 0.05). The prevalences of helminth infections in children aged 10-15 years remained approximately at the same levels, although focal increases at the impacted sites were noted. Access to improved sanitation decreased significantly (p < 0.05) at control and non-significantly at impacted sites. Water quality remained poor without significant changes. The epidemiologic monitoring of a bioenergy project provides a useful contribution for evidence-based decision-making.

Changing Patterns of Health in Communities Impacted by a Bioenergy Project in Northern Sierra Leone

PubMed Central

Knoblauch, Astrid M.; Hodges, Mary H.; Bah, Mohamed S.; Kamara, Habib I.; Kargbo, Anita; Paye, Jusufu; Turay, Hamid; Nyorkor, Emmanuel D.; Divall, Mark J.; Zhang, Yaobi; Utzinger, Jürg; Winkler, Mirko S.

2014-01-01

Large private sector investments in low- and middle-income countries are often critically evaluated with regards to their environmental, social, human rights, and health impacts. A health impact assessment, including a baseline health survey, was commissioned by the Addax Bioenergy Sierra Leone project in 2010. As part of the monitoring, a follow-up survey was conducted three years later. A set of health indicators was assessed at six impacted and two control sites. Most of these indices improved, particularly at the impacted sites. The prevalences of stunting, wasting, and Plasmodium falciparum in children under five years of age decreased significantly at impacted sites (all p < 0.05) and non-significantly at control sites. Anemia in children and in women of reproductive age (15–49 years) decreased significantly at impacted and control sites (p < 0.05 and p < 0.001, respectively). Health facility-based deliveries increased significantly at the impacted sites (p < 0.05). The prevalences of helminth infections in children aged 10–15 years remained approximately at the same levels, although focal increases at the impacted sites were noted. Access to improved sanitation decreased significantly (p < 0.05) at control and non-significantly at impacted sites. Water quality remained poor without significant changes. The epidemiologic monitoring of a bioenergy project provides a useful contribution for evidence-based decision-making. PMID:25514152

Proceedings of the Bio-Energy '80 world congress and exposition

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

1980-01-01

Many countries are moving with increasing urgency to obtain larger fractions of their energy from biomass. Over 1800 leading experts from 70 countries met on April 21 to 24 in Atlanta to conduct a World Congress and Exposition on Bio-Energy. This summary presents highlights of the Congress and thoughts stimulated by the occasion. Topics addressed include a comparison of international programs, world and country regionalism in the development of energy supplies, fuel versus food or forest products, production of ethyl alcohol, possibilities for expanded production of terrestrial vegetation and marine flora, and valuable chemicals from biomass. Separate abstracts have beenmore » prepared for 164 papers for inclusion in the Energy Data Base.« less

Energy - Sandia National Laboratories

Science.gov Websites

; Components Compatibility Hydrogen Behavior Quantitative Risk Assessment Technical Reference for Hydrogen Combustion jbei Facilities Algae Testbed Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory Center for Infrastructure Research and Innovation Combustion Research Facility Joint BioEnergy Institute Close Energy Research Programs

Earth Science - Sandia Energy

Science.gov Websites

; Components Compatibility Hydrogen Behavior Quantitative Risk Assessment Technical Reference for Hydrogen Combustion jbei Facilities Algae Testbed Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory Center for Infrastructure Research and Innovation Combustion Research Facility Joint BioEnergy Institute Close Energy Research Programs

Stationary Power - Sandia Energy

Science.gov Websites

; Components Compatibility Hydrogen Behavior Quantitative Risk Assessment Technical Reference for Hydrogen Combustion jbei Facilities Algae Testbed Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory Center for Infrastructure Research and Innovation Combustion Research Facility Joint BioEnergy Institute Close Energy Research Programs

Transportation Energy - Sandia Energy

Science.gov Websites

; Components Compatibility Hydrogen Behavior Quantitative Risk Assessment Technical Reference for Hydrogen Combustion jbei Facilities Algae Testbed Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory Center for Infrastructure Research and Innovation Combustion Research Facility Joint BioEnergy Institute Close Energy Research Programs

Grid Modernization - Sandia Energy

Science.gov Websites

; Components Compatibility Hydrogen Behavior Quantitative Risk Assessment Technical Reference for Hydrogen Combustion jbei Facilities Algae Testbed Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory Center for Infrastructure Research and Innovation Combustion Research Facility Joint BioEnergy Institute Close Energy Research Programs

7 CFR 1424.2 - Administration.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Administration. 1424.2 Section 1424.2 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS BIOENERGY PROGRAM § 1424.2 Administration. This part shall...

7 CFR 1424.2 - Administration.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Administration. 1424.2 Section 1424.2 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS BIOENERGY PROGRAM § 1424.2 Administration. This part shall...

7 CFR 1424.2 - Administration.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Administration. 1424.2 Section 1424.2 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS BIOENERGY PROGRAM § 1424.2 Administration. This part shall...

7 CFR 1424.2 - Administration.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Administration. 1424.2 Section 1424.2 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS BIOENERGY PROGRAM § 1424.2 Administration. This part shall...

Genomics to feed a switchgrass breeding program

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Development of improved cultivars is one of three pillars, along with sustainable production and efficient conversion, required for dedicated cellulosic bioenergy crops to succeed. Breeding new cultivars is a long, slow process requiring patience, dedication, and motivation to realize gains and adva...

BioEnergy Science Center

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

The BioEnergy Science Center, led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been making advances in biofuels for over a decade. These achievements in plant genomics, microbial engineering, biochemistry, and plant physiology will carry over into the Center for Bioenergy Innovation, a new Department of Energy bioenergy research center.

A life-cycle approach to low-invasion potential bioenergy production

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Increasing demand for energy has increased economic incentives to develop and deploy novel bioenergy crops for biomass production. Similarities in plant traits between many candidate bioenergy crops and known invasive species have raised concerns about the potential for bioenergy crops to escape pro...

Designing bioenergy crop buffers to mitigate nitrous oxide emissions and water quality impacts from agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gopalakrishnan, G.; Negri, C. M.

2010-12-01

There is a strong societal need to evaluate and understand the environmental aspects of bioenergy production, especially due to the significant increases in production mandated by many countries, including the United States. Bioenergy is a land-based renewable resource and increases in production are likely to result in large-scale conversion of land from current uses to bioenergy crop production; potentially causing increases in the prices of food, land and agricultural commodities as well as disruption of ecosystems. Current research on the environmental sustainability of bioenergy has largely focused on the potential of bioenergy crops to sequester carbon and mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and possible impacts on water quality and quantity. A key assumption in these studies is that bioenergy crops will be grown in a manner similar to current agricultural crops such as corn and hence would affect the environment similarly. This study presents a systems approach where the agricultural, energy and environmental sectors are considered as components of a single system, and bioenergy crops are used to design multi-functional agricultural landscapes that meet society’s requirements for food, energy and environmental protection. We evaluate the production of bioenergy crop buffers on marginal land and using degraded water and discuss the potential for growing cellulosic bioenergy crops such as miscanthus and switchgrass in optimized systems such that (1) marginal land is brought into productive use; (2) impaired water is used to boost yields (3); clean freshwater is left for other uses that require higher water quality; and (4) feedstock diversification is achieved that helps ecological sustainability, biodiversity, and economic opportunities for farmers. The process-based biogeochemical model DNDC was used to simulate crop yield, nitrous oxide production and nitrate concentrations in groundwater when bioenergy crops were grown in buffer strips adjacent to corn fields. The bioenergy crops used in this study were miscanthus, switchgrass and native prairie grasses. Results indicated that growing bioenergy crops in buffer strips mitigated nutrient runoff and reduced nitrate concentrations in groundwater to below EPA’s mandated drinking water limit (10 mg/l). Additionally, nitrous oxide emissions in these systems were reduced by 50-90% when compared to corn fields without the bioenergy buffer strips. While all the bioenergy crop buffers had significant positive environmental benefits, switchgrass performed the best with respect to minimizing nutrient runoff and nitrous oxide emissions. The findings of this research have important implications with respect to land management for agriculture and bioenergy.

Energy Fact Sheets - Sandia Energy

Science.gov Websites

; Components Compatibility Hydrogen Behavior Quantitative Risk Assessment Technical Reference for Hydrogen Combustion jbei Facilities Algae Testbed Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory Center for Infrastructure Research and Innovation Combustion Research Facility Joint BioEnergy Institute Close Energy Research Programs

Drought effects on composition and yield for corn stover, mixed grasses, and Miscanthus as bioenergy feedstocks

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rachel Emerson; Amber Hoover; Allison Ray

2014-11-01

Drought conditions in 2012 were some of the most severe reported in the United States. It is necessary to explore the effects of drought on the quality attributes of current and potential bioenergy feedstocks. Compositional analysis data for corn stover, Miscanthus, and CRP grasses from one or more locations for years 2010 (normal precipitation levels) and 2012 (a known severe drought year nationally) was collected. Results & discussion: The general trend for samples that experienced drought was an increase in extractives and a decrease in structural sugars and lignin. The TEY yields were calculated to determine the drought effects onmore » ethanol production. All three feedstocks had a decrease of 12-14% in TEY when only decreases of carbohydrate content was analyzed. When looking at the compounded effect of both carbohydrate content and the decreases in dry matter loss for each feedstock there was a TEY decrease of 25%-59%. Conclusion: Drought had a significant impact on the quality of all three bioenergy crops. In all cases where drought was experienced both the quality of the feedstock and the yield decreased. These drought induced effects could have significant economic impacts on biorefineries.« less

Impacts of Past Land Use Changes on Water Resources: An Analog for Assessing Effects of Proposed Bioenergy Crops

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scanlon, B. R.; Schilling, K.; Young, M.; Duncan, I. J.; Gerbens-Leenes, P.

2011-12-01

Interest is increasing in renewable energy sources, including bioenergy. However, potential impacts of bioenergy crops on water resources need to be better understood before large scale expansion occurs. This study evaluates the potential for using past land use change impacts on water resources as an analog for assessing future bioenergy crop effects. Impacts were assessed for two cases and methods: (1) changes from perennial to annual crops in the Midwest U.S. using stream hydrograph separation; and (2) changes from perennial grasses and shrubs to annual crops in the Southwest U.S. using unsaturated zone and groundwater data. Results from the Midwest show that expanding the soybean production area by 80,000 km2 increased stream flow by 32%, based on data from Keokuk station in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. Using these relationships, further expansion of annual corn production for biofuels by 10 - 50% would increase streamflow by up to 40%, with related increases in nitrate, phosphate, and sediment pollutant transport to the Gulf of Mexico. The changes in water partitioning are attributed to reducing evapotranspiration, increasing recharge and baseflow discharge to streams. Similar results were found in the southwestern US, where changes from native perennial grasses and shrubs to annual crops increased recharge from ~0.0 to 24 mm/yr, raising water tables by up to 7 m in some regions and flushing accumulated salts into underlying aquifers in the southern High Plains. The changes in water partitioning are related to changes in rooting depth from deep rooted native vegetation to shallow rooted crops and growing season length. Further expansion of annual bioenergy crops, such as changes from Conservation Reserve Program to corn in the Midwest, will continue the trajectory of reducing ET, thereby increasing recharge and baseflow to streams and nutrient export. We hypothesize that changing bioenergy crops from annual crops to perennial grasses, such as switchgrass and Miscanthus, will reverse these changes in water partitioning, increasing ET, and decreasing recharge, baseflow and nutrient transport to streams. These changes occur primarily because of the deeper roots and longer growing season of the grasses, capturing water percolating downward. These projected changes in water resources are supported by high water footprints for perennial grasses relative to annual crops globally. While reducing pollution from nutrient loading is an obvious benefit, reducing recharge may have negative ramifications for groundwater and surface water resources. Our research shows that there are water quantity and quality consequences of cultivating various bioenergy crops that should be considered before large scale expansion occurs. Data from past land use changes provide valuable information that can be used as a guide to evaluate potential impacts of future land use changes related to bioenergy crops.

Sustainable Biofuels Development Center

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Reardon, Kenneth F.

2015-03-01

The mission of the Sustainable Bioenergy Development Center (SBDC) is to enhance the capability of America’s bioenergy industry to produce transportation fuels and chemical feedstocks on a large scale, with significant energy yields, at competitive cost, through sustainable production techniques. Research within the SBDC is organized in five areas: (1) Development of Sustainable Crops and Agricultural Strategies, (2) Improvement of Biomass Processing Technologies, (3) Biofuel Characterization and Engine Adaptation, (4) Production of Byproducts for Sustainable Biorefining, and (5) Sustainability Assessment, including evaluation of the ecosystem/climate change implication of center research and evaluation of the policy implications of widespread production andmore » utilization of bioenergy. The overall goal of this project is to develop new sustainable bioenergy-related technologies. To achieve that goal, three specific activities were supported with DOE funds: bioenergy-related research initiation projects, bioenergy research and education via support of undergraduate and graduate students, and Research Support Activities (equipment purchases, travel to attend bioenergy conferences, and seminars). Numerous research findings in diverse fields related to bioenergy were produced from these activities and are summarized in this report.« less

Bioenergy and African transformation.

PubMed

Lynd, Lee R; Sow, Mariam; Chimphango, Annie Fa; Cortez, Luis Ab; Brito Cruz, Carlos H; Elmissiry, Mosad; Laser, Mark; Mayaki, Ibrahim A; Moraes, Marcia Afd; Nogueira, Luiz Ah; Wolfaardt, Gideon M; Woods, Jeremy; van Zyl, Willem H

2015-01-01

Among the world's continents, Africa has the highest incidence of food insecurity and poverty and the highest rates of population growth. Yet Africa also has the most arable land, the lowest crop yields, and by far the most plentiful land resources relative to energy demand. It is thus of interest to examine the potential of expanded modern bioenergy production in Africa. Here we consider bioenergy as an enabler for development, and provide an overview of modern bioenergy technologies with a comment on application in an Africa context. Experience with bioenergy in Africa offers evidence of social benefits and also some important lessons. In Brazil, social development, agricultural development and food security, and bioenergy development have been synergistic rather than antagonistic. Realizing similar success in African countries will require clear vision, good governance, and adaptation of technologies, knowledge, and business models to myriad local circumstances. Strategies for integrated production of food crops, livestock, and bioenergy are potentially attractive and offer an alternative to an agricultural model featuring specialized land use. If done thoughtfully, there is considerable evidence that food security and economic development in Africa can be addressed more effectively with modern bioenergy than without it. Modern bioenergy can be an agent of African transformation, with potential social benefits accruing to multiple sectors and extending well beyond energy supply per se. Potential negative impacts also cut across sectors. Thus, institutionally inclusive multi-sector legislative structures will be more effective at maximizing the social benefits of bioenergy compared to institutionally exclusive, single-sector structures.

Modeling Pollinator Community Response to Contrasting Bioenergy Scenarios

PubMed Central

Bennett, Ashley B.; Meehan, Timothy D.; Gratton, Claudio; Isaacs, Rufus

2014-01-01

In the United States, policy initiatives aimed at increasing sources of renewable energy are advancing bioenergy production, especially in the Midwest region, where agricultural landscapes dominate. While policy directives are focused on renewable fuel production, biodiversity and ecosystem services will be impacted by the land-use changes required to meet production targets. Using data from field observations, we developed empirical models for predicting abundance, diversity, and community composition of flower-visiting bees based on land cover. We used these models to explore how bees might respond under two contrasting bioenergy scenarios: annual bioenergy crop production and perennial grassland bioenergy production. In the two scenarios, 600,000 ha of marginal annual crop land or marginal grassland were converted to perennial grassland or annual row crop bioenergy production, respectively. Model projections indicate that expansion of annual bioenergy crop production at this scale will reduce bee abundance by 0 to 71%, and bee diversity by 0 to 28%, depending on location. In contrast, converting annual crops on marginal soil to perennial grasslands could increase bee abundance from 0 to 600% and increase bee diversity between 0 and 53%. Our analysis of bee community composition suggested a similar pattern, with bee communities becoming less diverse under annual bioenergy crop production, whereas bee composition transitioned towards a more diverse community dominated by wild bees under perennial bioenergy crop production. Models, like those employed here, suggest that bioenergy policies have important consequences for pollinator conservation. PMID:25365559

Consensus, uncertainties and challenges for perennial bioenergy crops and land use.

PubMed

Whitaker, Jeanette; Field, John L; Bernacchi, Carl J; Cerri, Carlos E P; Ceulemans, Reinhart; Davies, Christian A; DeLucia, Evan H; Donnison, Iain S; McCalmont, Jon P; Paustian, Keith; Rowe, Rebecca L; Smith, Pete; Thornley, Patricia; McNamara, Niall P

2018-03-01

Perennial bioenergy crops have significant potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and contribute to climate change mitigation by substituting for fossil fuels; yet delivering significant GHG savings will require substantial land-use change, globally. Over the last decade, research has delivered improved understanding of the environmental benefits and risks of this transition to perennial bioenergy crops, addressing concerns that the impacts of land conversion to perennial bioenergy crops could result in increased rather than decreased GHG emissions. For policymakers to assess the most cost-effective and sustainable options for deployment and climate change mitigation, synthesis of these studies is needed to support evidence-based decision making. In 2015, a workshop was convened with researchers, policymakers and industry/business representatives from the UK, EU and internationally. Outcomes from global research on bioenergy land-use change were compared to identify areas of consensus, key uncertainties, and research priorities. Here, we discuss the strength of evidence for and against six consensus statements summarising the effects of land-use change to perennial bioenergy crops on the cycling of carbon, nitrogen and water, in the context of the whole life-cycle of bioenergy production. Our analysis suggests that the direct impacts of dedicated perennial bioenergy crops on soil carbon and nitrous oxide are increasingly well understood and are often consistent with significant life cycle GHG mitigation from bioenergy relative to conventional energy sources. We conclude that the GHG balance of perennial bioenergy crop cultivation will often be favourable, with maximum GHG savings achieved where crops are grown on soils with low carbon stocks and conservative nutrient application, accruing additional environmental benefits such as improved water quality. The analysis reported here demonstrates there is a mature and increasingly comprehensive evidence base on the environmental benefits and risks of bioenergy cultivation which can support the development of a sustainable bioenergy industry.

How willing are landowners to supply land for bioenergy crops in the Northern Great Lakes Region?

DOE PAGES

Swinton, Scott M.; Tanner, Sophia; Barham, Bradford L.; ...

2016-04-30

Land to produce biomass is essential if the United States is to expand bioenergy supply. Use of agriculturally marginal land avoids the food vs. fuel problems of food price rises and carbon debt that are associated with crop and forestland. Recent remote sensing studies have identified large areas of US marginal land deemed suitable for bioenergy crops. Yet the sustainability benefits of growing bioenergy crops on marginal land only pertain if land is economically available. Scant attention has been paid to the willingness of landowners to supply land for bioenergy crops. Focusing on the northern tier of the Great Lakes,more » where grassland transitions to forest and land prices are low, this contingent valuation study reports on the willingness of a representative sample of 1124 private, noncorporate landowners to rent land for three bioenergy crops: corn, switchgrass, and poplar. Of the 11% of land that was agriculturally marginal, they were willing to make available no more than 21% for any bioenergy crop (switchgrass preferred on marginal land) at double the prevailing land rental rate in the region. At the same generous rental rate, of the 28% that is cropland, they would rent up to 23% for bioenergy crops (corn preferred), while of the 55% that is forestland, they would rent up to 15% for bioenergy crops (poplar preferred). Regression results identified deterrents to land rental for bioenergy purposes included appreciation of environmental amenities and concern about rental disamenities. In sum, like landowners in the southern Great Lakes region, landowners in the Northern Tier are reluctant to supply marginal land for bioenergy crops. If rental markets existed, they would rent more crop and forestland for bioenergy crops than they would marginal land, which would generate carbon debt and opportunity costs in wood product and food markets.« less

How willing are landowners to supply land for bioenergy crops in the Northern Great Lakes Region?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Swinton, Scott M.; Tanner, Sophia; Barham, Bradford L.

Land to produce biomass is essential if the United States is to expand bioenergy supply. Use of agriculturally marginal land avoids the food vs. fuel problems of food price rises and carbon debt that are associated with crop and forestland. Recent remote sensing studies have identified large areas of US marginal land deemed suitable for bioenergy crops. Yet the sustainability benefits of growing bioenergy crops on marginal land only pertain if land is economically available. Scant attention has been paid to the willingness of landowners to supply land for bioenergy crops. Focusing on the northern tier of the Great Lakes,more » where grassland transitions to forest and land prices are low, this contingent valuation study reports on the willingness of a representative sample of 1124 private, noncorporate landowners to rent land for three bioenergy crops: corn, switchgrass, and poplar. Of the 11% of land that was agriculturally marginal, they were willing to make available no more than 21% for any bioenergy crop (switchgrass preferred on marginal land) at double the prevailing land rental rate in the region. At the same generous rental rate, of the 28% that is cropland, they would rent up to 23% for bioenergy crops (corn preferred), while of the 55% that is forestland, they would rent up to 15% for bioenergy crops (poplar preferred). Regression results identified deterrents to land rental for bioenergy purposes included appreciation of environmental amenities and concern about rental disamenities. In sum, like landowners in the southern Great Lakes region, landowners in the Northern Tier are reluctant to supply marginal land for bioenergy crops. If rental markets existed, they would rent more crop and forestland for bioenergy crops than they would marginal land, which would generate carbon debt and opportunity costs in wood product and food markets.« less

Biofuels on the landscape: Is "land sharing" preferable to "land sparing"?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

DeLucia, E. H.; Anderson-Teixeira, K. J.; Duval, B. D.; Long, S. P.

2012-12-01

Widespread land use changes—and ensuing effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services—are expected as a result of expanding bioenergy production. Although almost all US production of ethanol today is from corn, it is envisaged that future ethanol production will also draw from cellulosic sources such as perennial grasses. In selecting optimal bioenergy crops, there is debate as to whether it is preferable from an environmental standpoint to cultivate bioenergy crops with high ecosystem services (a "land sharing" strategy) or to grow crops with lower ecosystem services but higher yield, thereby requiring less land to meet bioenergy demand (a "land sparing" strategy). Here, we develop a simple model to address this question. Assuming that bioenergy crops are competing with uncultivated land, our model calculates land requirements to meet a given bioenergy demand intensity based upon the yields of bioenergy crops and combines fractional land cover of each ecosystem type with its associated ecosystem services to determine whether land sharing or land sparing strategies maximize ecosystem services at the landscape level. We apply this model to a case in which climate protection through GHG regulation—an ecosystem's greenhouse gas value (GHGV)—is the ecosystem service of interest. We consider five bioenergy crops competing for land area with five unfarmed ecosystem types in the central and eastern US. Our results show that the relative advantages of land sparing and land sharing depend upon the type of ecosystem with which the bioenergy crop is competing for land; as the GHGV value of the unfarmed land increases, the preferable strategy shifts from land sharing to land sparing. This implies that, while it may be preferable to replace ecologically degraded land with high-GHGV, lower yielding bioenergy crops, average landscape GHGV will most often be maximized through high yielding bioenergy crops that leave more land for uncultivated, high-GHGV ecosystems. While our case study focuses on GHGV, the same principles will be generally applicable to any ecosystem service whose value does not depend upon the spatial configuration of the landscape. Whenever bioenergy crops have substantially lower ecosystem services than the ecosystems with which they are competing for land, the most effective strategy for meeting bioenergy demand while maximizing ecosystem services on a landscape level is one of land sparing—that is, focusing simultaneously on maximizing the yield of bioenergy crops while preserving or restoring natural ecosystems.

Thomas D. Foust, Ph.D, P.E. | NREL

Science.gov Websites

-June 1997 Mechanical Systems Engineer, Nuclear Energy Program, DOE, August 1990-August 1992 Test Production," Science (2007) Heat Exchanger Performance Enhancement Methodologies, DOE Technical Report Separation Systems for Bioenergy Separations," presented at 24th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels

Alternative Fuels Data Center

Science.gov Websites

Payments Through the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels (Section 9005), eligible producers of advanced biofuels, or fuels derived from renewable biomass other than corn kernel starch, may receive payments to support expanded production of advanced biofuels. Payment amounts will depend on the quantity

7 CFR 1424.4 - General eligibility rules.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... OF AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS BIOENERGY PROGRAM § 1424.4 General eligibility.... (d) For producers not purchasing raw commodity inputs, the production must equal or exceed that amount of production that would be calculated using the raw commodity inputs and the conversion factor...

Cindy Gerk | NREL

Science.gov Websites

results, and working closely with industry and DOE serving as a Project Leader and a Principal Investigator Management of reporting requirements to DOE for financial forecasts, milestone reports, and annual operating plans Management of communications projects for the NREL Biomass program and Bioenergy

Overview of IEA biomass combustion activities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hustad, J. E.

1994-07-01

The objectives of the International Energy Agency (IEA) bioenergy program are: (1) to encourage cooperative research, development and use of energy and the increased utilization of alternatives to oil; and (2) to establish increased program and project cooperation between participants in the whole field of bioenergy. There are four Task Annexes to the Implementing Agreement during the period 1992-1994: Efficient and Environmentally Sound Biomass Production Systems; Harvesting and Supply of Woody Biomass for Energy; Biomass Utilization; and Conversion of Municipal Solid Waste Feedstock to Energy. The report describes the following biomass combustion activities during the period 1992-1994: Round robin test of a wood stove; Emissions from biomass combustion; A pilot project cofiring biomass with oil to reduce SO2 emissions; Small scale biomass chip handling; Energy from contaminated wood waste combustion; Modeling of biomass combustion; Wood chip cogeneration; Combustion of wet biomass feedstocks, ash reinjection and carbon burnout; Oxidation of wet biomass; Catalytic combustion in small wood burning appliances; Characterization of biomass fuels and ashes; Measurement techniques (FTIR).

Nitrogen Fertilization Elevated Spatial Heterogeneity of Soil Microbial Biomass Carbon and Nitrogen in Switchgrass and Gamagrass Croplands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jian, S.; Li, J.; Guo, C.; Hui, D.; Deng, Q.; Yu, C. L.; Dzantor, K. E.; Lane, C.

2017-12-01

Nitrogen (N) fertilizers are widely used to increase bioenergy crop yield but intensive fertilizations on spatial distributions of soil microbial processes in bioenergy croplands remains unknown. To quantify N fertilization effect on spatial heterogeneity of soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and N (MBN), we sampled top mineral horizon soils (0-15cm) using a spatially explicit design within two 15-m2 plots under three fertilization treatments in two bioenergy croplands in a three-year long fertilization experiment in Middle Tennessee, USA. The three fertilization treatments were no N input (NN), low N input (LN: 84 kg N ha-1 in urea) and high N input (HN: 168 kg N ha-1 in urea). The two crops were switchgrass (SG: Panicum virgatum L.) and gamagrass (GG: Tripsacum dactyloides L.). Results showed that N fertilizations little altered central tendencies of microbial variables but relative to LN, HN significantly increased MBC and MBC:MBN (GG only). HN possessed the greatest within-plot variances except for MBN (GG only). Spatial patterns were generally evident under HN and LN plots and much less so under NN plots. Substantially contrasting spatial variations were also identified between croplands (GG>SG) and among variables (MBN, MBC:MBN > MBC). No significant correlations were identified between soil pH and microbial variables. This study demonstrated that spatial heterogeneity is elevated in microbial biomass of fertilized soils likely by uneven fertilizer application, the nature of soil microbial communities and bioenergy crops. Future researchers should better match sample sizes with the heterogeneity of soil microbial property (i.e. MBN) in bioenergy croplands.

Effects on aquatic and human health due to large scale bioenergy crop expansion.

PubMed

Love, Bradley J; Einheuser, Matthew D; Nejadhashemi, A Pouyan

2011-08-01

In this study, the environmental impacts of large scale bioenergy crops were evaluated using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Daily pesticide concentration data for a study area consisting of four large watersheds located in Michigan (totaling 53,358 km²) was estimated over a six year period (2000-2005). Model outputs for atrazine, bromoxynil, glyphosate, metolachlor, pendimethalin, sethoxydim, triflualin, and 2,4-D model output were used to predict the possible long-term implications that large-scale bioenergy crop expansion may have on the bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) and humans. Threshold toxicity levels were obtained for the bluegill and for human consumption for all pesticides being evaluated through an extensive literature review. Model output was compared to each toxicity level for the suggested exposure time (96-hour for bluegill and 24-hour for humans). The results suggest that traditional intensive row crops such as canola, corn and sorghum may negatively impact aquatic life, and in most cases affect the safe drinking water availability. The continuous corn rotation, the most representative rotation for current agricultural practices for a starch-based ethanol economy, delivers the highest concentrations of glyphosate to the stream. In addition, continuous canola contributed to a concentration of 1.11 ppm of trifluralin, a highly toxic herbicide, which is 8.7 times the 96-hour ecotoxicity of bluegills and 21 times the safe drinking water level. Also during the period of study, continuous corn resulted in the impairment of 541,152 km of stream. However, there is promise with second-generation lignocellulosic bioenergy crops such as switchgrass, which resulted in a 171,667 km reduction in total stream length that exceeds the human threshold criteria, as compared to the base scenario. Results of this study may be useful in determining the suitability of bioenergy crop rotations and aid in decision making regarding the adaptation of large-scale bioenergy cropping systems. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Bioenergy: America's Energy Future

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nelson, Bruce; Volz, Sara; Male, Johnathan

2014-07-31

Bioenergy: America's Energy Future is a short documentary film showcasing examples of bioenergy innovations across the biomass supply chain and the United States. The film highlights a few stories of individuals and companies who are passionate about achieving the promise of biofuels and addressing the challenges of developing a thriving bioeconomy. This outreach product supports media initiatives to expand the public's understanding of the bioenergy industry and sustainable transportation and was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Green Focus Films, and BCS, Incorporated.

Bioenergy: America's Energy Future

ScienceCinema

Nelson, Bruce; Volz, Sara; Male, Johnathan; Wolfson, Johnathan; Pray, Todd; Mayfield, Stephen; Atherton, Scott; Weaver, Brandon

2018-01-16

Bioenergy: America's Energy Future is a short documentary film showcasing examples of bioenergy innovations across the biomass supply chain and the United States. The film highlights a few stories of individuals and companies who are passionate about achieving the promise of biofuels and addressing the challenges of developing a thriving bioeconomy. This outreach product supports media initiatives to expand the public's understanding of the bioenergy industry and sustainable transportation and was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Green Focus Films, and BCS, Incorporated.

Finnish bioenergy research

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Malinen, H.

1993-12-31

Finland is one of the leading countries in the use of biofuels. The share of wood derived fuels of the total primary energy requirement was about 14% (ca. 4 million toe) and peat about 5% (1.4 million toe). The possibilities for increasing the use of biofuels in Finland are significant. There is theoretically about 10 million m{sup 3}/a (about 2 million toe/a) of harvestable wood. Areas suitable for fuel peat production (0.5 million ha) could produce ca. 420 million toe of peat. At present rates of use, the peat reserves are adequate for centuries. During the next few years 0.5--1more » million hectares of fields withdrawn from farming could be used for biofuel production. The production potential of this field area is estimated to be about 0.2--0.5 million toe. In addition, the use of wastes in energy production could be increased. The aim of the new Bioenergy Research Programme is to increase the use of economically profitable and environmentally sound bioenergy by improving the competitiveness of present peat and wood fuels. New economically competitive biofuels, new equipment and methods for production, handling and use of biofuels will also be developed. The main research areas are production of wood fuels, peat production, use of bioenergy and conversion of biomass.« less

Stakeholder engagement in scenario development process - bioenergy production and biodiversity conservation in eastern Finland.

PubMed

Haatanen, Anniina; den Herder, Michael; Leskinen, Pekka; Lindner, Marcus; Kurttila, Mikko; Salminen, Olli

2014-03-15

In this study participatory approaches were used to develop alternative forest resource management scenarios with particular respect to the effects on increased use of forest bioenergy and its effect on biodiversity in Eastern Finland. As technical planning tools, we utilized a forest management planning system (MELA) and the Tool for Sustainability Impact Assessment (ToSIA) to visualize the impacts of the scenarios. We organized a stakeholder workshop where group discussions were used as a participatory method to get the stakeholder preferences and insights concerning forest resource use in the year 2030. Feedback from the workshop was then complemented with a questionnaire. Based on the results of the workshop and a questionnaire we developed three alternative forest resource scenarios: (1) bioenergy 2030 - in which energy production is more centralized and efficient; (2) biodiversity 2030 - in which harvesting methods are more nature friendly and protected forests make up 10% of the total forest area; and (3) mixed bioenergy + biodiversity 2030 scenario - in which wood production, recreation and nature protection are assigned to the most suitable areas. The study showed that stakeholder engagement combined with the MELA and ToSIA tools can be a useful approach in scenario development. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Aquatic plant Azolla as the universal feedstock for biofuel production.

PubMed

Miranda, Ana F; Biswas, Bijoy; Ramkumar, Narasimhan; Singh, Rawel; Kumar, Jitendra; James, Anton; Roddick, Felicity; Lal, Banwari; Subudhi, Sanjukta; Bhaskar, Thallada; Mouradov, Aidyn

2016-01-01

The quest for sustainable production of renewable and cheap biofuels has triggered an intensive search for domestication of the next generation of bioenergy crops. Aquatic plants which can rapidly colonize wetlands are attracting attention because of their ability to grow in wastewaters and produce large amounts of biomass. Representatives of Azolla species are some of the fastest growing plants, producing substantial biomass when growing in contaminated water and natural ecosystems. Together with their evolutional symbiont, the cyanobacterium Anabaena azollae, Azolla biomass has a unique chemical composition accumulating in each leaf including three major types of bioenergy molecules: cellulose/hemicellulose, starch and lipids, resembling combinations of terrestrial bioenergy crops and microalgae. The growth of Azolla filiculoides in synthetic wastewater led up to 25, 69, 24 and 40 % reduction of NH 4 -N, NO 3 -N, PO 4 -P and selenium, respectively, after 5 days of treatment. This led to a 2.6-fold reduction in toxicity of the treated wastewater to shrimps, common inhabitants of wetlands. Two Azolla species, Azolla filiculoides and Azolla pinnata, were used as feedstock for the production of a range of functional hydrocarbons through hydrothermal liquefaction, bio-hydrogen and bio-ethanol. Given the high annual productivity of Azolla, hydrothermal liquefaction can lead to the theoretical production of 20.2 t/ha-year of bio-oil and 48 t/ha-year of bio-char. The ethanol production from Azolla filiculoides, 11.7 × 10 3  L/ha-year, is close to that from corn stover (13.3 × 10 3  L/ha-year), but higher than from miscanthus (2.3 × 10 3  L/ha-year) and woody plants, such as willow (0.3 × 10 3  L/ha-year) and poplar (1.3 × 10 3  L/ha-year). With a high C/N ratio, fermentation of Azolla biomass generates 2.2 mol/mol glucose/xylose of hydrogen, making this species a competitive feedstock for hydrogen production compared with other bioenergy crops. The high productivity, the ability to grow on wastewaters and unique chemical composition make Azolla species the most attractive, sustainable and universal feedstock for low cost, low energy demanding, near zero maintenance system for the production of a wide spectrum of renewable biofuels.

Sandia and General Motors: Advancing Clean Combustion Engines with

Science.gov Websites

Quantitative Risk Assessment Technical Reference for Hydrogen Compatibility of Materials Hydrogen Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory Center for Infrastructure Research and Innovation Combustion Research Facility Joint BioEnergy Institute Close Energy Research Programs ARPA-E Basic Energy Sciences Materials

Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework Fact Sheet

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

The Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework (KDF) supports the development of a sustainable bioenergy industry by providing access to a variety of data sets, publications, and collaboration and mapping tools that support bioenergy research, analysis, and decision making. In the KDF, users can search for information, contribute data, and use the tools and map interface to synthesize, analyze, and visualize information in a spatially integrated manner.

Bioenergy and Biodiversity: Key Lessons from the Pan American Region

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kline, Keith L.; Martinelli, Fernanda Silva; Mayer, Audrey L.; Medeiros, Rodrigo; Oliveira, Camila Ortolan F.; Sparovek, Gerd; Walter, Arnaldo; Venier, Lisa A.

2015-12-01

Understanding how large-scale bioenergy production can affect biodiversity and ecosystems is important if society is to meet current and future sustainable development goals. A variety of bioenergy production systems have been established within different contexts throughout the Pan American region, with wide-ranging results in terms of documented and projected effects on biodiversity and ecosystems. The Pan American region is home to the majority of commercial bioenergy production and therefore the region offers a broad set of experiences and insights on both conflicts and opportunities for biodiversity and bioenergy. This paper synthesizes lessons learned focusing on experiences in Canada, the United States, and Brazil regarding the conflicts that can arise between bioenergy production and ecological conservation, and benefits that can be derived when bioenergy policies promote planning and more sustainable land-management systems. We propose a research agenda to address priority information gaps that are relevant to biodiversity concerns and related policy challenges in the Pan American region.

Bioenergy and biodiversity: Key lessons from the Pan American region

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kline, Keith L.; Martinelli, Fernanda Silva; Mayer, Audrey L.

Understanding how large-scale bioenergy production can affect biodiversity and ecosystems is important if society is to meet current and future sustainable development goals. A variety of bioenergy production systems have been established within different contexts throughout the Pan American region, with wide-ranging results in terms of documented and projected effects on biodiversity and ecosystems. The Pan American region is home to the majority of commercial bioenergy production and therefore the region offers a broad set of experiences and insights on both conflicts and opportunities for biodiversity and bioenergy. This paper synthesizes lessons learned focusing on experiences in Canada, the Unitedmore » States, and Brazil, regarding the conflicts that can arise between bioenergy production and ecological conservation, and benefits that can be derived when bioenergy policies promote planning and more sustainable land management systems. Lastly, we propose a research agenda to address priority information gaps that are relevant to biodiversity concerns and related policy challenges in the Pan American region.« less

Carbon Debt of CRP Lands Converted to Annual and Perennial Bioenergy Crops

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abraha, M.; Gelfand, I.; Hamilton, S. K.; Chen, J.; Robertson, G. P.

2017-12-01

The net greenhouse gas fluxes of an ecosystem are directly influenced by land use conversions. In the USA, 5 Mha of grassland in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) have been converted to agricultural production in response to higher demand for corn grain biofuel. The global warming impact (GWI) of these biofuel crops can remain positive for many years following the conversions until the "carbon debt" incurred upon conversion is repaid. Model estimates suggest that 340-351 ×106 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq) would be released to the atmosphere after the conversions. These estimates, while highly uncertain, appear to have payback times of decades or even centuries. In a field experiment conducted from 2009-16, we converted CRP grassland and conventionally-tilled agricultural (AGR) land to grain (corn) and cellulosic (switchgrass and restored prairie) biofuel feedstocks. We conducted life cycle analysis (LCA) on all converted lands by accounting for greenhouse gas fluxes related to farming operations, agronomic inputs, and soil-atmosphere greenhouse gas exchanges. We found that cumulative carbon debt for the conversion on former CRP grasslands over the 8 years is -295, 652 and 7661 gCO2eq m-2 for switchgrass, restored prairie and corn, respectively, where a positive debt indicates net emissions to the atmosphere. These indicate that the switchgrass field repaid its carbon debt in the 8th year following conversion; and the restored prairie field will likely repay its carbon debt in the next year. The corn field, however, is projected to pay its carbon debt in another 250 years. The same biofuel crops established on former AGR lands became net CO2eq sinks within two years following the conversion. Our findings indicate that the GWI estimates and the time needed to repay CO2eq debt due to conversion of grasslands to bioenergy crops is underestimated by current models.

Mitigating greenhouse gases: the importance of land base interactions between forests, agriculture, and residential development in the face of changes in bioenergy and carbon prices

Treesearch

Ralph Alig; Greg Latta; Darius Adams; Bruce McCarl

2009-01-01

The forest sector can contribute to atmospheric greenhouse gas reduction, while also providing other environmental, economic, and social benefits. Policy tools for climate change mitigation include carbon-related payment programs as well as laws and programs to impede the loss of agricultural and forest lands to development. Policy makers will base their expectations...

Comparing soil functions for a wide range of agriculture soils focusing on production for bioenergy using a combined isotope-based observation and modelling approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leistert, Hannes; Herbstritt, Barbara; Weiler, Markus

2017-04-01

Increase crop production for bioenergy will result in changes in land use and the resulting soil functions and may generate new chances and risks. However, detailed data and information are still missing how soil function may be altered under changing crop productions for bioenergy, in particular for a wide range of agricultural soils since most data are currently derived from individual experimental sites studying different bioenergy crops at one location. We developed a new, rapid measurement approach to investigate the influence of bioenergy plants on the water cycle and different soil functions (filter and buffer of water and N-cycling). For this approach, we drilled 89 soil cores (1-3 m deep) in spring and fall at 11 sites with different soil properties and climatic conditions comparing different crops (grass, corn, willow, poplar, and other less common bioenergy crops) and analyzing 1150 soil samples for water content, nitrate concentration and stable water isotopes. We benchmarked a soil hydrological model (1-D numerical Richards equation, ADE, water isotope fractionation including liquid and vapor composition of isotopes) using longer-term climate variables and water isotopes in precipitation to derive crop specific parameterization and to specifically validate the differences in water transport and water partitioning into evaporation, transpiration and groundwater recharge among the sites and crops using the water isotopes in particular. The model simulation were in good agreement with the observed isotope profiles and allowed us to differentiate among the different crops. We defined different indicators for the soil functions considered in this study. These indicators included the proportion of groundwater recharge, transit time of water (different percentiles) though the upper 2m and nutrient leaching potential (e.g. nitrate) during the dormant season from the rooting zone. The parameterized model was first used to calculate the indicators for the sampled locations and to derive the changes in soil functions by altering the land cover among the different bioenergy crops in comparison to the grassland as a reference. We could show that percolation is strongly influenced by the crops and climate, the transit time is influenced by a combination of soil type, climate and land use, but the effect of soil type is very strong and the nitrate leaching is strongly influenced by soil type. The high variability of transit times and nitrate leaching are due to high variability of the temporal distribution of precipitation. Finally, the model was used to regionalized the indicators to a wide range of soils in the state of Baden-Württemberg and to assess if there are locations where bioenergy crops may improve the considered soil function. Our idea behind this was to propose location where specific bioenergy crops may be highly suitable to improve the current soil function to increase for example the protection of groundwater for drinking water, reduce erosion risk or increase water availability. The proposed method allows to assess the influence of different bioenergy crops on soil functions without costly multi-year measurement systems for assessing the soil functions using soil water content measurements or/and soil water suction devices.

Biotechnology and synthetic biology approaches for metabolic engineering of bioenergy crops.

PubMed

Shih, Patrick M; Liang, Yan; Loqué, Dominique

2016-07-01

The Green Revolution has fuelled an exponential growth in human population since the mid-20th century. Due to population growth, food and energy demands will soon surpass supply capabilities. To overcome these impending problems, significant improvements in genetic engineering will be needed to complement breeding efforts in order to accelerate the improvement of agronomical traits. The new field of plant synthetic biology has emerged in recent years and is expected to support rapid, precise, and robust engineering of plants. In this review, we present recent advances made in the field of plant synthetic biology, specifically in genome editing, transgene expression regulation, and bioenergy crop engineering, with a focus on traits related to lignocellulose, oil, and soluble sugars. Ultimately, progress and innovation in these fields may facilitate the development of beneficial traits in crop plants to meet society's bioenergy needs. © 2016 The Authors. The Plant Journal published by Society for Experimental Biology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Evaluation of bioenergy crop growth and the impacts of bioenergy crops on streamflow, tile drain flow and nutrient losses in an extensively tile-drained watershed using SWAT

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Large quantities of biofuel production are expected from bioenergy crops at a national scale to meet US biofuel goals. It is important to study biomass production of bioenergy crops and the impacts of these crops on water quantity and quality to identify environment-friendly and productive biofeeds...

Evaluation of bioenergy crop growth and the impacts of bioenergy crops on streamflow, tile drain flow and nutrient losses in an extensively tile-drained watershed using SWAT.

PubMed

Guo, Tian; Cibin, Raj; Chaubey, Indrajeet; Gitau, Margaret; Arnold, Jeffrey G; Srinivasan, Raghavan; Kiniry, James R; Engel, Bernard A

2018-02-01

Large quantities of biofuel production are expected from bioenergy crops at a national scale to meet US biofuel goals. It is important to study biomass production of bioenergy crops and the impacts of these crops on water quantity and quality to identify environment-friendly and productive biofeedstock systems. SWAT2012 with a new tile drainage routine and improved perennial grass and tree growth simulation was used to model long-term annual biomass yields, streamflow, tile flow, sediment load, and nutrient losses under various bioenergy scenarios in an extensively agricultural watershed in the Midwestern US. Simulated results from bioenergy crop scenarios were compared with those from the baseline. The results showed that simulated annual crop yields were similar to observed county level values for corn and soybeans, and were reasonable for Miscanthus, switchgrass and hybrid poplar. Removal of 38% of corn stover (3.74Mg/ha/yr) with Miscanthus production on highly erodible areas and marginal land (17.49Mg/ha/yr) provided the highest biofeedstock production (279,000Mg/yr). Streamflow, tile flow, erosion and nutrient losses were reduced under bioenergy crop scenarios of bioenergy crops on highly erodible areas and marginal land. Corn stover removal did not result in significant water quality changes. The increase in sediment and nutrient losses under corn stover removal could be offset with the combination of other bioenergy crops. Potential areas for bioenergy crop production when meeting the criteria above were small (10.88km 2 ), thus the ability to produce biomass and improve water quality was not substantial. The study showed that corn stover removal with bioenergy crops both on highly erodible areas and marginal land could provide more biofuel production relative to the baseline, and was beneficial to water quality at the watershed scale, providing guidance for further research on evaluation of bioenergy crop scenarios in a typical extensively tile-drained watershed in the Midwestern U.S. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Large-scale bioenergy production: how to resolve sustainability trade-offs?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Humpenöder, Florian; Popp, Alexander; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; Weindl, Isabelle; Biewald, Anne; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Dietrich, Jan Philipp; Klein, David; Kreidenweis, Ulrich; Müller, Christoph; Rolinski, Susanne; Stevanovic, Miodrag

2018-02-01

Large-scale 2nd generation bioenergy deployment is a key element of 1.5 °C and 2 °C transformation pathways. However, large-scale bioenergy production might have negative sustainability implications and thus may conflict with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda. Here, we carry out a multi-criteria sustainability assessment of large-scale bioenergy crop production throughout the 21st century (300 EJ in 2100) using a global land-use model. Our analysis indicates that large-scale bioenergy production without complementary measures results in negative effects on the following sustainability indicators: deforestation, CO2 emissions from land-use change, nitrogen losses, unsustainable water withdrawals and food prices. One of our main findings is that single-sector environmental protection measures next to large-scale bioenergy production are prone to involve trade-offs among these sustainability indicators—at least in the absence of more efficient land or water resource use. For instance, if bioenergy production is accompanied by forest protection, deforestation and associated emissions (SDGs 13 and 15) decline substantially whereas food prices (SDG 2) increase. However, our study also shows that this trade-off strongly depends on the development of future food demand. In contrast to environmental protection measures, we find that agricultural intensification lowers some side-effects of bioenergy production substantially (SDGs 13 and 15) without generating new trade-offs—at least among the sustainability indicators considered here. Moreover, our results indicate that a combination of forest and water protection schemes, improved fertilization efficiency, and agricultural intensification would reduce the side-effects of bioenergy production most comprehensively. However, although our study includes more sustainability indicators than previous studies on bioenergy side-effects, our study represents only a small subset of all indicators relevant for the SDG agenda. Based on this, we argue that the development of policies for regulating externalities of large-scale bioenergy production should rely on broad sustainability assessments to discover potential trade-offs with the SDG agenda before implementation.

Economic feasibility analysis of conventional and dedicated energy crop production

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nelson, R.G.; Langemeier, M.R.; Krehbiel, L.R.

Economic feasibilities (net return per acre) associated with conventional agricultural crop production versus that of dedicated bioenergy crop (herbaceous energy crops) were investigated for northeastern Kansas. Conventional agricultural crops examined were corn, soybeans, wheat, sorghum and alfalfa and dedicated herbaceous energy crops included big bluestem/indiangrass, switchgrass, eastern gamagrass, brome, fescue and cane hay. Costs, prices and government program information from public and private sources were used to project the net return per acre over a six-year period beginning in 1997. Three soil productivity levels (low, average and high), which had a direct effect on the net return per acre, weremore » used to model differences in expected yield. In all three soil productivity cases, big bluestem/indiangrass, switchgrass and brome hay provided a higher net return per acre versus conventional crops grown on both program and non-program acres. Eastern gamagrass, fescue hay and cane hay had returns that were similar or less than returns provided by conventional crops.« less

Quantifying the climate effects of bioenergy – Choice of reference system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Koponen, Kati; Soimakallio, Sampo; Kline, Keith L.

In order to understand the climate effects of a bioenergy system, a comparison between the bioenergy system and a reference system is required. The reference system describes the situation that occurs in the absence of the bioenergy system with respect to the use of land, energy, and materials. The importance of reference systems is discussed in the literature but guidance on choosing suitable reference systems for assessing climate effects of bioenergy is limited. The reference system should align with the purpose of the study. Transparency of reference system assumptions is essential for proper interpretation of bioenergy assessments. This paper presentsmore » guidance for selecting suitable reference systems. Particular attention is given to choosing the land reference. If the goal is to study the climate effects of bioenergy as a part of total anthropogenic activity the reference system should illustrate what is expected in the absence of human activities. In such a case the suitable land reference is natural regeneration, and energy or material reference systems are not relevant. If the goal is to assess the effect of a change in bioenergy use, the reference system should incorporate human activities. In this case suitable reference systems describe the most likely alternative uses of the land, energy and materials in the absence of the change in bioenergy use. The definition of the reference system is furthermore subject to the temporal scope of the study. In practice, selecting and characterizing reference systems will involve various choices and uncertainties which should be considered carefully. As a result, it can be instructive to consider how alternative reference systems influence the results and conclusions drawn from bioenergy assessments.« less

Quantifying the climate effects of bioenergy – Choice of reference system

DOE PAGES

Koponen, Kati; Soimakallio, Sampo; Kline, Keith L.; ...

2017-06-27

In order to understand the climate effects of a bioenergy system, a comparison between the bioenergy system and a reference system is required. The reference system describes the situation that occurs in the absence of the bioenergy system with respect to the use of land, energy, and materials. The importance of reference systems is discussed in the literature but guidance on choosing suitable reference systems for assessing climate effects of bioenergy is limited. The reference system should align with the purpose of the study. Transparency of reference system assumptions is essential for proper interpretation of bioenergy assessments. This paper presentsmore » guidance for selecting suitable reference systems. Particular attention is given to choosing the land reference. If the goal is to study the climate effects of bioenergy as a part of total anthropogenic activity the reference system should illustrate what is expected in the absence of human activities. In such a case the suitable land reference is natural regeneration, and energy or material reference systems are not relevant. If the goal is to assess the effect of a change in bioenergy use, the reference system should incorporate human activities. In this case suitable reference systems describe the most likely alternative uses of the land, energy and materials in the absence of the change in bioenergy use. The definition of the reference system is furthermore subject to the temporal scope of the study. In practice, selecting and characterizing reference systems will involve various choices and uncertainties which should be considered carefully. As a result, it can be instructive to consider how alternative reference systems influence the results and conclusions drawn from bioenergy assessments.« less

How can land-use modelling tools inform bioenergy policies?

PubMed Central

Davis, Sarah C.; House, Joanna I.; Diaz-Chavez, Rocio A.; Molnar, Andras; Valin, Hugo; DeLucia, Evan H.

2011-01-01

Targets for bioenergy have been set worldwide to mitigate climate change. Although feedstock sources are often ambiguous, pledges in European nations, the United States and Brazil amount to more than 100 Mtoe of biorenewable fuel production by 2020. As a consequence, the biofuel sector is developing rapidly, and it is increasingly important to distinguish bioenergy options that can address energy security and greenhouse gas mitigation from those that cannot. This paper evaluates how bioenergy production affects land-use change (LUC), and to what extent land-use modelling can inform sound decision-making. We identified local and global internalities and externalities of biofuel development scenarios, reviewed relevant data sources and modelling approaches, identified sources of controversy about indirect LUC (iLUC) and then suggested a framework for comprehensive assessments of bioenergy. Ultimately, plant biomass must be managed to produce energy in a way that is consistent with the management of food, feed, fibre, timber and environmental services. Bioenergy production provides opportunities for improved energy security, climate mitigation and rural development, but the environmental and social consequences depend on feedstock choices and geographical location. The most desirable solutions for bioenergy production will include policies that incentivize regionally integrated management of diverse resources with low inputs, high yields, co-products, multiple benefits and minimal risks of iLUC. Many integrated assessment models include energy resources, trade, technological development and regional environmental conditions, but do not account for biodiversity and lack detailed data on the location of degraded and underproductive lands that would be ideal for bioenergy production. Specific practices that would maximize the benefits of bioenergy production regionally need to be identified before a global analysis of bioenergy-related LUC can be accomplished. PMID:22482028

BioenergyKDF: Enabling Spatiotemporal Data Synthesis and Research Collaboration

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Myers, Aaron T; Movva, Sunil; Karthik, Rajasekar

2014-01-01

The Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework (BioenergyKDF) is a scalable, web-based collaborative environment for scientists working on bioenergy related research in which the connections between data, literature, and models can be explored and more clearly understood. The fully-operational and deployed system, built on multiple open source libraries and architectures, stores contributions from the community of practice and makes them easy to find, but that is just its base functionality. The BioenergyKDF provides a national spatiotemporal decision support capability that enables data sharing, analysis, modeling, and visualization as well as fosters the development and management of the U.S. bioenergy infrastructure, which ismore » an essential component of the national energy infrastructure. The BioenergyKDF is built on a flexible, customizable platform that can be extended to support the requirements of any user community especially those that work with spatiotemporal data. While there are several community data-sharing software platforms available, some developed and distributed by national governments, none of them have the full suite of capabilities available in BioenergyKDF. For example, this component-based platform and database independent architecture allows it to be quickly deployed to existing infrastructure and to connect to existing data repositories (spatial or otherwise). As new data, analysis, and features are added; the BioenergyKDF will help lead research and support decisions concerning bioenergy into the future, but will also enable the development and growth of additional communities of practice both inside and outside of the Department of Energy. These communities will be able to leverage the substantial investment the agency has made in the KDF platform to quickly stand up systems that are customized to their data and research needs.« less

Bird Communities and Biomass Yields in Potential Bioenergy Grasslands

PubMed Central

Blank, Peter J.; Sample, David W.; Williams, Carol L.; Turner, Monica G.

2014-01-01

Demand for bioenergy is increasing, but the ecological consequences of bioenergy crop production on working lands remain unresolved. Corn is currently a dominant bioenergy crop, but perennial grasslands could produce renewable bioenergy resources and enhance biodiversity. Grassland bird populations have declined in recent decades and may particularly benefit from perennial grasslands grown for bioenergy. We asked how breeding bird community assemblages, vegetation characteristics, and biomass yields varied among three types of potential bioenergy grassland fields (grass monocultures, grass-dominated fields, and forb-dominated fields), and assessed tradeoffs between grassland biomass production and bird habitat. We also compared the bird communities in grassland fields to nearby cornfields. Cornfields had few birds compared to perennial grassland fields. Ten bird Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) were observed in perennial grassland fields. Bird species richness and total bird density increased with forb cover and were greater in forb-dominated fields than grass monocultures. SGCN density declined with increasing vertical vegetation density, indicating that tall, dense grassland fields managed for maximum biomass yield would be of lesser value to imperiled grassland bird species. The proportion of grassland habitat within 1 km of study sites was positively associated with bird species richness and the density of total birds and SGCNs, suggesting that grassland bioenergy fields may be more beneficial for grassland birds if they are established near other grassland parcels. Predicted total bird density peaked below maximum biomass yields and predicted SGCN density was negatively related to biomass yields. Our results indicate that perennial grassland fields could produce bioenergy feedstocks while providing bird habitat. Bioenergy grasslands promote agricultural multifunctionality and conservation of biodiversity in working landscapes. PMID:25299593

First report of Sorghum mosaic virus causing mosaic in Miscanthus sinesis

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Miscanthus is being evaluated as a bioenergy feedstock because of its potentially significant biomass production, perennial habit, and lack of major diseases and pests. It is also a valuable parent in the sugarcane breeding program as source of cold tolerance. Mosaic symptoms were observed on a clo...

78 FR 13497 - Approval and Promulgation of Air Quality Implementation Plans; Maryland; Deferral for CO2

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-02-28

... defers until July 21, 2014 the application of the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD... Other Biogenic Sources Under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration Program AGENCY: Environmental... July 21, 2014 the application of PSD permitting requirements to biogenic CO 2 emissions from bioenergy...

7 CFR 1424.5 - Agreement process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Agreement process. 1424.5 Section 1424.5 Agriculture... AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS BIOENERGY PROGRAM § 1424.5 Agreement process. (a) To participate, an eligible producer must submit a signed agreement during the FY sign-up period. Agreements may...

7 CFR 1424.5 - Agreement process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 10 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Agreement process. 1424.5 Section 1424.5 Agriculture... AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS BIOENERGY PROGRAM § 1424.5 Agreement process. (a) To participate, an eligible producer must submit a signed agreement during the FY sign-up period. Agreements may...

The availability and economic analyses of using marginal land for bioenergy production in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuqi, Chen; Xudong, Guo; Chunyan, Lv

2017-04-01

In recent years, China has witnessed rapid increase in the dependence of foreign oil import. In 2015, the primary energy consumption of China is 543 million tons, of which 328 million tons was imported. The total amount of imported foreign oil increased from 49.8% in 2008 to 60.41% in 2016. To address the national energy security and GHG emission reduction, China has made considerable progress in expanding renewable energy portfolio, especially liquid biofuels. However, under the pressure of high population and vulnerable food security, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) ruled that bioenergy is only allowed to be produced using non-cereal feedstock. In addition, the energy crops can only be planted on marginal land, which is the land not suitable for growing field crops due to edaphic and/or climatic limitations, and other environmental risks. Although there have been a number of studies about estimating the marginal land for energy plants' cultivation in China, as to the different definition of marginal land and land use data, the results are quite different. Furthermore, even if there is enough marginal land suitable for energy plants' cultivation, economic viability of cultivating energy plants on marginal land is critical. In order to analyze the availability and economic analyses of the marginal land for bioenergy production strategy, firstly, by using of the latest and most authoritative land use data, this study focused on the assessment of marginal land resources and bioenergy potential by planting five species of energy plants including Cassava, Jatropha curcas, Helianthus tuberous L, Pistacia chinensis, Xanthoceras sorbifolia Bunge. The results indicate that there are 289.71 million ha marginal land can be used for these five energy plants' cultivation, which can produce 24.45 million tons bioethanol and 8.77 million tons of biodiesel. Secondly, based on field survey data and literature reviews, we found that, from the farmers' perspective, low income led to none incentive of energy plants' cultivation. From the bioenergy plants' perspective, unstable supply and high cost of feedstock constrained the normal operation. In China, both energy crop' s cultivation and bioenergy production depend too much on government subsidies. It was impossible to develop bioenergy based on marginal land if only rely on the market at present.

Hydrological and sedimentation implications of landscape changes in a Himalayan catchment due to bioenergy cropping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Remesan, Renji; Holman, Ian; Janes, Victoria

2015-04-01

There is a global effort to focus on the development of bioenergy and energy cropping, due to the generally increasing demand for crude oil, high oil price volatility and climate change mitigation challenges. Second generation energy cropping is expected to increase greatly in India as the Government of India has recently approved a national policy of 20 % biofuel blending by 2017; furthermore, the country's biomass based power generation potential is estimated as around ~24GW and large investments are expected in coming years to increase installed capacity. In this study, we have modelled the environmental influences (e.g.: hydrology and sediment) of scenarios of increased biodiesel cropping (Jatropha curcas) using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) in a northern Indian river basin. SWAT has been applied to the River Beas basin, using daily Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation and NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) meteorological data to simulate the river regime and crop yields. We have applied Sequential Uncertainty Fitting Ver. 2 (SUFI-2) to quantify the parameter uncertainty of the stream flow modelling. The model evaluation statistics for daily river flows at the Jwalamukhi and Pong gauges show good agreement with measured flows (Nash Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.70 and PBIAS of 7.54 %). The study has applied two land use change scenarios of (1) increased bioenergy cropping in marginal (grazing) lands in the lower and middle regions of catchment (2) increased bioenergy cropping in low yielding areas of row crops in the lower and middle regions of the catchment. The presentation will describe the improved understanding of the hydrological, erosion and sediment delivery and food production impacts arising from the introduction of a new cropping variety to a marginal area; and illustrate the potential prospects of bioenergy production in Himalayan valleys.

Bioenergy for sustainable development: An African context

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mangoyana, Robert Blessing

This paper assesses the sustainability concerns of bioenergy systems against the prevailing and potential long term conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa with a special attention on agricultural and forestry waste, and cultivated bioenergy sources. Existing knowledge and processes about bioenergy systems are brought into a “sustainability framework” to support debate and decisions about the implementation of bioenergy systems in the region. Bioenergy systems have been recommended based on the potential to (i) meet domestic energy demand and reduce fuel importation (ii) diversify rural economies and create employment (iii) reduce poverty, and (iv) provide net energy gains and positive environmental impacts. However, biofuels will compete with food crops for land, labour, capital and entrepreneurial skills. Moreover the environmental benefits of some feedstocks are questionable. These challenges are, however, surmountable. It is concluded that biomass energy production could be an effective way to achieve sustainable development for bioenergy pathways that (i) are less land intensive, (ii) have positive net energy gains and environmental benefits, and (iii) provide local socio-economic benefits. Feasibility evaluations which put these issues into perspective are vital for sustainable application of agricultural and forest based bioenergy systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. Such evaluations should consider the long run potential of biofuels accounting for demographic, economic and technological changes and the related implications.

U.S, Department of Energy's Bioenergy Research Centers An Overview of the Science

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

2009-07-01

Alternative fuels from renewable cellulosic biomass--plant stalks, trunks, stems, and leaves--are expected to significantly reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil while enhancing national energy security and decreasing the environmental impacts of energy use. Ethanol and other advanced biofuels from cellulosic biomass are renewable alternatives that could increase domestic production of transportation fuels, revitalize rural economies, and reduce carbon dioxide and pollutant emissions. According to U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, 'Developing the next generation of biofuels is key to our effort to end our dependence on foreign oil and address the climate crisis while creating millions of new jobs thatmore » can't be outsourced'. In the United States, the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 is an important driver for the sustainable development of renewable biofuels. As part of EISA, the Renewable Fuel Standard mandates that 36 billion gallons of biofuels are to be produced annually by 2022, of which 16 billion gallons are expected to come from cellulosic feedstocks. Although cellulosic ethanol production has been demonstrated on a pilot level, developing a cost-effective, commercial-scale cellulosic biofuel industry will require transformational science to significantly streamline current production processes. Woodchips, grasses, cornstalks, and other cellulosic biomass are widely abundant but more difficult to break down into sugars than corn grain--the primary source of U.S. ethanol fuel production today. Biological research is key to accelerating the deconstruction of cellulosic biomass into sugars that can be converted to biofuels. The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science continues to play a major role in inspiring, supporting, and guiding the biotechnology revolution over the past 25 years. The DOE Genomic Science Program is advancing a new generation of research focused on achieving whole-systems understanding for biology. This program is bringing together scientists in diverse fields to understand the complex biology underlying solutions to DOE missions in energy production, environmental remediation, and climate change science. New interdisciplinary research communities are emerging, as are knowledgebases and scientific and computational resources critical to advancing large-scale, genome-based biology. To focus the most advanced biotechnology-based resources on the biological challenges of biofuel production, DOE established three Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) in September 2007. Each center is pursuing the basic research underlying a range of high-risk, high-return biological solutions for bioenergy applications. Advances resulting from the BRCs will provide the knowledge needed to develop new biobased products, methods, and tools that the emerging biofuel industry can use. The scientific rationale for these centers and for other fundamental genomic research critical to the biofuel industry was established at a DOE workshop involving members of the research community (see sidebar, Biofuel Research Plan, below). The DOE BRCs have developed automated, high-throughput analysis pipelines that will accelerate scientific discovery for biology-based biofuel research. The three centers, which were selected through a scientific peer-review process, are based in geographically diverse locations--the Southeast, the Midwest, and the West Coast--with partners across the nation. DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory leads the BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) in Tennessee; the University of Wisconsin-Madison leads the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC); and DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory leads the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) in California. Each center represents a multidisciplinary partnership with expertise spanning the physical and biological sciences, including genomics, microbial and plant biology, analytical chemistry, computational biology and bioinformatics, and engineering. Institutional partners include DOE national laboratories, universities, private companies, and nonprofit organizations.« less

Impacts of management practices on bioenergy feedstock yield and economic feasibility on Conservation Reserve Program grasslands

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Anderson, Eric K.; Aberle, Ezra; Chen, Chengci

Perennial grass mixtures planted on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land are a potential source of dedicated bioenergy feedstock. Long-term nitrogen (N) and harvest management are critical factors for maximizing biomass yield while maintaining the longevity of grass stands. A six-year farm-scale study was conducted to understand the impact of weather variability on biomass yield, determine optimal N fertilization and harvest timing management practices for sustainable biomass production, and estimate economic viability at six CRP sites in the United States. Precipitation during the growing season was a critical factor for annual biomass production across all regions, and annual biomass production wasmore » severely reduced when growing season precipitation was below 50% of average. The N rate of 112 kg ha -1 produced the highest biomass yield at each location. Harvest timing resulting in the highest biomass yield was site-specific and was a factor of predominant grass type, seasonal precipitation, and the number of harvests taken per year. The use of N fertilizer for yield enhancement unambiguously increased the cost of biomass regardless of the harvest timing for all six sites. The breakeven price of biomass at the farmgate ranged from 37 dollars to 311 dollars Mg -1 depending on the rate of N application, timing of harvesting, and location when foregone opportunity costs were not considered. Breakeven prices ranged from 69 dollars to 526 dollars Mg -1 when the loss of CRP land rental payments was included as an opportunity cost. Annual cost of the CRP to the federal government could be reduced by over 8% in the states included in this study; however, this would require the biomass price to be much higher than in the case where the landowner receives the CRP land rent. Lastly, this field research demonstrated the importance of long-term, farm-scale research for accurate estimation of biomass feedstock production and economic viability from perennial grasslands.« less

Impacts of management practices on bioenergy feedstock yield and economic feasibility on Conservation Reserve Program grasslands

DOE PAGES

Anderson, Eric K.; Aberle, Ezra; Chen, Chengci; ...

2015-12-21

Perennial grass mixtures planted on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land are a potential source of dedicated bioenergy feedstock. Long-term nitrogen (N) and harvest management are critical factors for maximizing biomass yield while maintaining the longevity of grass stands. A six-year farm-scale study was conducted to understand the impact of weather variability on biomass yield, determine optimal N fertilization and harvest timing management practices for sustainable biomass production, and estimate economic viability at six CRP sites in the United States. Precipitation during the growing season was a critical factor for annual biomass production across all regions, and annual biomass production wasmore » severely reduced when growing season precipitation was below 50% of average. The N rate of 112 kg ha -1 produced the highest biomass yield at each location. Harvest timing resulting in the highest biomass yield was site-specific and was a factor of predominant grass type, seasonal precipitation, and the number of harvests taken per year. The use of N fertilizer for yield enhancement unambiguously increased the cost of biomass regardless of the harvest timing for all six sites. The breakeven price of biomass at the farmgate ranged from 37 dollars to 311 dollars Mg -1 depending on the rate of N application, timing of harvesting, and location when foregone opportunity costs were not considered. Breakeven prices ranged from 69 dollars to 526 dollars Mg -1 when the loss of CRP land rental payments was included as an opportunity cost. Annual cost of the CRP to the federal government could be reduced by over 8% in the states included in this study; however, this would require the biomass price to be much higher than in the case where the landowner receives the CRP land rent. Lastly, this field research demonstrated the importance of long-term, farm-scale research for accurate estimation of biomass feedstock production and economic viability from perennial grasslands.« less

Synergistic microbial consortium for bioenergy generation from complex natural energy sources.

PubMed

Wang, Victor Bochuan; Yam, Joey Kuok Hoong; Chua, Song-Lin; Zhang, Qichun; Cao, Bin; Chye, Joachim Loo Say; Yang, Liang

2014-01-01

Microbial species have evolved diverse mechanisms for utilization of complex carbon sources. Proper combination of targeted species can affect bioenergy production from natural waste products. Here, we established a stable microbial consortium with Escherichia coli and Shewanella oneidensis in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to produce bioenergy from an abundant natural energy source, in the form of the sarcocarp harvested from coconuts. This component is mostly discarded as waste. However, through its usage as a feedstock for MFCs to produce useful energy in this study, the sarcocarp can be utilized meaningfully. The monospecies S. oneidensis system was able to generate bioenergy in a short experimental time frame while the monospecies E. coli system generated significantly less bioenergy. A combination of E. coli and S. oneidensis in the ratio of 1:9 (v:v) significantly enhanced the experimental time frame and magnitude of bioenergy generation. The synergistic effect is suggested to arise from E. coli and S. oneidensis utilizing different nutrients as electron donors and effect of flavins secreted by S. oneidensis. Confocal images confirmed the presence of biofilms and point towards their importance in generating bioenergy in MFCs.

Predicted avian responses to bioenergy development scenarios in an intensive agricultural landscape

USGS Publications Warehouse

Uden, Daniel R.; Allen, Craig R.; Mitchell, Rob B.; McCoy, Tim D.; Guan, Qingfeng

2015-01-01

Conversion of native prairie to agriculture has increased food and bioenergy production but decreased wildlife habitat. However, enrollment of highly erodible cropland in conservation programs has compensated for some grassland loss. In the future, climate change and production of second-generation perennial biofuel crops could further transform agricultural landscapes and increase or decrease grassland area. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is an alternative biofuel feedstock that may be economically and environmentally superior to maize (Zea mays) grain for ethanol production on marginally productive lands. Switchgrass could benefit farmers economically and increase grassland area, but there is uncertainty as to how conversions between rowcrops, switchgrass monocultures and conservation grasslands might occur and affect wildlife. To explore potential impacts on grassland birds, we developed four agricultural land-use change scenarios for an intensively cultivated landscape, each driven by potential future climatic changes and ensuing irrigation limitations, ethanol demand, commodity prices, and continuation of a conservation program. For each scenario, we calculated changes in area for landcover classes and predicted changes in grassland bird abundances. Overall, birds responded positively to the replacement of rowcrops with switchgrass and negatively to the conversion of conservation grasslands to switchgrass or rowcrops. Landscape context and interactions between climate, crop water use, and irrigation availability could influence future land-use, and subsequently, avian habitat quality and quantity. Switchgrass is likely to provide higher quality avian habitat than rowcrops but lower quality habitat than conservation grasslands, and therefore, may most benefit birds in heavily cultivated, irrigation dependent landscapes under warmer and drier conditions, where economic profitability may also encourage conversions to drought tolerant bioenergy feedstocks.

Incorporating Bioenergy in Sustainable Landscape Designs Workshop Two: Agricultural Landscapes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Negri, M. Cristina; Ssegane, H.

The Bioenergy Technologies Office hosted two workshops on Incorporating Bioenergy in Sustainable Landscape Designs with Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories in 2014. The second workshop focused on agricultural landscapes and took place in Argonne, IL from June 24—26, 2014. The workshop brought together experts to discuss how landscape design can contribute to the deployment and assessment of sustainable bioenergy. This report summarizes the discussions that occurred at this particular workshop.

Determination of Indonesian palm-oil-based bioenergy sustainability indicators using fuzzy inference system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arkeman, Y.; Rizkyanti, R. A.; Hambali, E.

2017-05-01

Development of Indonesian palm-oil-based bioenergy faces an international challenge regarding to sustainability issue, indicated by the establishment of standards on sustainable bioenergy. Currently, Indonesia has sustainability standards limited to palm-oil cultivation, while other standards are lacking appropriateness for Indonesian palm-oil-based bioenergy sustainability regarding to real condition in Indonesia. Thus, Indonesia requires sustainability indicators for Indonesian palm-oil-based bioenergy to gain recognition and easiness in marketing it. Determination of sustainability indicators was accomplished through three stages, which were preliminary analysis, indicator assessment (using fuzzy inference system), and system validation. Global Bioenergy partnership (GBEP) was used as the standard for the assessment because of its general for use, internationally accepted, and it contained balanced proportion between environment, economic, and social aspects. Result showed that the number of sustainability indicators using FIS method are 21 indicators. The system developed has an accuracy of 85%.

The impact of biotechnological advances on the future of US bioenergy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Davison, Brian H.; Brandt, Craig C.; Guss, Adam M.

Modern biotechnology has the potential to substantially advance the feasibility, structure, and efficiency of future biofuel supply chains. Advances might be direct or indirect. A direct advance would be improving the efficiency of biochemical conversion processes and feedstock production. Direct advances in processing may involve developing improved enzymes and bacteria to convert lignocellulosic feedstocks to ethanol. Progress in feedstock production could include enhancing crop yields via genetic modification or the selection of specific natural variants and breeds. Other direct results of biotechnology might increase the production of fungible biofuels and bioproducts, which would impact the supply chain. Indirect advances mightmore » include modifications to dedicated bioenergy crops that enable them to grow on marginal lands rather than land needed for food production. This study assesses the feasibility and advantages of near-future (10-year) biotechnological developments for a US biomass-based supply chain for bioenergy production. We assume a simplified supply chain of feedstock, logistics and land use, conversion, and products and utilization. The primary focus is how likely developments in feedstock production and conversion technologies will impact bioenergy and biofuels in the USA; a secondary focus is other innovative uses of biotechnologies in the energy arenas. The assessment addresses near-term biofuels based on starch, sugar, and cellulosic feedstocks and considers some longer-term options, such as oil-crop and algal technologies.« less

The impact of biotechnological advances on the future of US bioenergy

DOE PAGES

Davison, Brian H.; Brandt, Craig C.; Guss, Adam M.; ...

2015-05-14

Modern biotechnology has the potential to substantially advance the feasibility, structure, and efficiency of future biofuel supply chains. Advances might be direct or indirect. A direct advance would be improving the efficiency of biochemical conversion processes and feedstock production. Direct advances in processing may involve developing improved enzymes and bacteria to convert lignocellulosic feedstocks to ethanol. Progress in feedstock production could include enhancing crop yields via genetic modification or the selection of specific natural variants and breeds. Other direct results of biotechnology might increase the production of fungible biofuels and bioproducts, which would impact the supply chain. Indirect advances mightmore » include modifications to dedicated bioenergy crops that enable them to grow on marginal lands rather than land needed for food production. This study assesses the feasibility and advantages of near-future (10-year) biotechnological developments for a US biomass-based supply chain for bioenergy production. We assume a simplified supply chain of feedstock, logistics and land use, conversion, and products and utilization. The primary focus is how likely developments in feedstock production and conversion technologies will impact bioenergy and biofuels in the USA; a secondary focus is other innovative uses of biotechnologies in the energy arenas. The assessment addresses near-term biofuels based on starch, sugar, and cellulosic feedstocks and considers some longer-term options, such as oil-crop and algal technologies.« less

Comparing net ecosystem carbon dioxide exchange at adjacent commercial bioenergy and conventional cropping systems in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morrison, Ross; Brooks, Milo; Evans, Jonathan; Finch, Jon; Rowe, Rebecca; Rylett, Daniel; McNamara, Niall

2016-04-01

The conversion of agricultural land to bioenergy plantations represents one option in the national and global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions whilst meeting future energy demand. Despite an increase in the area of (e.g. perennial) bioenergy crops in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the biophysical and biogeochemical impacts of large scale conversion of arable and other land cover types to bioenergy cropping systems remain poorly characterised and uncertain. Here, the results of four years of eddy covariance (EC) flux measurements of net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) obtained at a commercial farm in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom (UK) are reported. CO2 flux measurements are presented and compared for arable crops (winter wheat, oilseed rape, spring barely) and plantations of the perennial biofuel crops Miscanthus x. giganteus (C4) and short rotation coppice (SRC) willow (Salix sp.,C3). Ecosystem light and temperature response functions were used to analyse and compare temporal trends and spatial variations in NEE across the three land covers. All three crops were net in situ sinks for atmospheric CO2 but were characterised by large temporal and between site variability in NEE. Environmental and biological controls driving the spatial and temporal variations in CO2 exchange processes, as well as the influences of land management, will be analysed and discussed.

Scenarios of global agricultural biomass harvest reveal conflicts and trade-offs for bioenergy with CCS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Powell, Tom; Lenton, Tim

2013-04-01

We assess the quantitative potential for future land management to help rebalance the global carbon cycle by actively removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere with simultaneous bio-energy offsets of CO2 emissions, whilst meeting global food demand, preserving natural ecosystems and minimising CO2 emissions from land use change. Four alternative future scenarios are considered out to 2050 with different combinations of high or low technology food production and high or low meat diets. Natural ecosystems are protected except when additional land is necessary to fulfil the dietary demands of the global population. Dedicated bio-energy crops can only be grown on land that is already under management but is no longer needed for food production. We find that there is only room for dedicated bio-energy crops if there is a marked increase in the efficiency of food production (sustained annual yield growth of 1%, shifts towards more efficient animals like pigs and poultry, and increased recycling of wastes and residues). If there is also a return to lower meat diets, biomass energy with carbon storage (BECS) as CO2 and biochar could remove up to 4.0 Pg C per year in 2050. With the current trend to higher meat diets there is only room for limited expansion of bio-energy crops after 2035 and instead BECS must be based largely on biomass residues, removing up to 1.5 Pg C per year in. A high-meat, low-efficiency future would be a catastrophe for natural ecosystems (and thus for the humans that depend on their services) with around 8.5 Gha under cultivation in 2050. When included in a simple earth system model with a technological mitigation CO2 emission baseline these produce atmospheric CO2 concentrations of ~ 450-525ppm in 2050. In addition we assess the potential for future biodiversity loss under the scenarios due to three interacting factors; energy withdrawal from ecosystems due to biomass harvest, habitat loss due to land-use change, and climate change. Forecasts of committed global biodiversity loss in 2050 (from 2000 levels) vary by more than a factor of two across the scenarios. The greatest biodiversity loss is forecast in the 'high meat low efficiency' scenario with roughly equal contributions from biomass harvest and climate change, and a smaller land-use change contribution. The smallest biodiversity loss is forecast in the 'high meat high efficiency' scenario and is mostly due to biomass harvest, followed by climate change. Climate change is lowest in the 'low meat high efficiency' efficiency scenario thanks to BECCS based on bio-energy crops, but the resulting withdrawal of energy from ecosystems has a greater negative impact on biodiversity than the positive effect of less climate change. This suggests that using bio-energy to tackle climate change in order to limit biodiversity loss would instead have the opposite effect.

Functional genomics of bio-energy plants and related patent activities.

PubMed

Jiang, Shu-Ye; Ramachandran, Srinivasan

2013-04-01

With dwindling fossil oil resources and increased economic growth of many developing countries due to globalization, energy driven from an alternative source such as bio-energy in a sustainable fashion is the need of the hour. However, production of energy from biological source is relatively expensive due to low starch and sugar contents of bioenergy plants leading to lower oil yield and reduced quality along with lower conversion efficiency of feedstock. In this context genetic improvement of bio-energy plants offers a viable solution. In this manuscript, we reviewed the current status of functional genomics studies and related patent activities in bio-energy plants. Currently, genomes of considerable bio-energy plants have been sequenced or are in progress and also large amount of expression sequence tags (EST) or cDNA sequences are available from them. These studies provide fundamental data for more reliable genome annotation and as a result, several genomes have been annotated in a genome-wide level. In addition to this effort, various mutagenesis tools have also been employed to develop mutant populations for characterization of genes that are involved in bioenergy quantitative traits. With the progress made on functional genomics of important bio-energy plants, more patents were filed with a significant number of them focusing on genes and DNA sequences which may involve in improvement of bio-energy traits including higher yield and quality of starch, sugar and oil. We also believe that these studies will lead to the generation of genetically altered plants with improved tolerance to various abiotic and biotic stresses.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Koponen, Kati; Soimakallio, Sampo; Kline, Keith L.

In order to understand the climate effects of a bioenergy system, a comparison between the bioenergy system and a reference system is required. The reference system describes the situation that occurs in the absence of the bioenergy system with respect to the use of land, energy, and materials. The importance of reference systems is discussed in the literature but guidance on choosing suitable reference systems for assessing climate effects of bioenergy is limited. The reference system should align with the purpose of the study. Transparency of reference system assumptions is essential for proper interpretation of bioenergy assessments. This paper presentsmore » guidance for selecting suitable reference systems. Particular attention is given to choosing the land reference. If the goal is to study the climate effects of bioenergy as a part of total anthropogenic activity the reference system should illustrate what is expected in the absence of human activities. In such a case the suitable land reference is natural regeneration, and energy or material reference systems are not relevant. If the goal is to assess the effect of a change in bioenergy use, the reference system should incorporate human activities. In this case suitable reference systems describe the most likely alternative uses of the land, energy and materials in the absence of the change in bioenergy use. The definition of the reference system is furthermore subject to the temporal scope of the study. In practice, selecting and characterizing reference systems will involve various choices and uncertainties which should be considered carefully. As a result, it can be instructive to consider how alternative reference systems influence the results and conclusions drawn from bioenergy assessments.« less

State Bioenergy Primer: Information and Resources for States on Issues, Opportunities, and Options for Advancing Bioenergy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Byrnett, D. S.; Mulholland, D.; Zinsmeister, E.

One renewable energy option that states frequently consider to meet their clean energy goals is the use of biomass resources to develop bioenergy. Bioenergy includes bioheat, biopower, biofuels, and bioproducts. This document provides an overview of biomass feedstocks, basic information about biomass conversion technologies, and a discussion of benefits and challenges of bioenergy options. The Primer includes a step-wise framework, resources, and tools for determining the availability of feedstocks, assessing potential markets for biomass, and identifying opportunities for action at the state level. Each chapter contains a list of selected resources and tools that states can use to explore topicsmore » in further detail.« less

The global technical potential of bio-energy in 2050 considering sustainability constraints

PubMed Central

Haberl, Helmut; Beringer, Tim; Bhattacharya, Sribas C; Erb, Karl-Heinz; Hoogwijk, Monique

2010-01-01

Bio-energy, that is, energy produced from organic non-fossil material of biological origin, is promoted as a substitute for non-renewable (e.g., fossil) energy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and dependency on energy imports. At present, global bio-energy use amounts to approximately 50 EJ/yr, about 10% of humanity's primary energy supply. We here review recent literature on the amount of bio-energy that could be supplied globally in 2050, given current expectations on technology, food demand and environmental targets (‘technical potential’). Recent studies span a large range of global bio-energy potentials from ≈30 to over 1000 EJ/yr. In our opinion, the high end of the range is implausible because of (1) overestimation of the area available for bio-energy crops due to insufficient consideration of constraints (e.g., area for food, feed or nature conservation) and (2) too high yield expectations resulting from extrapolation of plot-based studies to large, less productive areas. According to this review, the global technical primary bio-energy potential in 2050 is in the range of 160–270 EJ/yr if sustainability criteria are considered. The potential of bio-energy crops is at the lower end of previously published ranges, while residues from food production and forestry could provide significant amounts of energy based on an integrated optimization (‘cascade utilization’) of biomass flows. PMID:24069093

Joint BioEnergy Institute

ScienceCinema

Keasling, Jay; Simmons, Blake; Tartaglino, Virginia; Baidoo, Edward; Kothari, Ankita

2018-05-11

The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Research Center dedicated to developing advanced biofuels—liquid fuels derived from the solar energy stored in plant biomass that can replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels.

Energy Systems Laboratory Groundbreaking

ScienceCinema

Hill, David; Otter, C.L.; Simpson, Mike; Rogers, J.W.

2018-05-11

INL recently broke ground for a research facility that will house research programs for bioenergy, advanced battery systems, and new hybrid energy systems that integrate renewable, fossil and nuclear energy sources. Here's video from the groundbreaking ceremony for INL's new Energy Systems Laboratory. You can learn more about CAES research at http://www.facebook.com/idahonationallaboratory.

Molecular identification and genetic diversity analysis of Chinese sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids) varieties using SSR markers

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids) is an important sugar and renewable bioenergy crop. However, its complex aneupolyploidy genome and vegetative mode of propagation often cause difficulty in selection and some variety identity issues in a breeding program. Therefore, the present study was set up to ...

Bioenergy potential of the United States constrained by satellite observations of existing productivity

USGS Publications Warehouse

Reed, Sasha C.; Smith, William K.; Cleveland, Cory C.; Miller, Norman L.; Running, Steven W.

2012-01-01

Background/Question/Methods Currently, the United States (U.S.) supplies roughly half the world’s biofuel (secondary bioenergy), with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) stipulating an additional three-fold increase in annual production by 2022. Implicit in such energy targets is an associated increase in annual biomass demand (primary bioenergy) from roughly 2.9 to 7.4 exajoules (EJ; 1018 Joules). Yet, many of the factors used to estimate future bioenergy potential are relatively unresolved, bringing into question the practicality of the EISA’s ambitious bioenergy targets. Here, our objective was to constrain estimates of primary bioenergy potential (PBP) for the conterminous U.S. using satellite-derived net primary productivity (NPP) data (measured for every 1 km2 of the 7.2 million km2 of vegetated land in the conterminous U.S) as the most geographically explicit measure of terrestrial growth capacity. Results/Conclusions We show that the annual primary bioenergy potential (PBP) of the conterminous U.S. realistically ranges from approximately 5.9 (± 1.4) to 22.2 (± 4.4) EJ, depending on land use. The low end of this range represents current harvest residuals, an attractive potential energy source since no additional harvest land is required. In contrast, the high end represents an annual harvest over an additional 5.4 million km2 or 75% of vegetated land in the conterminous U.S. While we identify EISA energy targets as achievable, our results indicate that meeting such targets using current technology would require either an 80% displacement of current croplands or the conversion of 60% of total rangelands. Our results differ from previous evaluations in that we use high resolution, satellite-derived NPP as an upper-envelope constraint on bioenergy potential, which removes the need for extrapolation of plot-level observed yields over large spatial areas. Establishing realistically constrained estimates of bioenergy potential seems a critical next step for effectively incorporating bioenergy into future U.S. energy portfolios.

Can the Results of Biodiversity-Ecosystem Productivity Studies Be Translated to Bioenergy Production?

DOE PAGES

Dickson, Timothy L.; Gross, Katherine L.

2015-09-11

Biodiversity experiments show that increases in plant diversity can lead to greater biomass production, and some researchers suggest that high diversity plantings should be used for bioenergy production. However, many methods used in past biodiversity experiments are impractical for bioenergy plantings. For example, biodiversity experiments often use intensive management such as hand weeding to maintain low diversity plantings and exclude unplanted species, but this would not be done for bioenergy plantings. Also, biodiversity experiments generally use high seeding densities that would be too expensive for bioenergy plantings. Here we report the effects of biodiversity on biomass production from two studiesmore » of more realistic bioenergy crop plantings in southern Michigan, USA. One study involved comparing production between switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) monocultures and species-rich prairie plantings on private farm fields that were managed similarly to bioenergy plantings. The other study was an experiment where switchgrass was planted in monoculture and in combination with increasingly species-rich native prairie mixtures. Overall, we found that bioenergy plantings with higher species richness did not produce more biomass than switchgrass monocultures. The lack of a positive relationship between planted species richness and production in our studies may be due to several factors. Non-planted species (weeds) were not removed from our studies and these non-planted species may have competed with planted species and also prevented realized species richness from equaling planted species richness. Also, we found that low seeding density of individual species limited the biomass production of these individual species. Finally, production in future bioenergy plantings with high species richness may be increased by using a high density of inexpensive seed from switchgrass and other highly productive species, and future efforts to translate the results of biodiversity experiments to bioenergy plantings should consider the role of seeding density.« less

Can the Results of Biodiversity-Ecosystem Productivity Studies Be Translated to Bioenergy Production?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dickson, Timothy L.; Gross, Katherine L.

Biodiversity experiments show that increases in plant diversity can lead to greater biomass production, and some researchers suggest that high diversity plantings should be used for bioenergy production. However, many methods used in past biodiversity experiments are impractical for bioenergy plantings. For example, biodiversity experiments often use intensive management such as hand weeding to maintain low diversity plantings and exclude unplanted species, but this would not be done for bioenergy plantings. Also, biodiversity experiments generally use high seeding densities that would be too expensive for bioenergy plantings. Here we report the effects of biodiversity on biomass production from two studiesmore » of more realistic bioenergy crop plantings in southern Michigan, USA. One study involved comparing production between switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) monocultures and species-rich prairie plantings on private farm fields that were managed similarly to bioenergy plantings. The other study was an experiment where switchgrass was planted in monoculture and in combination with increasingly species-rich native prairie mixtures. Overall, we found that bioenergy plantings with higher species richness did not produce more biomass than switchgrass monocultures. The lack of a positive relationship between planted species richness and production in our studies may be due to several factors. Non-planted species (weeds) were not removed from our studies and these non-planted species may have competed with planted species and also prevented realized species richness from equaling planted species richness. Also, we found that low seeding density of individual species limited the biomass production of these individual species. Finally, production in future bioenergy plantings with high species richness may be increased by using a high density of inexpensive seed from switchgrass and other highly productive species, and future efforts to translate the results of biodiversity experiments to bioenergy plantings should consider the role of seeding density.« less

Synergistic Microbial Consortium for Bioenergy Generation from Complex Natural Energy Sources

PubMed Central

Yam, Joey Kuok Hoong; Chua, Song-Lin; Zhang, Qichun; Cao, Bin; Chye, Joachim Loo Say

2014-01-01

Microbial species have evolved diverse mechanisms for utilization of complex carbon sources. Proper combination of targeted species can affect bioenergy production from natural waste products. Here, we established a stable microbial consortium with Escherichia coli and Shewanella oneidensis in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to produce bioenergy from an abundant natural energy source, in the form of the sarcocarp harvested from coconuts. This component is mostly discarded as waste. However, through its usage as a feedstock for MFCs to produce useful energy in this study, the sarcocarp can be utilized meaningfully. The monospecies S. oneidensis system was able to generate bioenergy in a short experimental time frame while the monospecies E. coli system generated significantly less bioenergy. A combination of E. coli and S. oneidensis in the ratio of 1 : 9 (v : v) significantly enhanced the experimental time frame and magnitude of bioenergy generation. The synergistic effect is suggested to arise from E. coli and S. oneidensis utilizing different nutrients as electron donors and effect of flavins secreted by S. oneidensis. Confocal images confirmed the presence of biofilms and point towards their importance in generating bioenergy in MFCs. PMID:25097866

Adam Bratis - Associate Laboratory Director, Bioenergy Science and

Science.gov Websites

internally and externally. Bratis also leads the Renewable Carbon Fiber Consortium (RCFC), which is a multi -year, multi-institution research consortium made up of national lab, academic, and industrial partners

Uncertainty in Bioenergy Scenarios for California: Lessons Learned in Communicating with Different Stakeholder Groups

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Youngs, H.

2013-12-01

Projecting future bioenergy use involves incorporating several critical inter-related parameters with high uncertainty. Among these are: technology adoption, infrastructure and capacity building, investment, political will, and public acceptance. How, when, where, and to what extent the various bioenergy options are implemented has profound effects on the environmental impacts incurred. California serves as an interesting case study for bioenergy implementation because it has very strong competing forces that can influence these critical factors. The state has aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals, which will require some biofuels, and has invested accordingly on new technology. At the same time, political will and public acceptance of bioenergy has wavered, seriously stalling bioenergy expansion efforts. We have constructed scenarios for bioenergy implementation in California to 2050, in conjunction with efforts to reach AB32 GHG reduction goals of 80% below 1990 emissions. The state has the potential to produce 3 to 10 TJ of biofuels and electricity; however, this potential will be severely limited in some scenarios. This work examines sources of uncertainty in bioenergy implementation, how uncertainty is or is not incorporated into future bioenergy scenarios, and what this means for assessing environmental impacts. How uncertainty is communicated and perceived also affects future scenarios. Often, there is a disconnect between scenarios for widespread implementation and the actual development of individual projects, resulting in "artificial uncertainty" with very real impacts. Bringing stakeholders to the table is only the first step. Strategies to tailor and stage discussions of uncertainty to stakeholder groups is equally important. Lessons learned in the process of communicating the Calfornia's Energy Future biofuels assessment will be discussed.

2012 U.S. Department of Energy: Joint Genome Institute: Progress Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gilbert, David

2013-01-01

The mission of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) is to serve the diverse scientific community as a user facility, enabling the application of large-scale genomics and analysis of plants, microbes, and communities of microbes to address the DOE mission goals in bioenergy and the environment. The DOE JGI's sequencing efforts fall under the Eukaryote Super Program, which includes the Plant and Fungal Genomics Programs; and the Prokaryote Super Program, which includes the Microbial Genomics and Metagenomics Programs. In 2012, several projects made news for their contributions to energy and environment research.

Life-Cycle Analysis of Energy Use, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Water Consumption in the 2016 MYPP Algal Biofuel Scenarios

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Frank, Edward; Pegallapati, Ambica; Davis, Ryan

2016-06-16

The Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) Multi-year Program Plan (MYPP) describes the bioenergy objectives pursued by BETO, the strategies for achieving those objectives, the current state of technology (SOT), and a number of design cases that explore cost and operational performance required to advance the SOT towards middle and long term goals (MYPP, 2016). Two options for converting algae to biofuel intermediates were considered in the MYPP, namely algal biofuel production via lipid extraction and algal biofuel production by thermal processing. The first option, lipid extraction, is represented by the Combined Algae Processing (CAP) pathway in whichmore » algae are hydrolyzed in a weak acid pretreatment step. The treated slurry is fermented for ethanol production from sugars. The fermentation stillage contains most of the lipids from the original biomass, which are recovered through wet solvent extraction. The process residuals after lipid extraction, which contain much of the original mass of amino acids and proteins, are directed to anaerobic digestion (AD) for biogas production and recycle of N and P nutrients. The second option, thermal processing, comprises direct hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of the wet biomass, separation of aqueous, gas, and oil phases, and treatment of the aqueous phase with catalytic hydrothermal gasification (CHG) to produce biogas and to recover N and P nutrients.« less

A bioenergy feedstock/vegetable double-cropping system

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Certain warm-season vegetable crops may lend themselves to bioenergy double-cropping systems, which involve growing a winter annual bioenergy feedstock crop followed by a summer annual crop. The objective of the study was to compare crop productivity and weed communities in different pumpkin product...

Creating dedicated bioenergy crops

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Bioenergy is one of the current mechanisms of producing renewable energy to reduce our use of nonrenewable fossil fuels and to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Humans have been using bioenergy since we first learned to create and control fire - burning manure, peat, and wood to cook food...

Environmental assessment of bioenergy technologies application in Russia, including their impact on the balance of greenhouse gases

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andreeva, Irina; Vasenev, Ivan

2017-04-01

In recent years, Russia adopted a policy towards increasing of the share of renewable energy in total amount of used energy, albeit with some delay comparing to the EU countries and the USA. It was expected that the use of biofuels over time will reduce significantly the dependency of Russian economy on fossil fuels, increase its competitiveness, and increase Russian contribution to the prevention of global climate changes. Russia has significant bio-energy potential and resources which are characterized by great diversity due to the large extent of the territory, which require systematic studies and environmental assessment of used bio-energy technologies. Results of research carried at the Laboratory of agroecological monitoring, modeling and prediction of ecosystems RSAU-MTAA demonstrated significant differences in the assessment of the environmental, economic and social effects of biofuel production and use, depending on the species of bio-energy crops, regional soil-ecological and agro-climatic characteristics, applied farming systems and production processes. The total area of temporarily unused and fallow land, which could be allocated to the active agricultural use in Russia, according to various estimates, ranges from 20 to 33 million hectares, which removes the problem, typical of most European countries, of adverse agro-ecological changes in land use connected with the expansion of bio-energy crops cultivation. However, the expansion of biofuel production through the use of fallow land and conversion of natural lands has as a consequence the problem of greenhouse gas emissions due to land use changes, which, according to FAO, could be even higher than CO2 emission from fossil fuels for some of bio-energy raw materials and production systems. Assessment of the total impacts of biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions in the Russian conditions should be based on regionally adapted calculations of flows throughout the entire life cycle of production, taking into account conditions of the particular type of agricultural landscape, possible changes in the characteristics and structure of land use, direct and indirect effects on the ecosystem components and biodiversity. North-Western, Central and Southern regions of the European part of Russia have great potential to produce biofuels. While there is a clearly expressed zonal agroclimatic potential of growing bio-energy crops (1.5 times increase of PAR in the forest-steppe zone in comparison with the area of the southern taiga) and there is a steady trend of further growth with a parallel increase in the amount of rainfall and the amount of active temperatures for the XXI century forecast. Particular attention should be payed to areas with high population density and industrial production with the possibility of combining the cultivation of oilseed rape for the bio-energy purpose with phytoremediation and soil improving effect of the contaminated and unproductive soils. The increasing potential of atmospheric carbon's temporary binding in the biomass of the bio-energy crops and consequently in the biofuels produced from them can significantly reduce total emissions of greenhouse gases in the conditions of the European part of Russia, but there is the need for more detailed balance calculation for specific soil and climatic conditions and land-use systems.

2015 Peer Review Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None, None

In the spring and summer of 2015, the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO or the Office) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) implemented an external peer review of the projects in its research, development and demonstration (RD&D) portfolio. The Office manages a diverse portfolio of technologies across the spectrum of applied RD&D within the dynamic context of changing budgets and Administration priorities. The Office portfolio is organized according to the biomass-to-bioenergy supply chain—from the feedstock source to the end user (see Figure 1)—with major focus on feedstock supply and biomass conversion. The 2015 Project Peer Review took place March 23-27,more » 2015, outside of Washington, D.C., in Alexandria, Virginia, and evaluated most of the publicly funded projects in BETO’s portfolio. The subsequent Program Management Review took place on June 25, 2015, in Washington, D.C., and provided an Office- level assessment of strategic planning and programmatic initiatives. The peer review process enables external stakeholders to provide feedback on the responsible use of taxpayer funding and develop recommendations for the most efficient and effective ways to accelerate the development of an advanced bioenergy industry. The planning and execution of these reviews was completed over the course of 10 months, and this report includes the results of both events.« less

Short term impacts provide a management window for minimizing invasions from bioenergy crops

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

In anticipation of the expansion of perennial bioenergy cultivation, we experimentally introduced Miscanthus sinensis and Miscanthus × giganteus (two non-native candidate bioenergy species) into two different non-crop habitats (old field and flood-plain forest) to evaluate their establishment succes...

Advancing Sustainable Bioenergy; Evolving Stakeholder Interests and the Relevance of Research

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainable bioenergy production depends on the resolution of both scientific and nontechnical barriers to its development. We focus on the need to recognize and manage stakeholder diversity as an example of the latter. As a complex issue domain, bioenergy involves a disparate se...

Microalgae Compositional Analysis Laboratory Procedures | Bioenergy | NREL

Science.gov Websites

these methods build on years of research in algal biomass analysis. By combining the appropriate LAPs and Ash in Algal Biomass This procedure describes the methods used to determine the amount of moisture

Soils and water [Chapter 18

Treesearch

Goran Berndes; Heather Youngs; Maria Victoria Ramos Ballester; Heitor Cantarella; Annette L. Cowie; Graham Jewitt; Luiz Antonio Martinelli; Dan Neary

2015-01-01

Bioenergy production can have positive or negative impacts on soil and water. To best understand these impacts, the effects of bioenergy systems on water and soil resources should be assessed as part of an integrated analysis considering environmental, social and economic dimensions. Bioenergy production systems that are strategically integrated in the landscape to...

The biophysical link between climate, water, and vegetation in bioenergy agro-ecosystems

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Land use change for bioenergy feedstocks is likely to intensify as energy demand rises simultaneously with increased pressure to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Initial assessments of the impact of adopting bioenergy crops as a significant energy source have largely focused on the potential for b...

Indicators for assessing socioeconomic sustainability of bioenergy systems. A short list of practical measures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dale, Virginia H.; Efroymson, Rebecca Ann; Kline, Keith L.

2012-10-16

Indicators are needed to assess both socioeconomic and environmental sustainability of bioenergy systems. Effective indicators can help to identify and quantify the sustainability attributes of bioenergy options. We identify 16 socioeconomic indicators that fall into the categories of social well-being, energy security, trade, profitability, resource conservation, and social acceptability. The suite of indicators is predicated on the existence of basic institutional frameworks to provide governance, legal, regulatory and enforcement services. Indicators were selected to be practical, sensitive to stresses, unambiguous, anticipatory, predictive, calibrated with known variability, and sufficient when considered collectively. The utility of each indicator, methods for its measurement,more » and applications appropriate for the context of particular bioenergy systems are described along with future research needs. Together, this suite of indicators is hypothesized to reflect major socioeconomic effects of the full supply chain for bioenergy, including feedstock production and logistics, conversion to biofuels, biofuel logistics and biofuel end uses. Ten of those 16 indicators are proposed to be the minimum list of practical measures of socioeconomic aspects of bioenergy sustainability. Coupled with locally-prioritized environmental indicators, we propose that these socioeconomic indicators can provide a basis to quantify and evaluate sustainability of bioenergy systems across many regions in which they will be deployed.« less

Hydrologic Impacts of Developing Forest-based Bioenergy Feedstock in Wisconsin, USA and Entre Rios, Argentina Watersheds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heidari, A.; Mayer, A. S.; Watkins, D. W., Jr.

2017-12-01

Growing demand for biomass-derived fuels has resulted in an increase in bioenergy projects across the Americas in recent years, a trend that is expected to continue. However, the expansion of bioenergy feedstock production might cause unintended environmental consequences. Accordingly, the goal of this research is to investigate how forest-based bioenergy development across the Americas may affect hydrological systems on a watershed scale. This study focuses on biofuel feedstock production with hybrid poplar cultivation in a snow-dominated watershed in northern Wisconsin, USA, and eucalyptus cultivation in a warm and temperate watershed in Entre Rios, Argentina. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), calibrated and validated for the two watersheds, is used to evaluate the effects of land use change corresponding to a range of biofuel development scenarios. The land use change scenarios include rules for limiting the location of the biofuel feedstock, and rotation time. These variables in turn impact the magnitude and timing of runoff and evapotranspiration. In Wisconsin, long term daily streamflow simulations indicate that planting poplar will increase evapotranspiration and decrease water yield, primarily through reduced baseflow contributions to streamflow. Results are also presented in terms of changes in flow relative to biomass production, to understand the sensitivity of potential biofuel generation to hydrologic impacts, and vice versa. In the end, alternative management practices were evaluated to mitigate the impacts. Keywords: Biofuel; Soil and Water Assessment Tool; Poplar; Baseflow; Evapotranspiration

Carbon accumulation in a two year sugarcane rotation in Hawai’i, USA

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Sugarcane has been examined as a bioenergy feedstock for producing aviation fuel in the Pacific Basin. Hawaii has been a major producer of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) in the Pacific, with its typical two-year production cycle having some of the highest reported rates of sugar production in...

Carbon accounting of forest bioenergy: from model calibrations to policy options (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lamers, P.

2013-12-01

Programs to stimulate biomass use for the production of heating/cooling and electricity have been implemented in many countries as part of their greenhouse gas emission reduction strategies. Critiques claim however that the use of forest biomass, e.g. as a replacement of hard-coal in large-scale power plants or mineral oil fuelled residential heating boilers, countervails carbon saving and thus also climate change mitigation strategies, at least in the short-term, as forest biomass combustion releases previously stored biogenic carbon back into the atmosphere. While there seems general agreement that carbon emitted from bioenergy combustion was and will again be sequestered from the atmosphere given a sustainable biomass management system, there is inherent concern that carbon release and sequestration rates may not be in temporal balance with each other and eventually jeopardize mid-century carbon/temperature/climate targets. So far, biomass carbon accounting systems (including those that are part of regulatory standards) have not incorporated this potential temporal imbalance or ';carbon debt'. The potential carbon debt caused by wood harvest and the resulting time spans needed to reach pre-harvest carbon levels (payback) or those of a reference case (parity) have become important parameters for climate and bioenergy policy developments. The present range of analyses however varies in assumptions, regional scopes, and conclusions. Policy makers are confronted with this portfolio while needing to address the temporal carbon aspect in current regulations. In order to define policies for our carbon constrained world, it is critical to better understand the dimensions and regional differences of these carbon cycles. This paper/presentation discusses to what extent and under which circumstances (i.e. bioenergy systems) a temporal forest carbon imbalance could jeopardize future temperature and eventually climate targets. It further reviews the current state of knowledge in the field by comparing different state-of-the-art temporal forest carbon modeling efforts, and discusses whether or to what extent a deterministic ';carbon debt' accounting is possible and appropriate. It concludes upon the possible scientific and eventually political choices in temporal carbon accounting for regulatory frameworks including alternative options to address unintentional carbon losses within forest ecosystems/bioenergy systems.

Landscape control of nitrous oxide emissions during the transition from conservation reserve program to perennial grasses for bioenergy

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Future liquid fuel demand from renewable sources may, in part, be met by converting the seasonally wet portions of the landscape currently managed for soil and water conservation to perennial energy crops. However, this shift may increase nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, thus limiting the carbon benef...

Bio-energy Alliance High-Tonnage Bio-energy Crop Production and Conversion into Conventional Fuels

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Capareda, Sergio; El-Halwagi, Mahmoud; Hall, Kenneth R.

2012-11-30

Maintaining a predictable and sustainable supply of feedstock for bioenergy conversion is a major goal to facilitate the efficient transition to cellulosic biofuels. Our work provides insight into the complex interactions among agronomic, edaphic, and climatic factors that affect the sustainability of bioenergy crop yields. Our results provide science-based agronomic response measures that document how to better manage bioenergy sorghum production from planting to harvest. We show that harvest aids provide no significant benefit as a means to decrease harvest moisture or improve bioenergy yields. Our efforts to identify optimal seeding rates under varied edaphic and climatological conditions reinforce previousmore » findings that sorghum is a resilient plant that can efficiently adapt to changing population pressures by decreasing or increasing the numbers of additional shoots or tillers – where optimal seeding rates for high biomass photoperiod sensitive sorghum is 60,000 to 70,000 seeds per acre and 100,000 to 120,000 seeds per acre for sweet varieties. Our varietal adaptability trials revealed that high biomass photoperiod sensitive energy sorghum consistently outperforms conventional photoperiod insensitive sweet sorghum and high biomass forage sorghum as the preferred bioenergy sorghum type, with combined theoretical yields of both cellulosic and fermentable water-soluble sugars producing an average yield of 1,035 gallons of EtOH per acre. Our nitrogen trials reveal that sweet sorghums produce ample amounts of water-soluble sugars with minimal increases in nitrogen inputs, and that excess nitrogen can affect minor increases in biomass yields and cellulosic sugars but decrease bioenergy quality by decreasing water-soluble sugar concentrations and increasing ash content, specifically when plant tissue nitrogen concentrations exceed 0.6 %, dry weight basis. Finally, through our growth and re-growth trials, we show that single-cut high biomass sorghum bioenergy yields significantly exceed those of multiple-cut high biomass sorghum systems. Our agronomic yield and quality data will be uploaded to the Bioenergy KDF Website before the end of February 2013, with a date for public access to be determined pending peer-reviewed publication of our findings.« less

Efficient and sustainable deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage in mitigation pathways

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, E.; Moriyama, R.; Kurosawa, A.

2016-12-01

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is a key component of mitigation strategies in future socio-economic scenarios that aim to keep mean global temperature rise well below 2°C above pre-industrial, which would require net negative carbon emissions at the end of the 21st century. Also, in the Paris agreement from COP21, it is denoted "a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century" which could require large scale deployment of negative emissions technologies later in this century. Because of the additional requirement for land, developing sustainable low-carbon scenarios requires careful consideration of the land-use implications of large-scale BECCS. In this study, we present possible development strategies of low carbon scenarios that consider interaction of economically efficient deployment of bioenergy and/or BECCS technologies, biophysical limit of bioenergy productivity, and food production. In the evaluations, detailed bioenergy representations, including bioenergy feedstocks and conversion technologies with and without CCS, are implemented in an integrated assessment model GRAPE. Also, to overcome a general discrepancy about yield development between 'top-down' integrate assessment models and 'bottom-up' estimates, we applied yields changes of food and bioenergy crops consistent with process-based biophysical models; PRYSBI-2 (Process-Based Regional-Scale Yield Simulator with Bayesian Inference) for food crops, and SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) for bioenergy crops in changing climate conditions. Using the framework, economically viable strategy for implementing sustainable BECCS are evaluated.

Bioenergy Sustainability Analysis | Bioenergy | NREL

Science.gov Websites

and bioenergy systems produce benefits and also impacts to air, water, and land locally, regionally overlap are photos of water, a tree branch with a city in the background, two children walking in a field photo and contains the text: Environmental Sustainability: Climate, Soil quality, Water quality and

Landscape patterns of bioenergy in a changing climate: implications for crop allocation and land-use competition

Treesearch

Rose A. Graves; Scott M. Pearson; Monica G. Turner

2016-01-01

Rural landscapes face changing climate, shifting development pressure, and loss of agricultural land. Perennial bioenergy crops grown on existing agricultural land may provide an opportunity to conserve rural landscapes while addressing increased demand for biofuels. However, increased bioenergy production and changing land use raise concerns for tradeoffs...

Bioenergy Development Policy and Practice Must Recognize Potential Hydrologic Impacts: Lessons from the Americas.

PubMed

Watkins, David W; de Moraes, Márcia M G Alcoforado; Asbjornsen, Heidi; Mayer, Alex S; Licata, Julian; Lopez, Jose Gutierrez; Pypker, Thomas G; Molina, Vivianna Gamez; Marques, Guilherme Fernandes; Carneiro, Ana Cristina Guimaraes; Nuñez, Hector M; Önal, Hayri; da Nobrega Germano, Bruna

2015-12-01

Large-scale bioenergy production will affect the hydrologic cycle in multiple ways, including changes in canopy interception, evapotranspiration, infiltration, and the quantity and quality of surface runoff and groundwater recharge. As such, the water footprints of bioenergy sources vary significantly by type of feedstock, soil characteristics, cultivation practices, and hydro-climatic regime. Furthermore, water management implications of bioenergy production depend on existing land use, relative water availability, and competing water uses at a watershed scale. This paper reviews previous research on the water resource impacts of bioenergy production-from plot-scale hydrologic and nutrient cycling impacts to watershed and regional scale hydro-economic systems relationships. Primary gaps in knowledge that hinder policy development for integrated management of water-bioenergy systems are highlighted. Four case studies in the Americas are analyzed to illustrate relevant spatial and temporal scales for impact assessment, along with unique aspects of biofuel production compared to other agroforestry systems, such as energy-related conflicts and tradeoffs. Based on the case studies, the potential benefits of integrated resource management are assessed, as is the need for further case-specific research.

Bioenergy Development Policy and Practice Must Recognize Potential Hydrologic Impacts: Lessons from the Americas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Watkins, David W.; de Moraes, Márcia M. G. Alcoforado; Asbjornsen, Heidi; Mayer, Alex S.; Licata, Julian; Lopez, Jose Gutierrez; Pypker, Thomas G.; Molina, Vivianna Gamez; Marques, Guilherme Fernandes; Carneiro, Ana Cristina Guimaraes; Nuñez, Hector M.; Önal, Hayri; da Nobrega Germano, Bruna

2015-12-01

Large-scale bioenergy production will affect the hydrologic cycle in multiple ways, including changes in canopy interception, evapotranspiration, infiltration, and the quantity and quality of surface runoff and groundwater recharge. As such, the water footprints of bioenergy sources vary significantly by type of feedstock, soil characteristics, cultivation practices, and hydro-climatic regime. Furthermore, water management implications of bioenergy production depend on existing land use, relative water availability, and competing water uses at a watershed scale. This paper reviews previous research on the water resource impacts of bioenergy production—from plot-scale hydrologic and nutrient cycling impacts to watershed and regional scale hydro-economic systems relationships. Primary gaps in knowledge that hinder policy development for integrated management of water-bioenergy systems are highlighted. Four case studies in the Americas are analyzed to illustrate relevant spatial and temporal scales for impact assessment, along with unique aspects of biofuel production compared to other agroforestry systems, such as energy-related conflicts and tradeoffs. Based on the case studies, the potential benefits of integrated resource management are assessed, as is the need for further case-specific research.

Bioenergy costs and potentials with special attention to implications for the land system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Popp, A.; Lotze-Campen, H.; Dietrich, J.; Klein, D.; Bauer, N.; Krause, M.; Beringer, T.; Gerten, D.

2011-12-01

In the coming decades, an increasing competition for global land and water resources can be expected, due to rising demand for agricultural products, goals of nature conservation, and changing production conditions due to climate change. Especially biomass from cellulosic bioenergy crops, such as Miscanthus or poplar, is being proposed to play a substantial role in future energy systems if climate policy aims at stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration at low levels. However, the potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation remains unclear due to large uncertainties about future agricultural yield improvements, land availability for biomass plantations, and implications for the land system. In order to explore the cost-effective contribution of bioenergy to a low carbon transition with special attention to implications for the land system, we present a modeling framework with detailed biophysical and economic representation of the land and energy sector: We have linked the global dynamic vegetation and water balance model LPJmL (Bondeau et al. 2007, Rost et al. 2008), the global land and water use model MAgPIE (Lotze-Campen et al. 2008, Popp et al. 2010), and the global energy-economy-climate model ReMIND (Leimbach et al. 2009). In this modeling framework LPJmL supplies spatially explicit (0.5° resolution) agricultural yields as well as carbon and water stocks and fluxes. Based on this biophysical input MAgPIE delivers cost-optimized land use patterns (0.5° resolution), associated GHG emissions and rates of future yield increases in agricultural production. Moreover, shadow prices are calculated for irrigation water (as an indicator for water scarcity), food commodities, and bioenergy (as an indicator for changes in production costs) under different land use constraints such as forest conservation for climate change mitigation and as a contribution to biodiversity conservation. The energy-economy-climate model ReMIND generates the demand for bioenergy, taking into account the direct competition with other energy technology options for GHG mitigation, based on economic costs of bioenergy production. As a result, we find that bioenergy from specialized grassy and woody bioenergy crops can contribute approximately 100 EJ in 2055 and up to 300 EJ of primary energy in 2095. Protecting natural forests decreases biomass availability for energy production in the medium run, but not in the long run. Reducing the land available for agricultural use can partially be compensated for by higher rates of technological change in agriculture; however, bioenergy crops will occupy large shares of available cropland in both scenarios. In addition, our trade-off analysis indicates that forest protection combined with large-scale cultivation of dedicated bioenergy is likely to affect bioenergy potentials, but also to increase global food prices and increase water scarcity.

Catalytic Deoxygenation of Biomass Pyrolysis Vapors to Improve Bio-oil Stability

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dayton, David C.

2016-12-22

The President’s Advanced Energy Initiative called for a change in the way Americans fuel their vehicles to promote improved energy security. Increasing biofuels production from domestic lignocellulosic resources requires advanced technology development to achieve the aggressive targets set forth to reduce motor gasoline consumption by 20% in ten years (by 2017). The U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) Office of the Biomass Program (currently Bioenergy Technologies Office) is actively funding research and development in both biochemical and thermochemical conversion technologies to accelerate the deployment of biofuels technologies in the near future to meet the goals of the Advanced Energy Initiative. Thermochemicalmore » conversion technology options include both gasification and pyrolysis to enable the developing lignocellulosic biorefineries and maximize biomass resource utilization for production of biofuels.« less

The High School Students' Perceptions and Attitudes toward Bioenergy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Özbas, Serap

2016-01-01

This research, which was tried with 217 high school students, was carried out to determine the perceptions and attitudes related to the usage of bioenergy. The research results showed that the students had the perception that there would be lack of food due to global warming, but bioenergy would prevent the world from global warming. Moreover,…

Ecological Modernisation and Discourses on Rural Non-Wood Bioenergy Production in Finland from 1980 to 2005

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huttunen, Suvi

2009-01-01

Rural bioenergy production is currently a much debated question worldwide. It is closely connected to questions of environmental protection and rural development in both developing and industrial world. In Finland, rural bioenergy production has traditionally meant the production of wood fuels for heating purposes. The utilisation of forest…

76 FR 62050 - Issuance of a Loan Guarantee to Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas, LLC for the Abengoa...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-10-06

... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Issuance of a Loan Guarantee to Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas, LLC for... 2005 (EPAct 2005) to Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas, LLC (Abengoa) for construction and start-up... combination of biomass feedstocks, such as corn stover and wheat straw, to produce cellulosic ethanol and to...

Growing and Sustaining Communities with Bioenergy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Havill, Alice; Schultz, Donny; Falcon, Nigel

From Vero Beach, Florida, to Hugoton, Kansas, to Emmetsburg, Iowa, cellulosic ethanol biorefineries have had major impacts on communities and their residents. In other areas, bioenergy has significant potential to transform current and establish new industry. This short video illustrates how biorefineries and other bioenergy developments can benefit citizens, businesses, and whole communities, helping America’s rural economies grow and thrive.

Legacies in switchgrass resistance to and recovery from drought suggest that good years can sustain plants through bad years

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The warm-season perennial switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is a candidate bioenergy crop. To be successful, switchgrass production must be maintained on low-quality landscapes with minimal inputs while facing future climates that are expected to be more extreme and more variable. We propose that ant...

Sustainability analysis of bioenergy based land use change under climate change and variability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raj, C.; Chaubey, I.; Brouder, S. M.; Bowling, L. C.; Cherkauer, K. A.; Frankenberger, J.; Goforth, R. R.; Gramig, B. M.; Volenec, J. J.

2014-12-01

Sustainability analyses of futuristic plausible land use and climate change scenarios are critical in making watershed-scale decisions for simultaneous improvement of food, energy and water management. Bioenergy production targets for the US are anticipated to impact farming practices through the introduction of fast growing and high yielding perennial grasses/trees, and use of crop residues as bioenergy feedstocks. These land use/land management changes raise concern over potential environmental impacts of bioenergy crop production scenarios, both in terms of water availability and water quality; impacts that may be exacerbated by climate variability and change. The objective of the study was to assess environmental, economic and biodiversity sustainability of plausible bioenergy scenarios for two watersheds in Midwest US under changing climate scenarios. The study considers fourteen sustainability indicators under nine climate change scenarios from World Climate Research Programme's (WCRP's) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3). The distributed hydrological model SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) was used to simulate perennial bioenergy crops such as Miscanthus and switchgrass, and corn stover removal at various removal rates and their impacts on hydrology and water quality. Species Distribution Models (SDMs) developed to evaluate stream fish response to hydrology and water quality changes associated with land use change were used to quantify biodiversity sustainability of various bioenergy scenarios. The watershed-scale sustainability analysis was done in the St. Joseph River watershed located in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio; and the Wildcat Creek watershed, located in Indiana. The results indicate streamflow reduction at watershed outlet with increased evapotranspiration demands for high-yielding perennial grasses. Bioenergy crops in general improved in-stream water quality compared to conventional cropping systems (maize-soybean). Water quality benefits due to land use change were generally greater than the effects of climate change variability.

Process evaluation of the Regional Biomass Energy Program

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wilson, C.R.; Brown, M.A.; Perlack, R.D.

1994-03-01

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) established the Regional Biomass Energy Program (RBEP) in 1983 to increase the production and use of biomass energy resources. Through the creation of five regional program (the Great Lakes, Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Southeast, and West), the RBEP focuses on regionally specific needs and opportunities. In 1992, Oak Ridge National (ORNL) conducted a process evaluation of the RBEP Program designed to document and explain the development of the goals and strategies of the five regional programs; describe the economic and market context surrounding commercialization of bioenergy systems; assess the criteria used to select projects; describemore » experiences with cost sharing; identify program accomplishments in the transfer of information and technology; and offer recommendations for program improvement.« less

Biomass, Bioenergy and the Sustainability of Soils and Climate: What Role for Biochar?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sohi, Saran

2013-04-01

Biochar is the solid, carbon rich product of heating biomass with the exclusion of air (pyrolysis). Whereas charcoal is derived from wood, biochar is a co-product of energy capture and can derive from waste or non-waste, virgin or non-virgin biomass resources. But also, biochar is not a fuel - rather it is intended for the beneficial amendment of soil in agriculture, forestry and horticulture. This results in long-term storage of plant-derived carbon that could improve yield or efficiency of crop production, and/or mitigate trace gas emissions from the land. Life cycle analysis (LCA) shows that pyrolysis bioenergy with biochar production should offer considerably more carbon abatement than combustion, or gasification of the same feedstock. This has potential to link climate change mitigation to bioenergy and sustainable use of soil. But, in economic terms, the opportunity cost of producing biochar (reflecting the calorific value of its stored carbon) is inflated by bioenergy subsidies. This, combined with a lack of clear regulatory position and no mature pyrolysis technologies at large scale, means that pyrolysis-biochar systems (PBS) remain largely conceptual at the current time. Precise understanding of its function and an ability to predict its impact on different soils and crops with certainty, biochar should acquire a monetary value. Combining such knowledge with a system that monetizes climate change mitigation potential (such as carbon markets), could see schemes for producing and using biochar escalate - including a context for its deployment in biomass crops, or through pyrolysis of residues from other bioenergy processes. This talk explores the opportunity, challenges and risks in pursuing biochar production in various bioenergy contexts including enhanced sustainability of soil use in biomass crop production, improving the carbon balance and value chain in biofuel production, and using organic waste streams more effectively (including the processing of clean agricultural residues). Research knowledge that has emerged since 2005, when the term "biochar" was coined will be summarized (and currently resulting in over 200 research papers per year), highlighting the limits of predictability and certainty for biochar function and the extent to which these may ultimately be addressed. The policy context will be highlighted, including some recommendations and priorities for potential next steps.

Development of a black willow improvement program for biomass production in the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley

Treesearch

Randell J. Rousseau; Emile S. Gardiner; Theodor D. Leininger

2012-01-01

Black willow (Salix nigra Marsh.) has the potential to be a significant feedstock source for bioenergy and biofuels production in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV). This potential is based on a number of primary factors including rapid growth, ease of vegetative propagation, excellent rooting, and the ability to regenerate from coppice...

Development of an applied black willow tree improvement program for biomass production in the south

Treesearch

Randall J. Rousseau; Emile S. Gardiner; Theodor D. Leininger

2012-01-01

The development of rapidly growing biomass woody crops is imperative as the United States strives to meet renewable energy goals. The Department of Energy has indicated that biomass is a prime source for renewable energy for the southern United States. Black Willow (Salix nigra Marsh.) is a potential bioenergy/biofuels crop for dedicated short-...

Forest Carbon Accounting Considerations in US Bioenergy Policy

Treesearch

Reid A. Miner; Robert C. Abt; Jim L. Bowyer; Marilyn A. Buford; Robert W. Malmsheimer; Jay O' Laughlin; Elaine E. Oneil; Roger A. Sedjo; Kenneth E. Skog

2014-01-01

Four research-based insights are essential to understanding forest bioenergy and “carbon debts.” (1) As long as wood-producing land remains in forest, long-lived wood products and forest bioenergy reduce fossil fuel use and long-term carbon emission impacts. (2) Increased demand for wood can trigger investments that increase forest area and forest productivity and...

Growing and Sustaining Communities with Bioenergy

ScienceCinema

Havill, Alice; Schultz, Donny; Falcon, Nigel; Reetz, Harold; Rowden, Jack; Van Horn, Ruth; Nordling, Debbie; Naig, Mike

2018-06-12

From Vero Beach, Florida, to Hugoton, Kansas, to Emmetsburg, Iowa, cellulosic ethanol biorefineries have had major impacts on communities and their residents. In other areas, bioenergy has significant potential to transform current and establish new industry. This short video illustrates how biorefineries and other bioenergy developments can benefit citizens, businesses, and whole communities, helping America’s rural economies grow and thrive.

Land-Use and Environmental Pressures Resulting from Current and Future Bioenergy Crop Expansion: A Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miyake, Saori; Renouf, Marguerite; Peterson, Ann; McAlpine, Clive; Smith, Carl

2012-01-01

Recent energy and climate policies, particularly in the developed world, have increased demand for bioenergy as an alternative, which has led to both direct and indirect land-use changes and an array of environmental and socio-economic concerns. A comprehensive understanding of the land-use dynamics of bioenergy crop production is essential for…

Tweak, adapt, or transform: Policy scenarios in response to emerging bioenergy markets in the U.S

Treesearch

Ryan. C. Atwell; Lisa. A. Schulte; Lynne M. Westphal

2011-01-01

Emerging bioenergy markets portend both boon and bane for regions of intensive agricultural production worldwide. To understand and guide the effects of bioenergy markets on agricultural landscapes, communities, and economies, we engaged leaders in the Corn Belt state of Iowa in a participatory workshop and follow-up interviews to develop future policy scenarios....

78 FR 42546 - Notice of Lodging of Proposed Consent Decree Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-07-16

... hazardous substances at the BioEnergy of Colorado Superfund Site located on 821 West 56th Avenue, City and Adams County, Colorado 80216. BioEnergy of Colorado, LLC, now defunct, operated a bio-diesel production... pH, caustic materials and methanol used by BioEnergy in the production of bio-fuel that had been...

78 FR 56264 - Big Bear Mining Corp., Four Rivers BioEnergy, Inc., Mainland Resources, Inc., QI Systems Inc...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-09-12

... SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION [File No. 500-1] Big Bear Mining Corp., Four Rivers BioEnergy, Inc., Mainland Resources, Inc., QI Systems Inc., South Texas Oil Co., and Synova Healthcare Group, Inc... concerning the securities of Four Rivers BioEnergy, Inc. because it has not filed any periodic reports since...

Perennial grasslands enhance biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services in bioenergy landscapes

PubMed Central

Werling, Ben P.; Dickson, Timothy L.; Isaacs, Rufus; Gaines, Hannah; Gratton, Claudio; Gross, Katherine L.; Liere, Heidi; Malmstrom, Carolyn M.; Meehan, Timothy D.; Ruan, Leilei; Robertson, Bruce A.; Robertson, G. Philip; Schmidt, Thomas M.; Schrotenboer, Abbie C.; Teal, Tracy K.; Wilson, Julianna K.; Landis, Douglas A.

2014-01-01

Agriculture is being challenged to provide food, and increasingly fuel, for an expanding global population. Producing bioenergy crops on marginal lands—farmland suboptimal for food crops—could help meet energy goals while minimizing competition with food production. However, the ecological costs and benefits of growing bioenergy feedstocks—primarily annual grain crops—on marginal lands have been questioned. Here we show that perennial bioenergy crops provide an alternative to annual grains that increases biodiversity of multiple taxa and sustain a variety of ecosystem functions, promoting the creation of multifunctional agricultural landscapes. We found that switchgrass and prairie plantings harbored significantly greater plant, methanotrophic bacteria, arthropod, and bird diversity than maize. Although biomass production was greater in maize, all other ecosystem services, including methane consumption, pest suppression, pollination, and conservation of grassland birds, were higher in perennial grasslands. Moreover, we found that the linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem services is dependent not only on the choice of bioenergy crop but also on its location relative to other habitats, with local landscape context as important as crop choice in determining provision of some services. Our study suggests that bioenergy policy that supports coordinated land use can diversify agricultural landscapes and sustain multiple critical ecosystem services. PMID:24474791

Challenge clusters facing LCA in environmental decision-making-what we can learn from biofuels.

PubMed

McManus, Marcelle C; Taylor, Caroline M; Mohr, Alison; Whittaker, Carly; Scown, Corinne D; Borrion, Aiduan Li; Glithero, Neryssa J; Yin, Yao

Bioenergy is increasingly used to help meet greenhouse gas (GHG) and renewable energy targets. However, bioenergy's sustainability has been questioned, resulting in increasing use of life cycle assessment (LCA). Bioenergy systems are global and complex, and market forces can result in significant changes, relevant to LCA and policy. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the complexities associated with LCA, with particular focus on bioenergy and associated policy development, so that its use can more effectively inform policymakers. The review is based on the results from a series of workshops focused on bioenergy life cycle assessment. Expert submissions were compiled and categorized within the first two workshops. Over 100 issues emerged. Accounting for redundancies and close similarities in the list, this reduced to around 60 challenges, many of which are deeply interrelated. Some of these issues were then explored further at a policy-facing workshop in London, UK. The authors applied a rigorous approach to categorize the challenges identified to be at the intersection of biofuels/bioenergy LCA and policy. The credibility of LCA is core to its use in policy. Even LCAs that comply with ISO standards and policy and regulatory instruments leave a great deal of scope for interpretation and flexibility. Within the bioenergy sector, this has led to frustration and at times a lack of obvious direction. This paper identifies the main challenge clusters: overarching issues, application and practice and value and ethical judgments. Many of these are reflective of the transition from application of LCA to assess individual products or systems to the wider approach that is becoming more common. Uncertainty in impact assessment strongly influences planning and compliance due to challenges in assigning accountability, and communicating the inherent complexity and uncertainty within bioenergy is becoming of greater importance. The emergence of LCA in bioenergy governance is particularly significant because other sectors are likely to transition to similar governance models. LCA is being stretched to accommodate complex and broad policy-relevant questions, seeking to incorporate externalities that have major implications for long-term sustainability. As policy increasingly relies on LCA, the strains placed on the methodology are becoming both clearer and impedimentary. The implications for energy policy, and in particular bioenergy, are large.

SRWC bioenergy productivity and economic feasibility on marginal lands.

PubMed

Ghezehei, Solomon B; Shifflett, Shawn D; Hazel, Dennis W; Nichols, Elizabeth Guthrie

2015-09-01

Evolving bioenergy markets necessitate consideration of marginal lands for woody biomass production worldwide particularly the southeastern U.S., a prominent wood pellet exporter to Europe. Growing short rotation woody crops (SRWCs) on marginal lands minimizes concerns about using croplands for bioenergy production and reinforces sustainability of wood supply to existing and growing global biomass markets. We estimated mean annual aboveground green biomass increments (MAIs) and assessed economic feasibility of various operationally established (0.5 ha-109 ha) SRWC stands on lands used to mitigate environmental liabilities of municipal wastewater, livestock wastewater and sludge, and subsurface contamination by petroleum and pesticides. MAIs (Mg ha(-1) yr(-1)) had no consistent relationship with stand density or age. Non-irrigated Populus, Plantanus occidentalis L. and Pinus taeda L. stands produced 2.4-12.4 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1). Older, irrigated Taxodium distchum L., Fraxinus pennsylvanica L., and coppiced P. occidentalis stands had higher MAIs (10.6-21.3 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1)) than irrigated Liquidambar styraciflua L. and non-coppiced, irrigated P. occidentalis (8-18 Mg ha(-1) yr(-1)). Natural hardwood MAIs at 20-60 years were less than hardwood and P. taeda productivities at 5-20 years. Unlike weed control, irrigation and coppicing improved managed hardwood productivity. Rotation length affected economic outcomes although the returns were poor due to high establishment and maintenance costs, low productivities and low current stumpage values, which are expected to quickly change with development of robust global markets. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Watershed scale impacts of bioenergy, landscape changes, and ecosystem response

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chaubey, Indrajeet; Cibin, Raj; Chiang, Li-Chi

2013-04-01

In recent years, high US gasoline prices and national security concerns have prompted a renewed interest in alternative fuel sources to meet increasing energy demands, particularly by the transportation sector. Food and animal feed crops, such as corn and soybean, sugarcane, residue from these crops, and cellulosic perennial crops grown specifically to produce bioenergy (e.g. switchgrass, Miscanthus, mixed grasses), and fast growing trees (e.g. hybrid poplar) are expected to provide the majority of the biofeedstock for energy production. One of the grand challenges in supplying large quantities of grain-based and lignocellulosic materials for the production of biofuels is ensuring that they are produced in environmentally sustainable and economically viable manner. Feedstock selection will vary geographically based on regional adaptability, productivity, and reliability. Changes in land use and management practices related to biofeedstock production may have potential impacts on water quantity and quality, sediments, and pesticides and nutrient losses, and these impacts may be exacerbated by climate variability and change. We have made many improvements in the currently available biophysical models (e.g. Soil and Water Assessment Tool or SWAT model) to evaluate sustainability of energy crop production. We have utilized the improved model to evaluate impacts of both annual (e.g. corn) and perennial bioenergy crops (e.g. Miscanthus and switchgrass at) on hydrology and water quality under the following plausible bioenergy crop production scenarios: (1) at highly erodible areas; (2) at agriculturally marginal areas; (3) at pasture areas; (4) crop residue (corn stover) removal; and (5) combinations of above scenarios. Overall results indicated improvement in water quality with introduction of perennial energy crops. Stream flow at the watershed outlet was reduced under energy crop production scenarios and ranged between 0.3% and 5% across scenarios. Erosion and sediment loading at watershed outlet were reduced with bioenergy scenarios except for stover removal scenarios with reduction ranging between 2.4% to 30.5%. Based on the simulation results for different bioenergy crop production scenario, we have also developed a multi-level spatial optimization framework (MLSOPT) to optimize production of food and energy crops under various sustainability objective functions. The method works in two levels, first level divides large watershed into small subareas and optimum solutions for individually for these subareas are identified. The second level uses these optimum solutions from the first level to identify watershed scale optimum solutions. The framework is tested with a complex spatial optimization case study designed to maximize crop residue (corn stover) harvest with minimum environmental impacts in a 2000 km2 watershed, located in Indiana, USA. In this presentation, results related to optimize sustainability of bioenergy crops will also be discussed.

Advancing Sustainable Bioenergy: Evolving Stakeholder Interests and the Relevance of Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnson, Timothy Lawrence; Bielicki, Jeffrey M.; Dodder, Rebecca S.; Hilliard, Michael R.; Ozge Kaplan, P.; Andrew Miller, C.

2013-02-01

The sustainability of future bioenergy production rests on more than continual improvements in its environmental, economic, and social impacts. The emergence of new biomass feedstocks, an expanding array of conversion pathways, and expected increases in overall bioenergy production are connecting diverse technical, social, and policy communities. These stakeholder groups have different—and potentially conflicting—values and cultures, and therefore different goals and decision making processes. Our aim is to discuss the implications of this diversity for bioenergy researchers. The paper begins with a discussion of bioenergy stakeholder groups and their varied interests, and illustrates how this diversity complicates efforts to define and promote "sustainable" bioenergy production. We then discuss what this diversity means for research practice. Researchers, we note, should be aware of stakeholder values, information needs, and the factors affecting stakeholder decision making if the knowledge they generate is to reach its widest potential use. We point out how stakeholder participation in research can increase the relevance of its products, and argue that stakeholder values should inform research questions and the choice of analytical assumptions. Finally, we make the case that additional natural science and technical research alone will not advance sustainable bioenergy production, and that important research gaps relate to understanding stakeholder decision making and the need, from a broader social science perspective, to develop processes to identify and accommodate different value systems. While sustainability requires more than improved scientific and technical understanding, the need to understand stakeholder values and manage diversity presents important research opportunities.

Functional Genomics of Drought Tolerance in Bioenergy Crops

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yin, Hengfu; Chen, Rick; Yang, Jun

2014-01-01

With the predicted trends in climate change, drought will increasingly impose a grand challenge to biomass production. Most of the bioenergy crops have some degree of drought susceptibility with low water-use efficiency (WUE). It is imperative to improve drought tolerance and WUE in bioenergy crops for sustainable biomass production in arid and semi-arid regions with minimal water input. Genetics and functional genomics can play a critical role in generating knowledge to inform and aid genetic improvement of drought tolerance in bioenergy crops. The molecular aspect of drought response has been extensively investigated in model plants like Arabidopsis, yet our understandingmore » of the molecular mechanisms underlying drought tolerance in bioenergy crops are limited. Crops exhibit various responses to drought stress depending on species and genotype. A rational strategy for studying drought tolerance in bioenergy crops is to translate the knowledge from model plants and pinpoint the unique features associated with individual species and genotypes. In this review, we summarize the general knowledge about drought responsive pathways in plants, with a focus on the identification of commonality and specialty in drought responsive mechanisms among different species and/or genotypes. We describe the genomic resources developed for bioenergy crops and discuss genetic and epigenetic regulation of drought responses. We also examine comparative and evolutionary genomics to leverage the ever-increasing genomics resources and provide new insights beyond what has been known from studies on individual species. Finally, we outline future exploration of drought tolerance using the emerging new technologies.« less

Watershed-scale impacts of bioenergy crops on hydrology and water quality using improved SWAT model

DOE PAGES

Cibin, Raj; Trybula, Elizabeth; Chaubey, Indrajeet; ...

2016-01-08

Cellulosic bioenergy feedstock such as perennial grasses and crop residues are expected to play a significant role in meeting US biofuel production targets. Here, we used an improved version of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to forecast impacts on watershed hydrology and water quality by implementing an array of plausible land-use changes associated with commercial bioenergy crop production for two watersheds in the Midwest USA. Watershed-scale impacts were estimated for 13 bioenergy crop production scenarios, including: production of Miscanthus 9 giganteus and upland Shawnee switchgrass on highly erodible landscape positions, agricultural marginal land areas and pastures, removal ofmore » corn stover and combinations of these options. We also measured water quality as erosion and sediment loading; this was forecasted to improve compared to baseline when perennial grasses were used for bioenergy production, but not with stover removal scenarios. Erosion reduction with perennial energy crop production scenarios ranged between 0.2% and 59%. Stream flow at the watershed outlet was reduced between 0 and 8% across these bioenergy crop production scenarios compared to baseline across the study watersheds. Our results indicate that bioenergy production scenarios that incorporate perennial grasses reduced the nonpoint source pollutant load at the watershed outlet compared to the baseline conditions (0–20% for nitrate-nitrogen and 3–56% for mineral phosphorus); but, the reduction rates were specific to site characteristics and management practices.« less

Advancing sustainable bioenergy: evolving stakeholder interests and the relevance of research.

PubMed

Johnson, Timothy Lawrence; Bielicki, Jeffrey M; Dodder, Rebecca S; Hilliard, Michael R; Kaplan, P Ozge; Miller, C Andrew

2013-02-01

The sustainability of future bioenergy production rests on more than continual improvements in its environmental, economic, and social impacts. The emergence of new biomass feedstocks, an expanding array of conversion pathways, and expected increases in overall bioenergy production are connecting diverse technical, social, and policy communities. These stakeholder groups have different-and potentially conflicting-values and cultures, and therefore different goals and decision making processes. Our aim is to discuss the implications of this diversity for bioenergy researchers. The paper begins with a discussion of bioenergy stakeholder groups and their varied interests, and illustrates how this diversity complicates efforts to define and promote "sustainable" bioenergy production. We then discuss what this diversity means for research practice. Researchers, we note, should be aware of stakeholder values, information needs, and the factors affecting stakeholder decision making if the knowledge they generate is to reach its widest potential use. We point out how stakeholder participation in research can increase the relevance of its products, and argue that stakeholder values should inform research questions and the choice of analytical assumptions. Finally, we make the case that additional natural science and technical research alone will not advance sustainable bioenergy production, and that important research gaps relate to understanding stakeholder decision making and the need, from a broader social science perspective, to develop processes to identify and accommodate different value systems. While sustainability requires more than improved scientific and technical understanding, the need to understand stakeholder values and manage diversity presents important research opportunities.

Partitioning CO2 Fluxes in Transitional Bioenergy CROPS:EFFECT of Land Use Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zenone, T.; Chen, J.; Hamilton, S. K.; Robertson, G. P.

2010-12-01

The demand for alternatives to petroleum is increasing the production of bioenergy. Undisturbed ecosystems in different part of the globe were converted to bioenergy cultivations. In this study we examined the effect of land conversion on C Pools and fluxes using the Eddy Covariance (EC) technique in seven sites in southwestern Michigan undergoing such conversions. Of the seven sites, four had been managed for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) during the last 20 years to maintain them as grasslands. The other three were cultivated in a corn/soybean rotation. The effects of land use change were studied during 2009 when six of the fields (three CRP and three crop fields) were converted to soybean cultivation, with the 7th site remained as a grassland reference. Daytime estimates of ecosystem respiration (Reco) were obtained from the night NEE-temperature relationship. An Arrhenius-type model was used to describe the temperature dependence of Reco. The Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) was then obtained by subtracting Reco from NEE. Soil CO2 fluxes (SRR) were measured in all sites with a portable EGM-4 infrared gas analyzer (PP-Systems, UK). SRR, soil temperature, and soil moisture were analyzed using a two-way ANOVA with repeated measures analyses on one factor. SRR was modeled using a nonlinear regression function to describe SRR as dependant on soil temperature and soil moisture, expressed as soil water content relative to the soil water content at field capacity (RSWC). Standard errors of nonlinear regression parameters were estimated by a bootstrapping algorithm. During winter the agricultural sites were essentially carbon (C) neutral while the grasslands were C sources, with average emissions of 15 g C m-2 month-1. The annual NEP at sites converted from CRP to soybeans had a net emission of 156 (± 25) - 128 (± 27) g C m-2 year-1. The sites previously cultivated as corn/soybean rotation was a net C uptake, with NEP ranging from -91 (± 26) to -57 (± 21) g C m-2 year-1. At one site characterized by a lower soil C content and lower biomass production, the NEP was 31 (± 10) g C m-2 year-1. Annual changes in SRR were significantly different between CRP and the agricultural sites, while there were no significant differences among the three sites of each group. The annual SRR ranged from 831 to 749 g C m-2 year-1 at the CRP sites and from 311 to 274 g C m-2 year-1 at the agricultural site. Cumulative SRR showed a strong correlation (r2 = 0.88; p = 0.001) with soil organic matter (SOC). Annual average GPP was 579 (± 47) g C m-2 year-1 at the CRP sites and 685 (± 31) g C m-2 year-1 at the agricultural sites. Overall, the conversion of CRP to soybean cultivation in preparation for biofuel crop production induced net C emissions in all sites investigated.

Field-Based Estimates of Global Warming Potential in Bioenergy Systems of Hawaii: Crop Choice and Deficit Irrigation.

PubMed

Pawlowski, Meghan N; Crow, Susan E; Meki, Manyowa N; Kiniry, James R; Taylor, Andrew D; Ogoshi, Richard; Youkhana, Adel; Nakahata, Mae

2017-01-01

Replacing fossil fuel with biofuel is environmentally viable from a climate change perspective only if the net greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of the system is reduced. The effects of replacing annual arable crops with perennial bioenergy feedstocks on net GHG production and soil carbon (C) stock are critical to the system-level balance. Here, we compared GHG flux, crop yield, root biomass, and soil C stock under two potential tropical, perennial grass biofuel feedstocks: conventional sugarcane and ratoon-harvested, zero-tillage napiergrass. Evaluations were conducted at two irrigation levels, 100% of plantation application and at a 50% deficit. Peaks and troughs of GHG emission followed agronomic events such as ratoon harvest of napiergrass and fertilization. Yet, net GHG flux was dominated by carbon dioxide (CO2), as methane was oxidized and nitrous oxide (N2O) emission was very low even following fertilization. High N2O fluxes that frequently negate other greenhouse gas benefits that come from replacing fossil fuels with agronomic forms of bioenergy were mitigated by efficient water and fertilizer management, including direct injection of fertilizer into buried irrigation lines. From soil intensively cultivated for a century in sugarcane, soil C stock and root biomass increased rapidly following cultivation in grasses selected for robust root systems and drought tolerance. The net soil C increase over the two-year crop cycle was three-fold greater than the annualized soil surface CO2 flux. Deficit irrigation reduced yield, but increased soil C accumulation as proportionately more photosynthetic resources were allocated belowground. In the first two years of cultivation napiergrass did not increase net greenhouse warming potential (GWP) compared to sugarcane, and has the advantage of multiple ratoon harvests per year and less negative effects of deficit irrigation to yield.

Field-Based Estimates of Global Warming Potential in Bioenergy Systems of Hawaii: Crop Choice and Deficit Irrigation

PubMed Central

Meki, Manyowa N.; Kiniry, James R.; Taylor, Andrew D.; Ogoshi, Richard; Youkhana, Adel; Nakahata, Mae

2017-01-01

Replacing fossil fuel with biofuel is environmentally viable from a climate change perspective only if the net greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of the system is reduced. The effects of replacing annual arable crops with perennial bioenergy feedstocks on net GHG production and soil carbon (C) stock are critical to the system-level balance. Here, we compared GHG flux, crop yield, root biomass, and soil C stock under two potential tropical, perennial grass biofuel feedstocks: conventional sugarcane and ratoon-harvested, zero-tillage napiergrass. Evaluations were conducted at two irrigation levels, 100% of plantation application and at a 50% deficit. Peaks and troughs of GHG emission followed agronomic events such as ratoon harvest of napiergrass and fertilization. Yet, net GHG flux was dominated by carbon dioxide (CO2), as methane was oxidized and nitrous oxide (N2O) emission was very low even following fertilization. High N2O fluxes that frequently negate other greenhouse gas benefits that come from replacing fossil fuels with agronomic forms of bioenergy were mitigated by efficient water and fertilizer management, including direct injection of fertilizer into buried irrigation lines. From soil intensively cultivated for a century in sugarcane, soil C stock and root biomass increased rapidly following cultivation in grasses selected for robust root systems and drought tolerance. The net soil C increase over the two-year crop cycle was three-fold greater than the annualized soil surface CO2 flux. Deficit irrigation reduced yield, but increased soil C accumulation as proportionately more photosynthetic resources were allocated belowground. In the first two years of cultivation napiergrass did not increase net greenhouse warming potential (GWP) compared to sugarcane, and has the advantage of multiple ratoon harvests per year and less negative effects of deficit irrigation to yield. PMID:28052075

The Vermont Bioenergy Initiative: Final Technical Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Callahan, Chris; Sawyer, Scott; Kahler, Ellen

The purpose of the Vermont Bioenergy Initiative (VBI) was to foster the development of sustainable, distributed, small-scale biodiesel and grass/mixed fiber industries in Vermont in order to produce bioenergy for local transportation, agricultural, and thermal applications, as a replacement for fossil fuel based energy. The VBI marked the first strategic effort to reduce Vermont’s dependency on petroleum through the development of homegrown alternatives.

An assessment of the influence of bioenergy and marketed land amenity values on land uses in the midwestern US

Treesearch

Suk-Won Choi; Brent Sohngen; Ralph Alig

2011-01-01

There is substantial concern that bioenergy policies could swamp other considerations, such as environmental values, and lead to large-scale conversions of land from forest to crops. This study examines how bioenergy and marketed environmental rents for forestland potentially influence land use in the Midwestern US. We hypothesize that current land uses reflect market...

Carbon mitigation with biomass: An engineering, economic and policy assessment of opportunities and implications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rhodes, James S., III

2007-12-01

Industrial bio-energy systems provide diverse opportunities for abating anthropogenic greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions and for advancing other important policy objectives. The confluence of potential contributions to important social, economic, and environmental policy objectives with very real challenges to deployment creates rich opportunities for study. In particular, the analyses developed in this thesis aim to increase understanding of how industrial bio-energy may be applied to abate GHG emissions in prospective energy markets, the relative merits of alternate bio-energy systems, the extent to which public support for developing such systems is justified, and the public policy instruments that may be capable of providing such support. This objective is advanced through analysis of specific industrial bio-energy technologies, in the form of bottom-up engineering-economic analyses, to determine their economic performance relative to other mitigation options. These bottom-up analyses are used to inform parameter definitions in two higher-level stochastic models that explicitly account for uncertainty in key model parameters, including capital costs, operating and maintenance costs, and fuel costs. One of these models is used to develop supply curves for electricity generation and carbon mitigation from biomass-coal cofire in the U.S. The other is used to characterize the performance of multiple bio-energy systems in the context of a competitive market for low-carbon energy products. The results indicate that industrial bio-energy systems are capable of making a variety of potentially important contributions under scenarios that value anthropogenic GHG emissions. In the near term, cofire of available biomass in existing coal fired power plants has the potential to provide substantial emissions reductions at reasonable costs. Carbon prices between 30 and 70 per ton carbon could induce reductions in U.S. carbon emissions by 100 to 225 megatons carbon ("MtC"), equivalent to roughly 3% of U.S. GHG emissions. In the medium or longer term, integration of carbon capture and storage technologies with advanced bio-energy conversion technologies ("biomass-CCS"), in both liquid fuels production and electric sector applications, will likely be feasible. These systems are capable of generating useful energy products with negative net atmospheric carbon emissions at carbon prices between 100 and 200 per tC. Negative emissions from biomass-CCS could be applied to offset emissions sources that are difficult or expensive to abate directly. Such indirect mitigation may prove cost competitive and provide important flexibility in achieving stabilization of atmospheric GHG concentrations at desirable levels. With increasing deployments, alternate bio-energy systems will eventually compete for limited biomass resources and inputs to agricultural production--particularly land. In this context, resource allocation decisions will likely turn on the relative economic performance of alternate bio-energy systems in their respective energy markets. The relatively large uncertainty in forecasts of energy futures confounds reliable prediction of economically efficient uses for available biomass resources. High oil prices or large valuation of energy security benefits will likely enable bio-fuels production to dominate electric-sector options. In contrast, low oil prices and low valuation of energy security benefits will likely enable electric-sector applications to dominate. In the latter scenario, indirect mitigation of transportation-sector emissions via emissions offsets from electric-sector biomass-CCS could prove more efficient than direct fuel substitution with biofuels, both economically and in terms of the transportation-sector mitigation of available biomass resources [tC tbiomass-1]. The policy environment surrounding industrial bio-energy development is systematically examined. Specifically, the policy objectives that may be advanced with bio-energy and the challenges constraining deployment are examined to understand the extent to which public policy support is justified to accelerate development. Policy frameworks and specific policy instruments that have been proposed or enacted to support industrial bio-energy are evaluated to understand their current and potential future roles in shaping bio-energy development. This analysis indicates that deployment of industrial bio-energy systems to advance specified policy objectives has been compromised by inefficient and inconsistent public policies. Amending existing policies could substantially accelerate bio-energy deployment. More generally, public policies that set even prices across the economy for advancing targeted policy objectives should be developed. Industrial bio-energy systems can be expected to compete favorably in the context of such policies, including those valuing deep reductions in anthropogenic GHG emissions.

Effects of precipitation changes on switchgrass photosynthesis, growth, and biomass: A mesocosm experiment

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Climate changes, including chronic changes in precipitation amounts, will influence plant physiology and growth. However, such precipitation effects on switchgrass, a major bioenergy crop, have not been well investigated. We conducted a two-year precipitation simulation experiment using large pots...

76 FR 15249 - Deferral for CO2

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-03-21

... Agency FR Federal Register GHG Greenhouse gas GWP Global warming potential HFC Hydrofluorocarbon ICR... year, weighted by the global warming potential (GWP) of the particular GHG pollutant, normalized to the... global GHG. Carbon dioxide emissions from a subset of bioenergy sources are reported as information items...

A New Spin On An Old Crop for Bioenergy: Sorghum

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Seeking alternative and renewable sources of energy is necessary due to oil price fluctuations, environmental concerns, and national security concerns. Additionally, Southern U.S. agriculture has been negatively affected by drought conditions over the last several years. For these reasons, sorghum m...

Advanced Algal Systems Fact Sheet

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

2016-06-01

Research and development (R&D) on advanced algal biofuels and bioproducts presents an opportunity to sustainably expand biomass resource potential in the United States. The Bioenergy Technologies Office’s (BETO’s) Advanced Algal Systems Program is carrying out a long-term, applied R&D strategy to lower the costs of algal biofuel production by working with partners to develop revolutionary technologies and conduct crosscutting analyses to better understand the potential

Correcting a fundamental error in greenhouse gas accounting related to bioenergy.

PubMed

Haberl, Helmut; Sprinz, Detlef; Bonazountas, Marc; Cocco, Pierluigi; Desaubies, Yves; Henze, Mogens; Hertel, Ole; Johnson, Richard K; Kastrup, Ulrike; Laconte, Pierre; Lange, Eckart; Novak, Peter; Paavola, Jouni; Reenberg, Anette; van den Hove, Sybille; Vermeire, Theo; Wadhams, Peter; Searchinger, Timothy

2012-06-01

Many international policies encourage a switch from fossil fuels to bioenergy based on the premise that its use would not result in carbon accumulation in the atmosphere. Frequently cited bioenergy goals would at least double the present global human use of plant material, the production of which already requires the dedication of roughly 75% of vegetated lands and more than 70% of water withdrawals. However, burning biomass for energy provision increases the amount of carbon in the air just like burning coal, oil or gas if harvesting the biomass decreases the amount of carbon stored in plants and soils, or reduces carbon sequestration. Neglecting this fact results in an accounting error that could be corrected by considering that only the use of 'additional biomass' - biomass from additional plant growth or biomass that would decompose rapidly if not used for bioenergy - can reduce carbon emissions. Failure to correct this accounting flaw will likely have substantial adverse consequences. The article presents recommendations for correcting greenhouse gas accounts related to bioenergy.

Emerging role of Geographical Information System (GIS), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and spatial LCA (GIS-LCA) in sustainable bioenergy planning.

PubMed

Hiloidhari, Moonmoon; Baruah, D C; Singh, Anoop; Kataki, Sampriti; Medhi, Kristina; Kumari, Shilpi; Ramachandra, T V; Jenkins, B M; Thakur, Indu Shekhar

2017-10-01

Sustainability of a bioenergy project depends on precise assessment of biomass resource, planning of cost-effective logistics and evaluation of possible environmental implications. In this context, this paper reviews the role and applications of geo-spatial tool such as Geographical Information System (GIS) for precise agro-residue resource assessment, biomass logistic and power plant design. Further, application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in understanding the potential impact of agro-residue bioenergy generation on different ecosystem services has also been reviewed and limitations associated with LCA variability and uncertainty were discussed. Usefulness of integration of GIS into LCA (i.e. spatial LCA) to overcome the limitations of conventional LCA and to produce a holistic evaluation of the environmental benefits and concerns of bioenergy is also reviewed. Application of GIS, LCA and spatial LCA can help alleviate the challenges faced by ambitious bioenergy projects by addressing both economics and environmental goals. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biomass for energy in the European Union - a review of bioenergy resource assessments

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

This paper reviews recent literature on bioenergy potentials in conjunction with available biomass conversion technologies. The geographical scope is the European Union, which has set a course for long term development of its energy supply from the current dependence on fossil resources to a dominance of renewable resources. A cornerstone in European energy policies and strategies is biomass and bioenergy. The annual demand for biomass for energy is estimated to increase from the current level of 5.7 EJ to 10.0 EJ in 2020. Assessments of bioenergy potentials vary substantially due to methodological inconsistency and assumptions applied by individual authors. Forest biomass, agricultural residues and energy crops constitute the three major sources of biomass for energy, with the latter probably developing into the most important source over the 21st century. Land use and the changes thereof is a key issue in sustainable bioenergy production as land availability is an ultimately limiting factor. PMID:22546368

Net land-atmosphere flows of biogenic carbon related to bioenergy: towards an understanding of systemic feedbacks.

PubMed

Haberl, Helmut

2013-07-01

The notion that biomass combustion is carbon neutral vis-a-vis the atmosphere because carbon released during biomass combustion is absorbed during plant regrowth is inherent in the greenhouse gas accounting rules in many regulations and conventions. But this 'carbon neutrality' assumption of bioenergy is an oversimplification that can result in major flaws in emission accounting; it may even result in policies that increase, instead of reduce, overall greenhouse gas emissions. This commentary discusses the systemic feedbacks and ecosystem succession/land-use history issues ignored by the carbon neutrality assumption. Based on recent literature, three cases are elaborated which show that the C balance of bioenergy may range from highly beneficial to strongly detrimental, depending on the plants grown, the land used (including its land-use history) as well as the fossil energy replaced. The article concludes by proposing the concept of GHG cost curves of bioenergy as a means for optimizing the climate benefits of bioenergy policies.

The climate impacts of bioenergy systems depend on market and regulatory policy contexts.

PubMed

Lemoine, Derek M; Plevin, Richard J; Cohn, Avery S; Jones, Andrew D; Brandt, Adam R; Vergara, Sintana E; Kammen, Daniel M

2010-10-01

Biomass can help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by displacing petroleum in the transportation sector, by displacing fossil-based electricity, and by sequestering atmospheric carbon. Which use mitigates the most emissions depends on market and regulatory contexts outside the scope of attributional life cycle assessments. We show that bioelectricity's advantage over liquid biofuels depends on the GHG intensity of the electricity displaced. Bioelectricity that displaces coal-fired electricity could reduce GHG emissions, but bioelectricity that displaces wind electricity could increase GHG emissions. The electricity displaced depends upon existing infrastructure and policies affecting the electric grid. These findings demonstrate how model assumptions about whether the vehicle fleet and bioenergy use are fixed or free parameters constrain the policy questions an analysis can inform. Our bioenergy life cycle assessment can inform questions about a bioenergy mandate's optimal allocation between liquid fuels and electricity generation, but questions about the optimal level of bioenergy use require analyses with different assumptions about fixed and free parameters.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) is committed to developing the resources, technologies, and systems needed to support a thriving bioenergy industry that protects natural resources and ad- vances environmental, economic, and social benefits. BETO’s Sustainability Technology Area proactively identifies and addresses issues that affect the scale-up potential, public acceptance, and long-term viability of advanced bioenergy systems; as a result, the area is critical to achieving BETO’s overall goals.

Dependency of global primary bioenergy crop potentials in 2050 on food systems, yields, biodiversity conservation and political stability.

PubMed

Erb, Karl-Heinz; Haberl, Helmut; Plutzar, Christoph

2012-08-01

The future bioenergy crop potential depends on (1) changes in the food system (food demand, agricultural technology), (2) political stability and investment security, (3) biodiversity conservation, (4) avoidance of long carbon payback times from deforestation, and (5) energy crop yields. Using a biophysical biomass-balance model, we analyze how these factors affect global primary bioenergy potentials in 2050. The model calculates biomass supply and demand balances for eleven world regions, eleven food categories, seven food crop types and two livestock categories, integrating agricultural forecasts and scenarios with a consistent global land use and NPP database. The TREND scenario results in a global primary bioenergy potential of 77 EJ/yr, alternative assumptions on food-system changes result in a range of 26-141 EJ/yr. Exclusion of areas for biodiversity conservation and inaccessible land in failed states reduces the bioenergy potential by up to 45%. Optimistic assumptions on future energy crop yields increase the potential by up to 48%, while pessimistic assumptions lower the potential by 26%. We conclude that the design of sustainable bioenergy crop production policies needs to resolve difficult trade-offs such as food vs. energy supply, renewable energy vs. biodiversity conservation or yield growth vs. reduction of environmental problems of intensive agriculture.

Dependency of global primary bioenergy crop potentials in 2050 on food systems, yields, biodiversity conservation and political stability

PubMed Central

Erb, Karl-Heinz; Haberl, Helmut; Plutzar, Christoph

2012-01-01

The future bioenergy crop potential depends on (1) changes in the food system (food demand, agricultural technology), (2) political stability and investment security, (3) biodiversity conservation, (4) avoidance of long carbon payback times from deforestation, and (5) energy crop yields. Using a biophysical biomass-balance model, we analyze how these factors affect global primary bioenergy potentials in 2050. The model calculates biomass supply and demand balances for eleven world regions, eleven food categories, seven food crop types and two livestock categories, integrating agricultural forecasts and scenarios with a consistent global land use and NPP database. The TREND scenario results in a global primary bioenergy potential of 77 EJ/yr, alternative assumptions on food-system changes result in a range of 26–141 EJ/yr. Exclusion of areas for biodiversity conservation and inaccessible land in failed states reduces the bioenergy potential by up to 45%. Optimistic assumptions on future energy crop yields increase the potential by up to 48%, while pessimistic assumptions lower the potential by 26%. We conclude that the design of sustainable bioenergy crop production policies needs to resolve difficult trade-offs such as food vs. energy supply, renewable energy vs. biodiversity conservation or yield growth vs. reduction of environmental problems of intensive agriculture. PMID:23576836

Predicting the impacts of climate change on the potential distribution of major native non-food bioenergy plants in China.

PubMed

Wang, Wenguo; Tang, Xiaoyu; Zhu, Qili; Pan, Ke; Hu, Qichun; He, Mingxiong; Li, Jiatang

2014-01-01

Planting non-food bioenergy crops on marginal lands is an alternative bioenergy development solution in China. Native non-food bioenergy plants are also considered to be a wise choice to reduce the threat of invasive plants. In this study, the impacts of climate change (a consensus of IPCC scenarios A2a for 2080) on the potential distribution of nine non-food bioenergy plants native to China (viz., Pistacia chinensis, Cornus wilsoniana, Xanthoceras sorbifolia, Vernicia fordii, Sapium sebiferum, Miscanthus sinensis, M. floridulus, M. sacchariflorus and Arundo donax) were analyzed using a MaxEnt species distribution model. The suitable habitats of the nine non-food plants were distributed in the regions east of the Mongolian Plateau and the Tibetan Plateau, where the arable land is primarily used for food production. Thus, the large-scale cultivation of those plants for energy production will have to rely on the marginal lands. The variables of "precipitation of the warmest quarter" and "annual mean temperature" were the most important bioclimatic variables for most of the nine plants according to the MaxEnt modeling results. Global warming in coming decades may result in a decrease in the extent of suitable habitat in the tropics but will have little effect on the total distribution area of each plant. The results indicated that it will be possible to grow these plants on marginal lands within these areas in the future. This work should be beneficial for the domestication and cultivation of those bioenergy plants and should facilitate land-use planning for bioenergy crops in China.

Bioenergy potential of the United States constrained by satellite observations of existing productivity

USGS Publications Warehouse

Smith, W. Kolby; Cleveland, Cory C.; Reed, Sasha C.; Miller, Norman L.; Running, Steven W.

2012-01-01

United States (U.S.) energy policy includes an expectation that bioenergy will be a substantial future energy source. In particular, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) aims to increase annual U.S. biofuel (secondary bioenergy) production by more than 3-fold, from 40 to 136 billion liters ethanol, which implies an even larger increase in biomass demand (primary energy), from roughly 2.9 to 7.4 EJ yr–1. However, our understanding of many of the factors used to establish such energy targets is far from complete, introducing significgant uncertainty into the feasibility of current estimates of bioenergy potential. Here, we utilized satellite-derived net primary productivity (NPP) data—measured for every 1 km2 of the 7.2 million km2 of vegetated land in the conterminous U.S.—to estimate primary bioenergy potential (PBP). Our results indicate that PBP of the conterminous U.S. ranges from roughly 5.9 to 22.2 EJ yr–1, depending on land use. The low end of this range represents the potential when harvesting residues only, while the high end would require an annual biomass harvest over an area more than three times current U.S. agricultural extent. While EISA energy targets are theoretically achievable, we show that meeting these targets utilizing current technology would require either an 80% displacement of current crop harvest or the conversion of 60% of rangeland productivity. Accordingly, realistically constrained estimates of bioenergy potential are critical for effective incorporation of bioenergy into the national energy portfolio.

Advancing sustainable bioenergy: Evolving stakeholder interests and the relevance of research

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Johnson, Timothy L; Bielicki, Dr Jeffrey M; Dodder, Rebecca

2013-01-01

The sustainability of future bioenergy production rests on more than continual improvements in its environmental, economic, and social impacts. The emergence of new biomass feedstocks, an expanding array of conversion pathways, and expected increases in overall bioenergy production are connecting diverse technical, social, and policy communities. These stakeholder groups have different and potentially conflicting values and cultures, and therefore different goals and decision making processes. Our aim is to discuss the implications of this diversity for bioenergy researchers. The paper begins with a discussion of bioenergy stakeholder groups and their varied interests, and illustrates how this diversity complicates efforts tomore » define and promote sustainable bioenergy production. We then discuss what this diversity means for research practice. Researchers, we note, should be aware of stakeholder values, information needs, and the factors affecting stakeholder decision making if the knowledge they generate is to reach its widest potential use. We point out how stakeholder participation in research can increase the relevance of its products, and argue that stakeholder values should inform research questions and the choice of analytical assumptions. Finally, we make the case that additional natural science and technical research alone will not advance sustainable bioenergy production, and that important research gaps relate to understanding stakeholder decision making and the need, from a broader social science perspective, to develop processes to identify and accommodate different value systems. While sustainability requires more than improved scientific and technical understanding, the need to understand stakeholder values and manage diversity presents important research opportunities.« less

Mapping intra-field yield variation using high resolution satellite imagery to integrate bioenergy and environmental stewardship in an agricultural watershed

DOE PAGES

Hamada, Yuki; Ssegane, Herbert; Negri, Maria Cristina

2015-07-31

Biofuels are important alternatives for meeting our future energy needs. Successful bioenergy crop production requires maintaining environmental sustainability and minimum impacts on current net annual food, feed, and fiber production. The objectives of this study were to: (1) determine under-productive areas within an agricultural field in a watershed using a single date; high resolution remote sensing and (2) examine impacts of growing bioenergy crops in the under-productive areas using hydrologic modeling in order to facilitate sustainable landscape design. Normalized difference indices (NDIs) were computed based on the ratio of all possible two-band combinations using the RapidEye and the National Agriculturalmore » Imagery Program images collected in summer 2011. A multiple regression analysis was performed using 10 NDIs and five RapidEye spectral bands. The regression analysis suggested that the red and near infrared bands and NDI using red-edge and near infrared that is known as the red-edge normalized difference vegetation index (RENDVI) had the highest correlation (R 2 = 0.524) with the reference yield. Although predictive yield map showed striking similarity to the reference yield map, the model had modest correlation; thus, further research is needed to improve predictive capability for absolute yields. Forecasted impact using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model of growing switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum) on under-productive areas based on corn yield thresholds of 3.1, 4.7, and 6.3 Mg·ha -1 showed reduction of tile NO 3-N and sediment exports by 15.9%–25.9% and 25%–39%, respectively. Corresponding reductions in water yields ranged from 0.9% to 2.5%. While further research is warranted, the study demonstrated the integration of remote sensing and hydrologic modeling to quantify the multifunctional value of projected future landscape patterns in a context of sustainable bioenergy crop production.« less

Mapping intra-field yield variation using high resolution satellite imagery to integrate bioenergy and environmental stewardship in an agricultural watershed

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hamada, Yuki; Ssegane, Herbert; Negri, Maria Cristina

Biofuels are important alternatives for meeting our future energy needs. Successful bioenergy crop production requires maintaining environmental sustainability and minimum impacts on current net annual food, feed, and fiber production. The objectives of this study were to: (1) determine under-productive areas within an agricultural field in a watershed using a single date; high resolution remote sensing and (2) examine impacts of growing bioenergy crops in the under-productive areas using hydrologic modeling in order to facilitate sustainable landscape design. Normalized difference indices (NDIs) were computed based on the ratio of all possible two-band combinations using the RapidEye and the National Agriculturalmore » Imagery Program images collected in summer 2011. A multiple regression analysis was performed using 10 NDIs and five RapidEye spectral bands. The regression analysis suggested that the red and near infrared bands and NDI using red-edge and near infrared that is known as the red-edge normalized difference vegetation index (RENDVI) had the highest correlation (R 2 = 0.524) with the reference yield. Although predictive yield map showed striking similarity to the reference yield map, the model had modest correlation; thus, further research is needed to improve predictive capability for absolute yields. Forecasted impact using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model of growing switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum) on under-productive areas based on corn yield thresholds of 3.1, 4.7, and 6.3 Mg·ha -1 showed reduction of tile NO 3-N and sediment exports by 15.9%–25.9% and 25%–39%, respectively. Corresponding reductions in water yields ranged from 0.9% to 2.5%. While further research is warranted, the study demonstrated the integration of remote sensing and hydrologic modeling to quantify the multifunctional value of projected future landscape patterns in a context of sustainable bioenergy crop production.« less

Review of NASA programs in applying aerospace technology to energy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schwenk, F. C.

1981-01-01

NASA's role in energy research and development, with the aid of aerospace technology, is reviewed. A brief history, which began in 1974 with studies of solar energy systems on earth, is presented, and the major energy programs, consisting of over 60 different projects, are described, and include solar terrestrial systems, conservation and fossil energy systems, and space utilization systems. Special attention is given to the Satellite Power System and the isolation of nuclear wastes in space. Emerging prospects for NASA programs in energy technology include bioenergy, and ocean thermal energy conversion, coal extraction and conversion technologies, and support to the nuclear industry in power plant systems safety.

A New Spin On An Old Crop for Bioenergy: Sorghum

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Seeking alternative and renewable sources of energy is necessary due to oil price fluctuations, environmental and national security concerns. Additionally, Southeastern U.S. has been affected by drought conditions over several years. For these reasons, sorghum may be a reasonable alternative as an e...

Biomass production for bioenergy: a Southeastern perspective

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Fuel self-sufficiency presents a national security problem for the U.S. We import approximately 60% of all the transportation fuel we consume each year from the Middle East. Additionally, the Global rate of oil discovery has decreased significantly in the past three decades, while our consumption ra...

Grass invasion into switchgrass managed for biomass energy

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is a warm-season perennial grass and is the model herbaceous perennial bioenergy feedstock. Although it is indigenous to North American grasslands east of the Rocky Mountains and has been planted for forage and conservation purposes for more than 75 years, there is con...

Optimal Management of DoD Lands for Military Training, Ecosystem Services, and Renewable Energy Generation: Framework and Data Requirements

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-01-01

by at least 25% by 2025. To achieve this ambitious goal, DoD is considering a diverse energy portfolio that includes wind , solar, geothermal...generated power (bioenergy). wind , solar, and bioenergy sources each have significant land-management implications, so this third land-use re- quirement...production, the adverse impacts of conflicting requirements can be minimized. The regional differences in wind , solar, and bioenergy potential

Evaluating the effects of woody biomass production for bioenergy on water quality and hydrology in the southeastern United States

Treesearch

Natalie Griffiths; C. Rhett Jackson; Menberu Bitew; Enhao Du; Kellie Vache' ; Jeffrey J. McDonnell; Julian Klaus; Benjamin M. Rau

2016-01-01

Forestry is a dominant industry in the southeastern United States, and there is interest in sustainably growing woody feedstocks for bioenergy in this region. Our project is evaluating the environmental sustainability (water quality, quantity) of growing and managing short-rotation (10-12 yrs) loblolly pine for bioenergy using watershed-scale experimental and modeling ...

An analysis of producing ethanol and electric power from woody residues and agricultural crops in East Texas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ismayilova, Rubaba Mammad

The increasing U.S. dependence on imported oil; the contribution of fossil fuels to the greenhouse gas emissions and the climate change issue; the current level of energy prices and other environmental concerns have increased world interest in renewable energy sources. Biomass is a large, diverse, readily exploitable resource. This dissertation examines the biomass potential in Eastern Texas by examining a 44 county region. This examination considers the potential establishment of a 100-megawatt (MW) power plant and a 20 million gallon per year (MMGY) ethanol plant using lignocellulosic biomass. The biomass sources considered are switchgrass, sugarcane bagasse, and logging residues. In the case of electricity generation, co-firing scenarios are also investigated. The research analyzes the key indicators involved with economic costs and benefits, environmental and social impacts. The bioenergy production possibilities considered here were biofeedstock supported electric power and cellulosic ethanol production. The results were integrated into a comprehensive set of information that addresses the effects of biomass energy development in the region. The analysis indicates that none of the counties in East Texas have sufficient biomass to individually sustain either a 100% biomass fired power plant or the cellulosic ethanol plant. Such plants would only be feasible at the regional level. Co-firing biomass with coal, however, does provide a most attractive alternative for the study region. The results indicate further that basing the decision solely on economics of feedstock availability and costs would suggest that bioenergy, as a renewable energy, is not a viable energy alternative. Accounting for some environmental and social benefits accruing to the region from bioenergy production together with the feedstock economics, however, suggests that government subsidies, up to the amount of accruing benefits, could make the bioenergies an attractive business opportunity for local farmers and investors.

A critical analysis of species selection and high vs. low-input silviculture on establishment success and early productivity of model short-rotation wood-energy cropping systems

DOE PAGES

Fischer, M.; Kelley, A. M.; Ward, E. J.; ...

2017-02-03

Most research on bioenergy short rotation woody crops (SRWC) has been dedicated to the genera Populus and Salix. These species generally require relatively high-input culture, including intensive weed competition control, which increases costs and environmental externalities. Widespread native early successional species, characterized by high productivity and good coppicing ability, may be better adapted to local environmental stresses and therefore could offer alternative low-input bioenergy production systems. In order to test this concept, we established a three-year experiment comparing a widely-used hybrid poplar (Populus nigra × P. maximowiczii, clone ‘NM6’) to two native species, American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis L.) and tuliptreemore » (Liriodendron tulipifera L.) grown under contrasting weed and pest control at a coastal plain site in eastern North Carolina, USA. Mean cumulative aboveground wood production was significantly greater in sycamore, with yields of 46.6 Mg ha -11 under high-inputs and 32.7 Mg ha -1 under low-input culture, which rivaled the high-input NM6 yield of 32.9 Mg ha -1. NM6 under low-input management provided noncompetitive yield of 6.2 Mg ha -1. We also found that sycamore showed superiority in survival, biomass increment, weed resistance, treatment convergence, and within-stand uniformity. All are important characteristics for a bioenergy feedstock crop species, leading to reliable establishment and efficient biomass production. Poor performance in all traits was found for tuliptree, with a maximum yield of 1.2 Mg ha -1, suggesting this native species is a poor choice for SRWC. We then conclude that careful species selection beyond the conventionally used genera may enhance reliability and decrease negative environmental impacts of the bioenergy biomass production sector.« less

A critical analysis of species selection and high vs. low-input silviculture on establishment success and early productivity of model short-rotation wood-energy cropping systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fischer, M.; Kelley, A. M.; Ward, E. J.

Most research on bioenergy short rotation woody crops (SRWC) has been dedicated to the genera Populus and Salix. These species generally require relatively high-input culture, including intensive weed competition control, which increases costs and environmental externalities. Widespread native early successional species, characterized by high productivity and good coppicing ability, may be better adapted to local environmental stresses and therefore could offer alternative low-input bioenergy production systems. In order to test this concept, we established a three-year experiment comparing a widely-used hybrid poplar (Populus nigra × P. maximowiczii, clone ‘NM6’) to two native species, American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis L.) and tuliptreemore » (Liriodendron tulipifera L.) grown under contrasting weed and pest control at a coastal plain site in eastern North Carolina, USA. Mean cumulative aboveground wood production was significantly greater in sycamore, with yields of 46.6 Mg ha -11 under high-inputs and 32.7 Mg ha -1 under low-input culture, which rivaled the high-input NM6 yield of 32.9 Mg ha -1. NM6 under low-input management provided noncompetitive yield of 6.2 Mg ha -1. We also found that sycamore showed superiority in survival, biomass increment, weed resistance, treatment convergence, and within-stand uniformity. All are important characteristics for a bioenergy feedstock crop species, leading to reliable establishment and efficient biomass production. Poor performance in all traits was found for tuliptree, with a maximum yield of 1.2 Mg ha -1, suggesting this native species is a poor choice for SRWC. We then conclude that careful species selection beyond the conventionally used genera may enhance reliability and decrease negative environmental impacts of the bioenergy biomass production sector.« less

Increasing in-stream nitrogen concentrations under different bioenergy crop management practices in central Germany

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jomaa, Seifeddine; Thraen, Daniela; Rode, Michael

2015-04-01

Understanding how nitrogen fluxes respond to changes in land use and agriculture practices is crucial for improving instream water quality prediction. In central Germany, expansion of bioenergy crops such as maize and rape for ethanol production during the last decade led to increasing of fertilizer application rates. To examine the effect of these changes, surface water quality of a drinking water reservoir catchment was investigated for more than 30 years. The Weida catchment (99.5 km2) is part of the Elbe river basin and has a share of 67% agricultural land use with significant changes in agricultural practices within the investigation period. For the period 2004-2012, the share of maize and rape has been increased by 52% and 20%, respectively, for enhancing bioenergy production. To achieve our gaols, the semi-distributed hydrological water quality HYPE (Hydrological Predictions for the Environment) model was calibrated for discharge and inorganic nitrogen concentrations (IN) during the period 1997-2000.The model was validated successfully (with lowest performance of NSE = 0.78 and PBIAS = 3.74% for discharge) for three different periods 1983-1987, 1989-1996 and 2000-2003, which are charaterized by different fertilizer application rates. Results showed that the HYPE model reproduced reasonably well discharge and IN daily loads (with lowest NSE = 0.64 for IN-load). In addition, the HYPE model was evaluated successfully to predict the discharge and IN concentrations for the period 2004-2012, where detailed input data in terms of crops management (field-specific survey) have been considered. Land use and crop rotations scenarios, with high hypothetical percentage of acceptance by the farmers, revealed that continuous conversion of agricultural land into bioenergy crops, will most likely, lead to an enrichment of in-stream nitrogen, especially after spring storms.

Greenhouse gas fluxes (CO2, CH4, N2O) of a short-rotation poplar plantation after conversion from agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zona, D.; Janssens, I.; Aubinet, M.; Ceulemans, R.

2012-12-01

The increasing demand for renewable energy may lead to the conversion of millions of hectares into bioenergy plantations with a possible substantial transitory carbon (C) loss. Here we report on the greenhouse gas fluxes (CO2, CH4, and N2O) measured using eddy covariance of a short-rotation bioenergy poplar plantation converted from agricultural fields. The first six months after the establishment of the plantation (June-Dec 2010) presented substantial CO2, CH4, and N2O emissions (a total of 5.36 ± 0.52 Mg CO2eq ha-1 in terms of CO2 equivalents). Nitrous oxide loss mostly occurred during a week-long peak emission after an unusually large rainfall. This week-long N2O emission represented 52% of the entire N2O loss during one and an half years of measurements. As most of the N2O loss occurred in just this week-long period, accurately capturing these emission events are critical to accurate estimates of the GHG balance of bioenergy. While initial establishment (Jun-Dec 2010) of the plantation resulted in a net CO2 loss into the atmosphere (2.76 ± 0.16 Mg CO2eq ha-1), in the second year (2011) the plantation presented a substantial net CO2 uptake (-4.82 ± 0.47 Mg CO2eq ha-1). During the entire measurement period, CH4 was a source to the atmosphere (0.63 ± 0.05 Mg CO2eq ha-1 in 2010, and 0.49 ± 0.05 Mg CO2eq ha-1 in 2011), and was controlled by water table depth. Importantly, over the entire measurement period, the sum of the CH4 and N2O losses was almost double (3.51 ± 0.52 Mg CO2eq ha-1) than the magnitude of net CO2 uptake (-2.06 ± 0.50 Mg CO2eq ha-1). As water availability was an important control on the GHG emission of the plantation, expected climate change and altered rainfall pattern could increase the negative environmental impacts of bioenergy.

A global conversation about energy from biomass: the continental conventions of the global sustainable bioenergy project

PubMed Central

Lynd, Lee Rybeck; Aziz, Ramlan Abdul; de Brito Cruz, Carlos Henrique; Chimphango, Annie Fabian Abel; Cortez, Luis Augusto Barbosa; Faaij, Andre; Greene, Nathanael; Keller, Martin; Osseweijer, Patricia; Richard, Tom L.; Sheehan, John; Chugh, Archana; van der Wielen, Luuk; Woods, Jeremy; van Zyl, Willem Heber

2011-01-01

The global sustainable bioenergy (GSB) project was formed in 2009 with the goal of providing guidance with respect to the feasibility and desirability of sustainable, bioenergy-intensive futures. Stage 1 of this project held conventions with a largely common format on each of the world's continents, was completed in 2010, and is described in this paper. Attended by over 400 persons, the five continental conventions featured presentations, breakout sessions, and drafting of resolutions that were unanimously passed by attendees. The resolutions highlight the potential of bioenergy to make a large energy supply contribution while honouring other priorities, acknowledge the breadth and complexity of bioenergy applications as well as the need to take a systemic approach, and attest to substantial intra- and inter-continental diversity with respect to needs, opportunities, constraints and current practice relevant to bioenergy. The following interim recommendations based on stage 1 GSB activities are offered: — Realize that it may be more productive, and also more correct, to view the seemingly divergent assessments of bioenergy as answers to two different questions rather than the same question. Viewed in this light, there is considerably more scope for reconciliation than might first be apparent, and it is possible to be informed rather than paralysed by divergent assessments.— Develop established and advanced bioenergy technologies such that each contributes to the other's success. That is, support and deploy in the near-term meritorious, established technologies in ways that enhance rather than impede deployment of advanced technologies, and support and deploy advanced technologies in ways that expand rather than contract opportunities for early adopters and investors.— Be clear in formulating policies what mix of objectives are being targeted, measure the results of these policies against these objectives and beware of unintended consequences.— Undertake further exploration of land efficiency levers and visions for multiply-beneficial bioenergy deployment. This should be unconstrained by current practices, since we cannot hope to achieve a sustainable and a secure future by continuing the practices that have led to the unsustainable and insecure present. It should also be approached from a global perspective, based on the best science available, and consider the diverse realities, constraints, needs and opportunities extant in different regions of the world.The future trajectory of the GSB project is also briefly considered. PMID:22419984

A global conversation about energy from biomass: the continental conventions of the global sustainable bioenergy project.

PubMed

Lynd, Lee Rybeck; Aziz, Ramlan Abdul; de Brito Cruz, Carlos Henrique; Chimphango, Annie Fabian Abel; Cortez, Luis Augusto Barbosa; Faaij, Andre; Greene, Nathanael; Keller, Martin; Osseweijer, Patricia; Richard, Tom L; Sheehan, John; Chugh, Archana; van der Wielen, Luuk; Woods, Jeremy; van Zyl, Willem Heber

2011-04-06

The global sustainable bioenergy (GSB) project was formed in 2009 with the goal of providing guidance with respect to the feasibility and desirability of sustainable, bioenergy-intensive futures. Stage 1 of this project held conventions with a largely common format on each of the world's continents, was completed in 2010, and is described in this paper. Attended by over 400 persons, the five continental conventions featured presentations, breakout sessions, and drafting of resolutions that were unanimously passed by attendees. The resolutions highlight the potential of bioenergy to make a large energy supply contribution while honouring other priorities, acknowledge the breadth and complexity of bioenergy applications as well as the need to take a systemic approach, and attest to substantial intra- and inter-continental diversity with respect to needs, opportunities, constraints and current practice relevant to bioenergy. The following interim recommendations based on stage 1 GSB activities are offered: - Realize that it may be more productive, and also more correct, to view the seemingly divergent assessments of bioenergy as answers to two different questions rather than the same question. Viewed in this light, there is considerably more scope for reconciliation than might first be apparent, and it is possible to be informed rather than paralysed by divergent assessments.- Develop established and advanced bioenergy technologies such that each contributes to the other's success. That is, support and deploy in the near-term meritorious, established technologies in ways that enhance rather than impede deployment of advanced technologies, and support and deploy advanced technologies in ways that expand rather than contract opportunities for early adopters and investors.- Be clear in formulating policies what mix of objectives are being targeted, measure the results of these policies against these objectives and beware of unintended consequences.- Undertake further exploration of land efficiency levers and visions for multiply-beneficial bioenergy deployment. This should be unconstrained by current practices, since we cannot hope to achieve a sustainable and a secure future by continuing the practices that have led to the unsustainable and insecure present. It should also be approached from a global perspective, based on the best science available, and consider the diverse realities, constraints, needs and opportunities extant in different regions of the world.The future trajectory of the GSB project is also briefly considered.

Modeling Sustainable Bioenergy Feedstock Production in the Alps

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kraxner, Florian; Leduc, Sylvain; Kindermann, Georg; Fuss, Sabine; Pietsch, Stephan; Lakyda, Ivan; Serrano Leon, Hernan; Shchepashchenko, Dmitry; Shvidenko, Anatoly

2016-04-01

Sustainability of bioenergy is often indicated by the neutrality of emissions at the conversion site while the feedstock production site is assumed to be carbon neutral. Recent research shows that sustainability of bioenergy systems starts with feedstock management. Even if sustainable forest management is applied, different management types can impact ecosystem services substantially. This study examines different sustainable forest management systems together with an optimal planning of green-field bioenergy plants in the Alps. Two models - the biophysical global forest model (G4M) and a techno-economic engineering model for optimizing renewable energy systems (BeWhere) are implemented. G4M is applied in a forward looking manner in order to provide information on the forest under different management scenarios: (1) managing the forest for maximizing the carbon sequestration; or (2) managing the forest for maximizing the harvestable wood amount for bioenergy production. The results from the forest modelling are then picked up by the engineering model BeWhere, which optimizes the bioenergy production in terms of energy demand (power and heat demand by population) and supply (wood harvesting potentials), feedstock harvesting and transport costs, the location and capacity of the bioenergy plant as well as the energy distribution logistics with respect to heat and electricity (e.g. considering existing grids for electricity or district heating etc.). First results highlight the importance of considering ecosystem services under different scenarios and in a geographically explicit manner. While aiming at producing the same amount of bioenergy under both forest management scenarios, it turns out that in scenario (1) a substantially larger area (distributed across the Alps) will need to be used for producing (and harvesting) the necessary amount of feedstock than under scenario (2). This result clearly shows that scenario (2) has to be seen as an "intensification scenario" under which more biomass feedstock can be produced and harvested, so that less area would be affected by harvesting and other management activities. Intensification through optimal forest management can lead to a substantial reduction of the area necessary for bioenergy feedstock supply. This in turn means that the "spared" area and the associated ecosystem services can be designated for conservation or other uses. This insight provides support to policy and decision makers in considering the optimal "mix" or "co-existence" of different ecosystem services and economic demands from a modern landscape management approach.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McManus, Marcelle C.; Taylor, Caroline M.; Mohr, Alison

Purpose: Bioenergy is increasingly used to help meet greenhouse gas (GHG) and renewable energy targets. However, bioenergy’s sustainability has been questioned, resulting in increasing use of life cycle assessment (LCA). Bioenergy systems are global and complex, and market forces can result in significant changes, relevant to LCA and policy. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the complexities associated with LCA, with particular focus on bioenergy and associated policy development, so that its use can more effectively inform policymakers. Methods: The review is based on the results from a series of workshops focused on bioenergy life cycle assessment. Expertmore » submissions were compiled and categorized within the first two workshops. Over 100 issues emerged. Accounting for redundancies and close similarities in the list, this reduced to around 60 challenges, many of which are deeply interrelated. Some of these issues were then explored further at a policy-facing workshop in London, UK. The authors applied a rigorous approach to categorize the challenges identified to be at the intersection of biofuels/bioenergy LCA and policy. Results and discussion: The credibility of LCA is core to its use in policy. Even LCAs that comply with ISO standards and policy and regulatory instruments leave a great deal of scope for interpretation and flexibility. Within the bioenergy sector, this has led to frustration and at times a lack of obvious direction. This paper identifies the main challenge clusters: overarching issues, application and practice and value and ethical judgments. Many of these are reflective of the transition from application of LCA to assess individual products or systems to the wider approach that is becoming more common. Uncertainty in impact assessment strongly influences planning and compliance due to challenges in assigning accountability, and communicating the inherent complexity and uncertainty within bioenergy is becoming of greater importance. Conclusions: The emergence of LCA in bioenergy governance is particularly significant because other sectors are likely to transition to similar governance models. LCA is being stretched to accommodate complex and broad policy-relevant questions, seeking to incorporate externalities that have major implications for long-term sustainability. As policy increasingly relies on LCA, the strains placed on the methodology are becoming both clearer and impedimentary. The implications for energy policy, and in particular bioenergy, are large.« less

Challenge clusters facing LCA in environmental decision-making—what we can learn from biofuels

DOE PAGES

McManus, Marcelle C.; Taylor, Caroline M.; Mohr, Alison; ...

2015-08-07

Purpose: Bioenergy is increasingly used to help meet greenhouse gas (GHG) and renewable energy targets. However, bioenergy’s sustainability has been questioned, resulting in increasing use of life cycle assessment (LCA). Bioenergy systems are global and complex, and market forces can result in significant changes, relevant to LCA and policy. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the complexities associated with LCA, with particular focus on bioenergy and associated policy development, so that its use can more effectively inform policymakers. Methods: The review is based on the results from a series of workshops focused on bioenergy life cycle assessment. Expertmore » submissions were compiled and categorized within the first two workshops. Over 100 issues emerged. Accounting for redundancies and close similarities in the list, this reduced to around 60 challenges, many of which are deeply interrelated. Some of these issues were then explored further at a policy-facing workshop in London, UK. The authors applied a rigorous approach to categorize the challenges identified to be at the intersection of biofuels/bioenergy LCA and policy. Results and discussion: The credibility of LCA is core to its use in policy. Even LCAs that comply with ISO standards and policy and regulatory instruments leave a great deal of scope for interpretation and flexibility. Within the bioenergy sector, this has led to frustration and at times a lack of obvious direction. This paper identifies the main challenge clusters: overarching issues, application and practice and value and ethical judgments. Many of these are reflective of the transition from application of LCA to assess individual products or systems to the wider approach that is becoming more common. Uncertainty in impact assessment strongly influences planning and compliance due to challenges in assigning accountability, and communicating the inherent complexity and uncertainty within bioenergy is becoming of greater importance. Conclusions: The emergence of LCA in bioenergy governance is particularly significant because other sectors are likely to transition to similar governance models. LCA is being stretched to accommodate complex and broad policy-relevant questions, seeking to incorporate externalities that have major implications for long-term sustainability. As policy increasingly relies on LCA, the strains placed on the methodology are becoming both clearer and impedimentary. The implications for energy policy, and in particular bioenergy, are large.« less

Design, modeling, and analysis of a feedstock logistics system.

PubMed

Judd, Jason D; Sarin, Subhash C; Cundiff, John S

2012-01-01

Given the location of a bio-energy plant for the conversion of biomass to bio-energy, a feedstock logistics system that relies on the use of satellite storage locations (SSLs) for temporary storage and loading of round bales is proposed. Three equipment systems are considered for handling biomass at the SSLs, and they are either placed permanently or are mobile and thereby travel from one SSL to another. A mathematical programming-based approach is utilized to determine SSLs and equipment routes in order to minimize the total cost. The use of a Side-loading Rack System results in average savings of 21.3% over a Densification System while a Rear-loading Rack System is more expensive to operate than either of the other equipment systems. The utilization of mobile equipment results in average savings of 14.8% over the equipment placed permanently. Furthermore, the Densification System is not justifiable for transportation distances less than 81 km. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Drought effects on composition and yield for corn stover, mixed grasses, and Miscanthus as bioenergy feedstocks

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Emerson, Rachel; Hoover, Amber; Ray, Allison

Drought conditions in 2012 were some of the most severe in recent history. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of drought on quality, quantity, and theoretical ethanol yield (TEY) of three bioenergy feedstocks, corn stover, mixed grasses from Conservation Reserve Program lands, and Miscanthus × giganteus. To assess drought effects on these feedstocks, samples from 2010 (minimal to no drought) and 2012 (severe drought) were compared from multiple locations in the US. In all feedstocks, drought significantly increased extractives and reduced structural sugars and lignin; subsequently, TEYs were reduced 10–15%. Biomass yields were significantly reduced formore » M. × giganteus and mixed grasses. When reduction in quality and quantity were combined, TEYs decreased 26–59%. Drought negatively affected biomass quality and quantity that resulted in significant TEY reductions. As a result, such fluctuations in biomass quality and yield may have significant consequences for developing lignocellulosic biorefineries.« less

Drought effects on composition and yield for corn stover, mixed grasses, and Miscanthus as bioenergy feedstocks

DOE PAGES

Emerson, Rachel; Hoover, Amber; Ray, Allison; ...

2014-07-04

Drought conditions in 2012 were some of the most severe in recent history. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of drought on quality, quantity, and theoretical ethanol yield (TEY) of three bioenergy feedstocks, corn stover, mixed grasses from Conservation Reserve Program lands, and Miscanthus × giganteus. To assess drought effects on these feedstocks, samples from 2010 (minimal to no drought) and 2012 (severe drought) were compared from multiple locations in the US. In all feedstocks, drought significantly increased extractives and reduced structural sugars and lignin; subsequently, TEYs were reduced 10–15%. Biomass yields were significantly reduced formore » M. × giganteus and mixed grasses. When reduction in quality and quantity were combined, TEYs decreased 26–59%. Drought negatively affected biomass quality and quantity that resulted in significant TEY reductions. As a result, such fluctuations in biomass quality and yield may have significant consequences for developing lignocellulosic biorefineries.« less

Sugarcane straw removal effects on plant growth and stalk yield

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

There is growing interest in sugarcane straw removal from the field to use as raw material for bioenergy production. In contrast, sugarcane straw removal may have negative implications for many soil ecosystem services and subsequent plant growth. A two-year experiment was conducted at Bom Retiro and...

Bioenergy grass feedstock production in the southern Coastal Plain

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The Renewable Fuels Standard within the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA)(Pub L.) requires that by the year 2022, 36 billion gallons of biofuels be added to gasoline and that 21 billion gallons would come from non-cornstarch products such as sugar or cellulosic feedstock. The Sout...

Predicting the field establishment of perennial grass feedstocks: progress made and challenges ahead

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The goal of perennial grass feedstock planting is to establish the feedstock as rapidly, completely, and inexpensively as possible. The economic viability of growing perennial grass feedstocks for bioenergy is impacted significantly by the success of stand establishment in the seeding year. Establis...

Characterization of some useful traits in sweet sorghum for bioenergy production

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Multiple yearly harvests can increase crop productivity but the crop may encounter different environmental challenges (such as early-spring cold or late-fall frost) depending on cultivation zones. Sweet sorghum as a feedstock may be planted early to get a double harvest or be rotated with sugarcane ...

Balance between climate change mitigation benefits and land use impacts of bioenergy: conservation implications for European birds.

PubMed

Meller, Laura; Thuiller, Wilfried; Pironon, Samuel; Barbet-Massin, Morgane; Hof, Andries; Cabeza, Mar

2015-07-01

Both climate change and habitat modification exert serious pressure on biodiversity. Although climate change mitigation has been identified as an important strategy for biodiversity conservation, bioenergy remains a controversial mitigation action due to its potential negative ecological and socio-economic impacts which arise through habitat modification by land-use change. While the debate continues, the separate or simultaneous impacts of both climate change and bioenergy on biodiversity have not yet been compared. We assess projected range shifts of 156 European bird species by 2050 under two alternative climate change trajectories: a baseline scenario, where the global mean temperature increases by 4°C by the end of the century, and a 2 degrees scenario, where global concerted effort limits the temperature increase to below 2°C. For the latter scenario, we also quantify the pressure exerted by increased cultivation of energy biomass as modelled by IMAGE2.4, an integrated land-use model. The global bioenergy use in this scenario is in the lower end of the range of previously estimated sustainable potential. Under the assumptions of these scenarios, we find that the magnitude of range shifts due to climate change is far greater than the impact of land conversion to woody bioenergy plantations within the European Union, and that mitigation of climate change reduces the exposure experienced by species. However, we identified potential for local conservation conflict between priority areas for conservation and bioenergy production. These conflicts must be addressed by strict bioenergy sustainability criteria that acknowledge biodiversity conservation needs beyond existing protected areas and apply also to biomass imported from outside the European Union.

Short and long-term carbon balance of bioenergy electricity production fueled by forest treatments.

PubMed

Kelsey, Katharine C; Barnes, Kallie L; Ryan, Michael G; Neff, Jason C

2014-01-01

Forests store large amounts of carbon in forest biomass, and this carbon can be released to the atmosphere following forest disturbance or management. In the western US, forest fuel reduction treatments designed to reduce the risk of high severity wildfire can change forest carbon balance by removing carbon in the form of biomass, and by altering future potential wildfire behavior in the treated stand. Forest treatment carbon balance is further affected by the fate of this biomass removed from the forest, and the occurrence and intensity of a future wildfire in this stand. In this study we investigate the carbon balance of a forest treatment with varying fates of harvested biomass, including use for bioenergy electricity production, and under varying scenarios of future disturbance and regeneration. Bioenergy is a carbon intensive energy source; in our study we find that carbon emissions from bioenergy electricity production are nearly twice that of coal for the same amount of electricity. However, some emissions from bioenergy electricity production are offset by avoided fossil fuel electricity emissions. The carbon benefit achieved by using harvested biomass for bioenergy electricity production may be increased through avoided pyrogenic emissions if the forest treatment can effectively reduce severity. Forest treatments with the use of harvested biomass for electricity generation can reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere by offsetting fossil fuel electricity generation emissions, and potentially by avoided pyrogenic emissions due to reduced intensity and severity of a future wildfire in the treated stand. However, changes in future wildfire and regeneration regimes may affect forest carbon balance and these climate-induced changes may influence forest carbon balance as much, or more, than bioenergy production.

Balance between climate change mitigation benefits and land use impacts of bioenergy: conservation implications for European birds

PubMed Central

Meller, Laura; Thuiller, Wilfried; Pironon, Samuel; Barbet-Massin, Morgane; Hof, Andries; Cabeza, Mar

2015-01-01

Both climate change and habitat modification exert serious pressure on biodiversity. Although climate change mitigation has been identified as an important strategy for biodiversity conservation, bioenergy remains a controversial mitigation action due to its potential negative ecological and socio-economic impacts which arise through habitat modification by land-use change. While the debate continues, the separate or simultaneous impacts of both climate change and bioenergy on biodiversity have not yet been compared. We assess projected range shifts of 156 European bird species by 2050 under two alternative climate change trajectories: a baseline scenario, where the global mean temperature increases by 4°C by the end of the century, and a 2 degrees scenario, where global concerted effort limits the temperature increase to below 2°C. For the latter scenario, we also quantify the pressure exerted by increased cultivation of energy biomass as modelled by IMAGE2.4, an integrated land-use model. The global bioenergy use in this scenario is in the lower end of the range of previously estimated sustainable potential. Under the assumptions of these scenarios, we find that the magnitude of range shifts due to climate change is far greater than the impact of land conversion to woody bioenergy plantations within the European Union, and that mitigation of climate change reduces the exposure experienced by species. However, we identified potential for local conservation conflict between priority areas for conservation and bioenergy production. These conflicts must be addressed by strict bioenergy sustainability criteria that acknowledge biodiversity conservation needs beyond existing protected areas and apply also to biomass imported from outside the European Union. PMID:26681982

Predicting the Impacts of Climate Change on the Potential Distribution of Major Native Non-Food Bioenergy Plants in China

PubMed Central

Wang, Wenguo; Tang, Xiaoyu; Zhu, Qili; Pan, Ke; Hu, Qichun; He, Mingxiong; Li, Jiatang

2014-01-01

Planting non-food bioenergy crops on marginal lands is an alternative bioenergy development solution in China. Native non-food bioenergy plants are also considered to be a wise choice to reduce the threat of invasive plants. In this study, the impacts of climate change (a consensus of IPCC scenarios A2a for 2080) on the potential distribution of nine non-food bioenergy plants native to China (viz., Pistacia chinensis, Cornus wilsoniana, Xanthoceras sorbifolia, Vernicia fordii, Sapium sebiferum, Miscanthus sinensis, M. floridulus, M. sacchariflorus and Arundo donax) were analyzed using a MaxEnt species distribution model. The suitable habitats of the nine non-food plants were distributed in the regions east of the Mongolian Plateau and the Tibetan Plateau, where the arable land is primarily used for food production. Thus, the large-scale cultivation of those plants for energy production will have to rely on the marginal lands. The variables of “precipitation of the warmest quarter” and “annual mean temperature” were the most important bioclimatic variables for most of the nine plants according to the MaxEnt modeling results. Global warming in coming decades may result in a decrease in the extent of suitable habitat in the tropics but will have little effect on the total distribution area of each plant. The results indicated that it will be possible to grow these plants on marginal lands within these areas in the future. This work should be beneficial for the domestication and cultivation of those bioenergy plants and should facilitate land-use planning for bioenergy crops in China. PMID:25365425

Cover crop root, shoot, and rhizodeposit contributions to soil carbon in a no- till corn bioenergy cropping system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Austin, E.; Grandy, S.; Wickings, K.; McDaniel, M. D.; Robertson, P.

2016-12-01

Crop residues are potential biofuel feedstocks, but residue removal may result in reduced soil carbon (C). The inclusion of a cover crop in a corn bioenergy system could provide additional biomass and as well as help to mitigate the negative effects of residue removal by adding belowground C to stable soil C pools. In a no-till continuous corn bioenergy system in the northern portion of the US corn belt, we used 13CO2 pulse labeling to trace C in a winter rye (secale cereale) cover crop into different soil C pools for two years following rye termination. Corn stover contributed 66 (another 163 was in harvested corn stover), corn roots 57, rye shoot 61, rye roots 59, and rye rhizodeposits 27 g C m-2 to soil C. Five months following cover crop termination, belowground cover crop inputs were three times more likely to remain in soil C pools and much of the root-derived C was in mineral- associated soil fractions. Our results underscore the importance of cover crop roots vs. shoots as a source of soil C. Belowground C inputs from winter cover crops could substantially offset short term stover removal in this system.

Productivity ranges of sustainable biomass potentials from non-agricultural land

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schueler, Vivian; Fuss, Sabine; Steckel, Jan Christoph; Weddige, Ulf; Beringer, Tim

2016-07-01

Land is under pressure from a number of demands, including the need for increased supplies of bioenergy. While bioenergy is an important ingredient in many pathways compatible with reaching the 2 °C target, areas where cultivation of the biomass feedstock would be most productive appear to co-host other important ecosystems services. We categorize global geo-data on land availability into productivity deciles, and provide a geographically explicit assessment of potentials that are concurrent with EU sustainability criteria. The deciles unambiguously classify the global productivity range of potential land currently not in agricultural production for biomass cultivation. Results show that 53 exajoule (EJ) sustainable biomass potential are available from 167 million hectares (Mha) with a productivity above 10 tons of dry matter per hectare and year (tD Mha-1 a-1), while additional 33 EJ are available on 264 Mha with yields between 4 and 10 tD M ha-1 a-1: some regions lose less of their highly productive potentials to sustainability concerns than others and regional contributions to bioenergy potentials shift when less productive land is considered. Challenges to limit developments to the exploitation of sustainable potentials arise in Latin America, Africa and Developing Asia, while new opportunities emerge for Transition Economies and OECD countries to cultivate marginal land.

Renewable and sustainable bioenergies production from palm oil mill effluent (POME): win-win strategies toward better environmental protection.

PubMed

Lam, Man Kee; Lee, Keat Teong

2011-01-01

Palm oil industry is one of the leading agricultural industries in Malaysia with average crude palm oil production of more than 13 million tonne per year. However, production of such huge amount of crude palm oil has consequently resulted to even larger amount of palm oil mill effluent (POME). POME is a highly polluting wastewater with high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) in which can caused severe pollution to the environment, typically pollution to water resources. On the other hand, POME was identified as a potential source to generate renewable bioenergies such as biomethane and biohydrogen through anaerobic digestion. In other words, a combination of wastewater treatment and renewable bioenergies production would be an added advantage to the palm oil industry. In line with the world's focus on sustainability concept, such strategy should be implemented immediately to ensure palm oil is produced in an environmental friendly and sustainable manner. This review aims to discuss various technologies to convert POME to biomethane and biohydrogen in a commercial scale. Furthermore, discussion on using POME to culture microalgae for biodiesel and bioethanol production was included in the present paper as a new remedy to utilize POME with a greater beneficial return. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Policies to Enable Bioenergy Deployment: Key Considerations and Good Practices

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Smolinksi, Sharon; Cox, Sadie

2016-05-01

Bioenergy is renewable energy generated from biological source materials, and includes electricity, transportation fuels and heating. Source materials are varied types of biomass, including food crops such as corn and sugarcane, non-edible lignocellulosic materials such as agricultural and forestry waste and dedicated crops, and municipal and livestock wastes. Key aspects of policies for bioenergy deployment are presented in this brief as part of the Clean Energy Solutions Center's Clean Energy Policy Brief Series.

Growing America's Energy Future

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

The emerging U.S. bioenergy industry provides a secure and growing supply of transportation fuels, biopower, and bioproducts produced from a range of abundant, renewable biomass resources. Bioenergy can help ensure a secure, sustainable, and economically sound future by reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, developing domestic clean energy sources, and generating domestic green jobs. Bioenergy can also help address growing concerns about climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to create a healthier environment for current and future generations.

Landscape control of nitrous oxide emissions during the transition from conservation reserve program to perennial grasses for bioenergy

Treesearch

Debasish Saha; Benjamin M. Rau; Jason P. Kaye; Felipe Montes; Paul R. Adler; Armen R. Kemanian

2016-01-01

Future liquid fuel demand from renewable sources may, in part, be met by converting the seasonally wet portions of the landscape currently managed for soil and water conservation to perennial energy crops. However, this shift may increase nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, thus limiting the carbon (C) benefits of energy crops. Particularly high emissions may occur during...

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cibin, Raj; Trybula, Elizabeth; Chaubey, Indrajeet

Cellulosic bioenergy feedstock such as perennial grasses and crop residues are expected to play a significant role in meeting US biofuel production targets. Here, we used an improved version of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to forecast impacts on watershed hydrology and water quality by implementing an array of plausible land-use changes associated with commercial bioenergy crop production for two watersheds in the Midwest USA. Watershed-scale impacts were estimated for 13 bioenergy crop production scenarios, including: production of Miscanthus 9 giganteus and upland Shawnee switchgrass on highly erodible landscape positions, agricultural marginal land areas and pastures, removal ofmore » corn stover and combinations of these options. We also measured water quality as erosion and sediment loading; this was forecasted to improve compared to baseline when perennial grasses were used for bioenergy production, but not with stover removal scenarios. Erosion reduction with perennial energy crop production scenarios ranged between 0.2% and 59%. Stream flow at the watershed outlet was reduced between 0 and 8% across these bioenergy crop production scenarios compared to baseline across the study watersheds. Our results indicate that bioenergy production scenarios that incorporate perennial grasses reduced the nonpoint source pollutant load at the watershed outlet compared to the baseline conditions (0–20% for nitrate-nitrogen and 3–56% for mineral phosphorus); but, the reduction rates were specific to site characteristics and management practices.« less

Sustainable Development for Whom and How? Exploring the Gaps between Popular Discourses and Ground Reality Using the Mexican Jatropha Biodiesel Case.

PubMed

Banerjee, Aparajita; Halvorsen, Kathleen E; Eastmond-Spencer, Amarella; Sweitz, Sam R

2017-06-01

In the last decade, jatropha-based bioenergy projects have gotten significant attention as a solution to various social, economic, and environmental problems. Jatropha's popularity stemmed out from different discourses, some real and some perceived, in scientific and non-scientific literature. These discourses positioned jatropha as a crop helpful in producing biodiesel and protecting sustainability by reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil fuels and increasing local, rural development by creating jobs. Consequently, many countries established national policies that incentivized the establishment of jatropha as a bioenergy feedstock crop. In this paper, we explore the case of jatropha bioenergy development in Yucatan, Mexico and argue that the popular discourse around jatropha as a sustainability and rural development tool is flawed. Analyzing our results from 70 semi-structured interviews with community members belonging to a region where plantation-scale jatropha projects were introduced, we found that these projects did not have many significant social sustainability benefits. We conclude from our case that by just adding bioenergy projects cannot help achieve social sustainability in rural areas alone. In ensuring social sustainability of bioenergy projects, future policymaking processes should have a more comprehensive understanding of the rural socioeconomic problems where such projects are promoted and use bioenergy projects as one of the many solutions to local problems rather than creating such policies based just on popular discourses.

Sustainable Development for Whom and How? Exploring the Gaps between Popular Discourses and Ground Reality Using the Mexican Jatropha Biodiesel Case

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Banerjee, Aparajita; Halvorsen, Kathleen E.; Eastmond-Spencer, Amarella; Sweitz, Sam R.

2017-06-01

In the last decade, jatropha-based bioenergy projects have gotten significant attention as a solution to various social, economic, and environmental problems. Jatropha's popularity stemmed out from different discourses, some real and some perceived, in scientific and non-scientific literature. These discourses positioned jatropha as a crop helpful in producing biodiesel and protecting sustainability by reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil fuels and increasing local, rural development by creating jobs. Consequently, many countries established national policies that incentivized the establishment of jatropha as a bioenergy feedstock crop. In this paper, we explore the case of jatropha bioenergy development in Yucatan, Mexico and argue that the popular discourse around jatropha as a sustainability and rural development tool is flawed. Analyzing our results from 70 semi-structured interviews with community members belonging to a region where plantation-scale jatropha projects were introduced, we found that these projects did not have many significant social sustainability benefits. We conclude from our case that by just adding bioenergy projects cannot help achieve social sustainability in rural areas alone. In ensuring social sustainability of bioenergy projects, future policymaking processes should have a more comprehensive understanding of the rural socioeconomic problems where such projects are promoted and use bioenergy projects as one of the many solutions to local problems rather than creating such policies based just on popular discourses.

X-ray micro-computed tomography in willow reveals tissue patterning of reaction wood and delay in programmed cell death.

PubMed

Brereton, Nicholas James Beresford; Ahmed, Farah; Sykes, Daniel; Ray, Michael Jason; Shield, Ian; Karp, Angela; Murphy, Richard James

2015-03-11

Variation in the reaction wood (RW) response has been shown to be a principle component driving differences in lignocellulosic sugar yield from the bioenergy crop willow. The phenotypic cause(s) behind these differences in sugar yield, beyond their common elicitor, however, remain unclear. Here we use X-ray micro-computed tomography (μCT) to investigate RW-associated alterations in secondary xylem tissue patterning in three dimensions (3D). Major architectural alterations were successfully quantified in 3D and attributed to RW induction. Whilst the frequency of vessels was reduced in tension wood tissue (TW), the total vessel volume was significantly increased. Interestingly, a delay in programmed-cell-death (PCD) associated with TW was also clearly observed and readily quantified by μCT. The surprising degree to which the volume of vessels was increased illustrates the substantial xylem tissue remodelling involved in reaction wood formation. The remodelling suggests an important physiological compromise between structural and hydraulic architecture necessary for extensive alteration of biomass and helps to demonstrate the power of improving our perspective of cell and tissue architecture. The precise observation of xylem tissue development and quantification of the extent of delay in PCD provides a valuable and exciting insight into this bioenergy crop trait.

Life cycle assessment of two emerging sewage sludge-to-energy systems: evaluating energy and greenhouse gas emissions implications.

PubMed

Cao, Yucheng; Pawłowski, Artur

2013-01-01

A "cradle-to-grave" life cycle assessment was conducted to examine the energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission footprints of two emerging sludge-to-energy systems. One system employs a combination of anaerobic digestion (AD) and fast pyrolysis for bioenergy conversion, while the other excludes AD. Each system was divided into five process phases: plant construction, sludge pretreatment, sludge-to-bioenergy conversion, bioenergy utilizations and biochar management. Both systems achieved energy and GHG emission benefits, and the AD-involving system performed better than the AD-excluding system (5.30 vs. 0.63 GJ/t sludge in net energy gain and 0.63 vs. 0.47 t CO(2)eq/t sludge in emission credit for base case). Detailed contribution and sensitivity analyses were conducted to identify how and to what degree the different life-cycle phases are responsible for the energy and emission impacts. The energy and emission performances were significantly affected by variations in bioenergy production, energy requirement for sludge drying and end use of bioenergy. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Correcting a fundamental error in greenhouse gas accounting related to bioenergy

PubMed Central

Haberl, Helmut; Sprinz, Detlef; Bonazountas, Marc; Cocco, Pierluigi; Desaubies, Yves; Henze, Mogens; Hertel, Ole; Johnson, Richard K.; Kastrup, Ulrike; Laconte, Pierre; Lange, Eckart; Novak, Peter; Paavola, Jouni; Reenberg, Anette; van den Hove, Sybille; Vermeire, Theo; Wadhams, Peter; Searchinger, Timothy

2012-01-01

Many international policies encourage a switch from fossil fuels to bioenergy based on the premise that its use would not result in carbon accumulation in the atmosphere. Frequently cited bioenergy goals would at least double the present global human use of plant material, the production of which already requires the dedication of roughly 75% of vegetated lands and more than 70% of water withdrawals. However, burning biomass for energy provision increases the amount of carbon in the air just like burning coal, oil or gas if harvesting the biomass decreases the amount of carbon stored in plants and soils, or reduces carbon sequestration. Neglecting this fact results in an accounting error that could be corrected by considering that only the use of ‘additional biomass’ – biomass from additional plant growth or biomass that would decompose rapidly if not used for bioenergy – can reduce carbon emissions. Failure to correct this accounting flaw will likely have substantial adverse consequences. The article presents recommendations for correcting greenhouse gas accounts related to bioenergy. PMID:23576835

The global potential of bioenergy on abandoned agriculture lands.

PubMed

Campbell, J Elliott; Lobell, David B; Genova, Robert C; Field, Christopher B

2008-08-01

Converting forest lands into bioenergy agriculture could accelerate climate change by emitting carbon stored in forests, while converting food agriculture lands into bioenergy agriculture could threaten food security. Both problems are potentially avoided by using abandoned agriculture lands for bioenergy agriculture. Here we show the global potential for bioenergy on abandoned agriculture lands to be less than 8% of current primary energy demand, based on historical land use data, satellite-derived land cover data, and global ecosystem modeling. The estimated global area of abandoned agriculture is 385-472 million hectares, or 66-110% of the areas reported in previous preliminary assessments. The area-weighted mean production of above-ground biomass is 4.3 tons ha(-1) y(-1), in contrast to estimates of up to 10 tons ha(-1) y(-1) in previous assessments. The energy content of potential biomass grown on 100% of abandoned agriculture lands is less than 10% of primary energy demand for most nations in North America, Europe, and Asia, but it represents many times the energy demand in some African nations where grasslands are relatively productive and current energy demand is low.

Optimal bioenergy power generation for climate change mitigation with or without carbon sequestration.

PubMed

Woolf, Dominic; Lehmann, Johannes; Lee, David R

2016-10-21

Restricting global warming below 2 °C to avoid catastrophic climate change will require atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Current integrated assessment models (IAMs) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios assume that CDR within the energy sector would be delivered using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Although bioenergy-biochar systems (BEBCS) can also deliver CDR, they are not included in any IPCC scenario. Here we show that despite BECCS offering twice the carbon sequestration and bioenergy per unit biomass, BEBCS may allow earlier deployment of CDR at lower carbon prices when long-term improvements in soil fertility offset biochar production costs. At carbon prices above $1,000 Mg -1 C, BECCS is most frequently (P>0.45, calculated as the fraction of Monte Carlo simulations in which BECCS is the most cost effective) the most economic biomass technology for climate-change mitigation. At carbon prices below $1,000 Mg -1 C, BEBCS is the most cost-effective technology only where biochar significantly improves agricultural yields, with pure bioenergy systems being otherwise preferred.

Optimal bioenergy power generation for climate change mitigation with or without carbon sequestration

PubMed Central

Woolf, Dominic; Lehmann, Johannes; Lee, David R.

2016-01-01

Restricting global warming below 2 °C to avoid catastrophic climate change will require atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Current integrated assessment models (IAMs) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios assume that CDR within the energy sector would be delivered using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Although bioenergy-biochar systems (BEBCS) can also deliver CDR, they are not included in any IPCC scenario. Here we show that despite BECCS offering twice the carbon sequestration and bioenergy per unit biomass, BEBCS may allow earlier deployment of CDR at lower carbon prices when long-term improvements in soil fertility offset biochar production costs. At carbon prices above $1,000 Mg−1 C, BECCS is most frequently (P>0.45, calculated as the fraction of Monte Carlo simulations in which BECCS is the most cost effective) the most economic biomass technology for climate-change mitigation. At carbon prices below $1,000 Mg−1 C, BEBCS is the most cost-effective technology only where biochar significantly improves agricultural yields, with pure bioenergy systems being otherwise preferred. PMID:27767177

The Endurance Bioenergy Reactor

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Laible, Philip; Michaund, Matt

2012-07-03

Argonne biophysicist Dr. Philip Laible and Air Force Major Matt Michaud talks about he endurance bioenergy reactor—a device that contains bacteria that can convert energy from the sun into fuel molecules.

Facilities | Bioenergy | NREL

Science.gov Websites

Facilities Facilities At NREL's state-of-the-art bioenergy research facilities, researchers design options. Photo of interior of industrial, two-story building with high-bay, piping, and large processing

Bioenergy | NREL

Science.gov Websites

Bioenergy Two men in a laboratory, one is holding a plastic bottle. An international research team plastics. Read more about improving plastic-degrading enzymes One man stands behind some laboratory

Analysis and Characterization | Bioenergy | NREL

Science.gov Websites

Analysis and Characterization Analysis and Characterization NREL's team of bioenergy analysts takes equipment in a lab Biomass Characterization Photo of NRELs Biochemical Process Development Unit showing a

Legal framework for a sustainable biomass production for bioenergy on Marginal Lands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baumgarten, Wibke; Pelikan, Vincent

2017-04-01

The EU H2020 funded project SEEMLA is aiming at the sustainable exploitation of biomass for bioenergy from marginal lands in Europe. Partners from Germany, Italy, Ukraine and Greece are involved in this project. Whereas Germany can be considered as well-established and leading country with regard to the production of bioenergy, directly followed by Italy and Greece, Ukraine is doing its first steps in becoming independent from fossil energy resources, also heading for the 2020+ goals. A basic, overarching regulation is the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) which has been amended in 2015; these amendments will be set in force in 2017. A new proposal for the period after 2020, the so called RED II, is under preparation. With cross-compliance and greening, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) offers measures for an efficient and ecological concept for a sustainable agriculture in Europe. In country-specific National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAP) a concept for 2020 targets is given for practical implementation until 2030 which covers e.g. individual renewable energy targets for electricity, heating and cooling, and transport sectors, the planned mix of different renewables technologies, national policies to develop biomass resources, and measures to ensure that biofuels are used to meet renewable energy targets are in compliance with the EU's sustainability criteria. While most of the NREAP have been submitted in 2010, the Ukrainian NREAP was established in 2014. In addition, the legal framework considering the protection of nature, e.g. Natura 2000, and its compartments soil, water, and atmosphere are presented. The SEEMLA approach will be developed in agreement with this already existing policy framework, following a sustainable principle for growing energy plants on marginal lands (MagL). Secondly, legislation regarding bioenergy and biomass potentials in the EU-28 and partner countries is introduced. For each SEEMLA partner an overview of regulatory authorities and principal laws in the field of bioenergy is given, supplemented by national biomass potentials and bioenergy use as well as by the German, Greek, Italian and Ukrainian NREAP. The overall target of all EU-28 countries - and Ukraine - is to create a more efficient bioeconomy, to increase the amount of biomass produced for bioenergy purposes, to avoid an increased competition between food/feed production on arable land and energy plant production, and decrease imports of fossil energy sources, i.e. [crude] oil, aiming at an independent, domestically based (bio)energy supply. Whereas in Germany the national policy framework regarding bioenergy is well-defined, there are only few specific national and/or regional policies in Greece, Italy or Ukraine. Moreover, the German legislation offers a higher potential for designing and modifying already existing regulations and laws, e.g. soil protection, EEG, etc. with respect to the use of MagL for bioenergy production, than in other SEEMLA partner countries. Although the biomass potential of each SEEMLA partner country varies a lot and the 2020 targets remain ambitious, the exploitation of sustainable biomass production on MagL may offer a suitable approach to fill the gaps of future biomass demands and accelerate the growth of an independent bioenergy based society.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Calvin, Katherine V.; Wise, Marshall A.; Kyle, G. Page

Many papers have shown that bioenergy and land-use are potentially important elements in a strategy to limit anthropogenic climate change. But, significant expansion of bioenergy production can have a large terrestrial footprint. In this paper, we test the implications for land use, the global energy system, carbon cycle, and carbon prices of meeting a specific climate target, using a single fossil fuel and industrial sector policy instrument—the carbon tax, but with five alternative bioenergy and land-use policy architectures. We find that the policies we examined have differing effects on the different segments of the economy. Comprehensive land policies can reducemore » land-use change emissions, increasing allowable emissions in the energy system, but have implications for the cost of food. Bioenergy taxes and constraints, on the other hand, have little effect on food prices, but can result in increased carbon and energy prices.« less

Growing cottonwoods for biomass: results of a ten-year irrigation study

Treesearch

H. Christoph Stuhlinger; Paul F. Doruska; Jeffery A. Earl; Matthew H. Pelkki

2010-01-01

Eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides Bartr.) has potential as a short rotation alternate crop on marginal farmlands in the South to meet increasing biomass demands for pulp and bioenergy applications. Potlatch Corporation supported this study to investigate the effect of irrigation on the growth of cottonwood trees. The study was installed in the...

30 years of progress toward increased biomass yield of switchgrass and big bluestem

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Breeding to improved biomass production of switchgrass and big bluestem for conversion to bioenergy began in 1992. The purpose of this study was (1) to develop a platform for uniform regional testing of cultivars and experimental populations for these species and (2) to estimate the gains made by br...

An assessment of reed canarygrass in northern U.S. forests

Treesearch

Cassandra M. Kurtz; Mark H. Hansen

2014-01-01

Reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea) is a cool-season perennial grass that can survive in a wide range of environmental conditions. It is native to Eurasia and North America; however over the past 100 years, several cultivars have been bred for forage, bioenergy, ornamental use, and restoration (Lavergne and Molofsky 2004). Distinguishing...

Impact of harvest time and cultivar on conversion of switchgrass to bio-oils via fast pyrolysis

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The study of the effects of harvest time on switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) biomass and bioenergy production reported herein is the final part complementing two prior studies reporting on the harvest of six switchgrass cultivars grown at three northern United States locations over three years, har...

Biomass and bioenergy production potential of microalgae consortium in open and closed bioreactors using untreated carpet industry effluent as growth medium.

PubMed

Chinnasamy, Senthil; Bhatnagar, Ashish; Claxton, Ronald; Das, K C

2010-09-01

Improved wastewater management with beneficial utilization will result in enhanced sustainability and enormous cost savings in industries. Algae cultivation systems viz. raceway ponds, vertical tank reactors (VTR) and polybags were evaluated for mass production of algal consortium using carpet industry (CI) untreated wastewater. Overall areal biomass productivity of polybags (21.1 g m(-2)d(-1)) was the best followed by VTR (8.1 g m(-2)d(-1)) and raceways (5.9 g m(-2)d(-1)). An estimated biomass productivity of 51 and 77 tons ha(-1)year(-1) can be achieved using 20 and 30 L capacity polybags, respectively with triple row arrangement. Biomass obtained from algal consortium was rich in proteins (approximately 53.8%) and low in carbohydrates (approximately 15.7%) and lipids (approximately 5.3%). Consortium cultivated in polybags has the potential to produce 12,128 m(3) of biomethane ha(-1)year(-1). To be economically viable, the capital expenditure for polybag reactors needs to be reduced to $10 m(-2) for bioenergy/biofuel production. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Pilot Study.

PubMed

Running, Alice; Hildreth, Laura

2017-03-01

To examine the effectiveness of a bio-energy intervention on self-reported stress for a convenience sample of University students, faculty, and staff during finals week. We hypothesized that participants would report a decrease in stress after a 20 minute bio-energy intervention. A quasi-experimental, single-group, pretest-posttest design was used. Thirty-nine faculty, staff, and students participated. Participants served as their own controls. A specific technique was provided by each bio-energy practitioner for 20 minutes after participants had completed a visual analogue scale identifying level of stress and listing two positive and negative behaviors they were currently using in response to stress. A one-sample t test indicates that bio-energy therapy significantly reduces stress, t(35) = 7.74, p < .0001. A multiple regression analysis further indicates that the decrease in stress levels is significantly greater for higher initial stress levels, t(31) = 4.748, p < .0001); decreases in stress are significantly greater for faculty and staff compared to students, t(31) = -2.223, p = .034; and decreases in stress levels are marginally significantly higher for older participants, t(31) =1.946, p = .061. Bio-energy therapy may have benefit in reducing stress for faculty, staff, and students during final examination week. Further research is needed.

Sustainable biomass production on Marginal Lands (SEEMLA)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barbera, Federica; Baumgarten, Wibke; Pelikan, Vincent

2017-04-01

Sustainable biomass production on Marginal Lands (SEEMLA) The main objective of the H2020 funded EU project SEEMLA (acronym for Sustainable Exploitation of Biomass for Bioenergy from Marginal Lands in Europe) is the establishment of suitable innovative land-use strategies for a sustainable production of plant-based energy on marginal lands while improving general ecosystem services. The use of marginal lands (MagL) could contribute to the mitigation of the fast growing competition between traditional food production and production of renewable bio-resources on arable lands. SEEMLA focuses on the promotion of re-conversion of MagLs for the production of bioenergy through the direct involvement of farmers and forester, the strengthening of local small-scale supply chains, and the promotion of plantations of bioenergy plants on MagLs. Life cycle assessment is performed in order to analyse possible impacts on the environment. A soil quality rating tool is applied to define and classify MagL. Suitable perennial and woody bioenergy crops are selected to be grown in pilot areas in the partner countries Ukraine, Greece and Germany. SEEMLA is expected to contribute to an increasing demand of biomass for bioenergy production in order to meet the 2020 targets and beyond.

Interaction between isoprene and ozone fluxes in a poplar plantation and its impact on air quality at the European level

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zenone, Terenzio; Hendriks, Carlijn; Brilli, Federico; Fransen, Erik; Gioli, Beniamio; Portillo-Estrada, Miguel; Schaap, Martijn; Ceulemans, Reinhart

2016-09-01

The emission of isoprene and other biogenic volatile organic compounds from vegetation plays an important role in tropospheric ozone (O3) formation. The potentially large expansion of isoprene emitting species (e.g., poplars) for bioenergy production might, therefore, impact tropospheric O3 formation. Using the eddy covariance technique we have simultaneously measured fluxes isoprene, O3 and of CO2 from a poplar (Populus) plantation grown for bioenergy production. We used the chemistry transport model LOTOS-EUROS to scale-up the isoprene emissions associated with the existing poplar plantations in Europe, and we assessed the impact of isoprene fluxes on ground level O3 concentrations. Our findings suggest that isoprene emissions from existing poplar-for-bioenergy plantations do not significantly affect the ground level of O3 concentration. Indeed the overall land in Europe covered with poplar plantations has not significantly changed over the last two decades despite policy incentives to produce bioenergy crops. The current surface area of isoprene emitting poplars-for-bioenergy remains too limited to significantly enhance O3 concentrations and thus to be considered a potential threat for air quality and human health.

Interaction between isoprene and ozone fluxes in a poplar plantation and its impact on air quality at the European level.

PubMed

Zenone, Terenzio; Hendriks, Carlijn; Brilli, Federico; Fransen, Erik; Gioli, Beniamio; Portillo-Estrada, Miguel; Schaap, Martijn; Ceulemans, Reinhart

2016-09-12

The emission of isoprene and other biogenic volatile organic compounds from vegetation plays an important role in tropospheric ozone (O3) formation. The potentially large expansion of isoprene emitting species (e.g., poplars) for bioenergy production might, therefore, impact tropospheric O3 formation. Using the eddy covariance technique we have simultaneously measured fluxes isoprene, O3 and of CO2 from a poplar (Populus) plantation grown for bioenergy production. We used the chemistry transport model LOTOS-EUROS to scale-up the isoprene emissions associated with the existing poplar plantations in Europe, and we assessed the impact of isoprene fluxes on ground level O3 concentrations. Our findings suggest that isoprene emissions from existing poplar-for-bioenergy plantations do not significantly affect the ground level of O3 concentration. Indeed the overall land in Europe covered with poplar plantations has not significantly changed over the last two decades despite policy incentives to produce bioenergy crops. The current surface area of isoprene emitting poplars-for-bioenergy remains too limited to significantly enhance O3 concentrations and thus to be considered a potential threat for air quality and human health.

Design and development of synthetic microbial platform cells for bioenergy

PubMed Central

Lee, Sang Jun; Lee, Sang-Jae; Lee, Dong-Woo

2013-01-01

The finite reservation of fossil fuels accelerates the necessity of development of renewable energy sources. Recent advances in synthetic biology encompassing systems biology and metabolic engineering enable us to engineer and/or create tailor made microorganisms to produce alternative biofuels for the future bio-era. For the efficient transformation of biomass to bioenergy, microbial cells need to be designed and engineered to maximize the performance of cellular metabolisms for the production of biofuels during energy flow. Toward this end, two different conceptual approaches have been applied for the development of platform cell factories: forward minimization and reverse engineering. From the context of naturally minimized genomes,non-essential energy-consuming pathways and/or related gene clusters could be progressively deleted to optimize cellular energy status for bioenergy production. Alternatively, incorporation of non-indigenous parts and/or modules including biomass-degrading enzymes, carbon uptake transporters, photosynthesis, CO2 fixation, and etc. into chassis microorganisms allows the platform cells to gain novel metabolic functions for bioenergy. This review focuses on the current progress in synthetic biology-aided pathway engineering in microbial cells and discusses its impact on the production of sustainable bioenergy. PMID:23626588

The changing nature of life cycle assessment

PubMed Central

McManus, Marcelle C.; Taylor, Caroline M.

2015-01-01

LCA has evolved from its origins in energy analysis in the 1960s and 70s into a wide ranging tool used to determine impacts of products or systems over several environmental and resource issues. The approach has become more prevalent in research, industry and policy. Its use continues to expand as it seeks to encompass impacts as diverse as resource accounting and social well being. Carbon policy for bioenergy has driven many of these changes. Enabling assessment of complex issues over a life cycle basis is beneficial, but the process is sometimes difficult. LCA's use in framing is increasingly complex and more uncertain, and in some cases, irreconcilable. The charged environment surrounding biofuels and bioenergy exacerbates all of these. Reaching its full potential to help guide difficult policy discussions and emerging research involves successfully managing LCA's transition from attributional to consequential and from retrospective to prospective. This paper examines LCA's on-going evolution and its use within bioenergy deployment. The management of methodological growth in the context of the unique challenges associated with bioenergy and biofuels is explored. Changes seen in bioenergy LCA will bleed into other LCA arenas, especially where it is important that a sustainable solution is chosen. PMID:26664146

Bioenergy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kenney, Kevin; Gresham, Garold

Scientists and engineers at Idaho National Laboratory are working with partners throughout the bioenergy industry in preprocessing and characterization to ensure optimum feedstock quality. This elite team understands that addressing feedstock variability is a critical component in the biofuel production process.

Bioenergy

ScienceCinema

Kenney, Kevin; Gresham, Garold

2018-06-06

Scientists and engineers at Idaho National Laboratory are working with partners throughout the bioenergy industry in preprocessing and characterization to ensure optimum feedstock quality. This elite team understands that addressing feedstock variability is a critical component in the biofuel production process.

Energy Department Announces National Bioenergy Center

Science.gov Websites

Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo., and Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tenn. will lead the Bioenergy Center. The center will link DOE-funded biomass

Using corngrass1 to engineer poplar as a bioenergy crop

DOEpatents

Meilan, Richard; Rubinelli, Peter Marius; Chuck, George

2016-05-10

Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to new bioenergy crops and methods of creating new bioenergy crops. For example, genes encoding microRNAs (miRNAs) are used to create transgenic crops. In some embodiments, over-expression of miRNA is used to produce transgenic perennials, such as trees, with altered lignin content or composition. In some embodiments, the transgenic perennials are Populus spp. In some embodiments, the miRNA is a member of the miR156 family. In some embodiments, the gene is Zea mays Cg1.

Field-based estimates of global warming potential in bioenergy systems of Hawaii: Crop choice and deficit irrigation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pawlowski, Meghan N.; Crow, Susan E.; Meki, Manyowa N.

Replacing fossil fuel with biofuel is environmentally viable from a climate change perspective only if the net greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of the system is reduced. The effects of replacing annual arable crops with perennial bioenergy feedstocks on net GHG production and soil carbon (C) stock are critical to the system-level balance. Here, we compared GHG flux, crop yield, root biomass, and soil C stock under two potential tropical, perennial grass biofuel feedstocks: conventional sugarcane and ratoon-harvested, zero-tillage napiergrass. Evaluations were conducted at two irrigation levels, 100% of plantation application and at a 50% deficit. Peaks and troughs of GHGmore » emission followed agronomic events such as ratoon harvest of napiergrass and fertilization. Yet, net GHG flux was dominated by carbon dioxide (CO 2), as methane was oxidized and nitrous oxide (N 2O) emission was very low even following fertilization. High N 2O fluxes that frequently negate other greenhouse gas benefits that come from replacing fossil fuels with agronomic forms of bioenergy were mitigated by efficient water and fertilizer management, including direct injection of fertilizer into buried irrigation lines. From soil intensively cultivated for a century in sugarcane, soil C stock and root biomass increased rapidly following cultivation in grasses selected for robust root systems and drought tolerance. The net soil C increase over the two-year crop cycle was three-fold greater than the annualized soil surface CO 2 flux. Furthermore, deficit irrigation reduced yield, but increased soil C accumulation as proportionately more photosynthetic resources were allocated below ground. In the first two years of cultivation napier grass did not increase net greenhouse warming potential (GWP) compared to sugarcane, and has the advantage of multiple ratoon harvests per year and less negative effects of deficit irrigation to yield.« less

Field-based estimates of global warming potential in bioenergy systems of Hawaii: Crop choice and deficit irrigation

DOE PAGES

Pawlowski, Meghan N.; Crow, Susan E.; Meki, Manyowa N.; ...

2017-01-04

Replacing fossil fuel with biofuel is environmentally viable from a climate change perspective only if the net greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of the system is reduced. The effects of replacing annual arable crops with perennial bioenergy feedstocks on net GHG production and soil carbon (C) stock are critical to the system-level balance. Here, we compared GHG flux, crop yield, root biomass, and soil C stock under two potential tropical, perennial grass biofuel feedstocks: conventional sugarcane and ratoon-harvested, zero-tillage napiergrass. Evaluations were conducted at two irrigation levels, 100% of plantation application and at a 50% deficit. Peaks and troughs of GHGmore » emission followed agronomic events such as ratoon harvest of napiergrass and fertilization. Yet, net GHG flux was dominated by carbon dioxide (CO 2), as methane was oxidized and nitrous oxide (N 2O) emission was very low even following fertilization. High N 2O fluxes that frequently negate other greenhouse gas benefits that come from replacing fossil fuels with agronomic forms of bioenergy were mitigated by efficient water and fertilizer management, including direct injection of fertilizer into buried irrigation lines. From soil intensively cultivated for a century in sugarcane, soil C stock and root biomass increased rapidly following cultivation in grasses selected for robust root systems and drought tolerance. The net soil C increase over the two-year crop cycle was three-fold greater than the annualized soil surface CO 2 flux. Furthermore, deficit irrigation reduced yield, but increased soil C accumulation as proportionately more photosynthetic resources were allocated below ground. In the first two years of cultivation napier grass did not increase net greenhouse warming potential (GWP) compared to sugarcane, and has the advantage of multiple ratoon harvests per year and less negative effects of deficit irrigation to yield.« less

Spatial and temporal dynamics of agricultural residue resources in the last 30 years in China.

PubMed

Yang, Yanli; Zhang, Peidong; Yang, Xutong; Xu, Xiaoning

2016-12-01

The availability and distribution of biomass resources are important for the development of the bioenergy industry in a region. Biomass resources are abundant in China; however, the raw material is severely deficient, which makes the Chinese bioenergy industry an embarrassment and a contradiction. Unclear reserves and distribution and changing trends of biomass resources are the reason for this situation. A collection coefficient model of Chinese agricultural residue resources was established and the spatial and temporal pattern dynamics of agricultural residue resources in the last 30 years were analyzed. The results show that agricultural residue resources increased in stages from 1978 to 2011, including a rapid increase from 1978 to 1999, a significant fall from 2000 to 2004, and a slow increase from 2004 to 2011. Crops straw and livestock manure are the main ingredients of agricultural residue resources with proportions of 53-59% and 31-38%, respectively. However, the former has gradually decreased, while the latter is increasing. This mainly resulted from the strategic reorganization of the Chinese agriculture structure and the rapid development of large-scale livestock breeding and agricultural mechanization. Large regional differences existed in Chinese agricultural residue resources, and three distribution types formed, including resource-rich areas in North China, Northeast and Inner Mongolia, resource-limited areas in Central and Southwest China, and resource-poor areas along Northwest and Southeast coasts. This pattern is a reverse of the distributions of climatic conditions, water resources, economic development, human resources, and technological levels. Finally, it can be predicted that livestock manure and biomass conversion technology at low temperature will play increasingly significant roles in bioenergy industry development. © The Author(s) 2016.

Life Cycle Assessment of Bioenergy from Lignocellulosic Crops Cultivated on Marginal Land in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rettenmaier, Nils; Schmidt, Tobias; Gärtner, Sven; Reinhardt, Guido

2017-04-01

Population growth and changing diets due to economic development lead to an additional demand for land for food and feed production. Slowly but surely turning into a mass market, also the cultivation of non-food biomass crops for fibre (bio-based products) and fuel (biofuels and bioenergy) is increasingly contributing to the pressure on global agricultural land. As a consequence, the already prevailing competition for land might even intensify over the next decades. Against this background, the possibilities of shifting the cultivation of non-food biomass crops to so-called 'marginal lands' are investigated. The EC-funded project 'Sustainable exploitation of biomass for bioenergy from marginal lands in Europe' (SEEMLA) aims at the establishment of suitable innovative land-use strategies for a sustainable production of bioenergy from lignocellulosic crops on marginal lands while improving general ecosystem services. For a complete understanding of the environmental benefits and drawbacks of the envisioned cultivation of bioenergy crops on marginal land, life cycle assessments (LCA) have proven to be a suitable and valuable tool. Thus, embedded into a comprehensive sustainability assessment, a screening LCA is carried out for the entire life cycles of the bioenergy carriers researched in SEEMLA. Investigated systems, on the one hand, include the specific field trials carried out by the SEEMLA partners in Ukraine, Greece and Germany. On the other hand, generic scenarios are investigated in order to derive reliable general statements on the environmental impacts of bioenergy from marginal lands in Europe. Investigated crops include woody and herbaceous species such as black locust, poplar, pine, willow and Miscanthus. Conversion technologies cover the use in a domestic or a district heating plant, power plant, CHP as well as the production of Fischer-Tropsch diesel (FT diesel) and lignocellulosic ethanol. Environmental impacts are compared to conventional reference systems such as heat and/or power as well as transport fuels from fossil energy carriers. Results are obtained for various environmental impact categories including climate change, non-renewable energy use, acidification and eutrophication. Preliminary results show that all investigated bioenergy carriers are associated with environmental advantages and disadvantages compared to the conventional reference systems. Nevertheless, bioenergy carriers showing most environmental benefits could be identified. However, it also became clear that LCA is less suited to address local environmental impacts (e.g. on biodiversity and water). Therefore, the classical LCA approach is supplemented with a separate life cycle environmental impact assessment (LC-EIA). Final results will indicate the best performing crops and conversion technologies, the process steps and parameters that strongly determine the results and the optimisation potentials. From these results, recommendations will be made to various stakeholders including policy makers and farmers, e.g. regarding the criteria that should be met in order to advocate bioenergy production from biomass cultivated on marginal land in Europe.

Bioenergy production and forest landscape change in the southeastern United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Costanza, Jennifer K.; Abt, Robert C.; McKerrow, Alexa; Collazo, Jaime A.

2016-01-01

Production of woody biomass for bioenergy, whether wood pellets or liquid biofuels, has the potential to cause substantial landscape change and concomitant effects on forest ecosystems, but the landscape effects of alternative production scenarios have not been fully assessed. We simulated landscape change from 2010 to 2050 under five scenarios of woody biomass production for wood pellets and liquid biofuels in North Carolina, in the southeastern United States, a region that is a substantial producer of wood biomass for bioenergy and contains high biodiversity. Modeled scenarios varied biomass feedstocks, incorporating harvest of ‘conventional’ forests, which include naturally regenerating as well as planted forests that exist on the landscape even without bioenergy production, as well as purpose-grown woody crops grown on marginal lands. Results reveal trade-offs among scenarios in terms of overall forest area and the characteristics of the remaining forest in 2050. Meeting demand for biomass from conventional forests resulted in more total forest land compared with a baseline, business-as-usual scenario. However, the remaining forest was composed of more intensively managed forest and less of the bottomland hardwood and longleaf pine habitats that support biodiversity. Converting marginal forest to purpose-grown crops reduced forest area, but the remaining forest contained more of the critical habitats for biodiversity. Conversion of marginal agricultural lands to purpose-grown crops resulted in smaller differences from the baseline scenario in terms of forest area and the characteristics of remaining forest habitats. Each scenario affected the dominant type of land-use change in some regions, especially in the coastal plain that harbors high levels of biodiversity. Our results demonstrate the complex landscape effects of alternative bioenergy scenarios, highlight that the regions most likely to be affected by bioenergy production are also critical for biodiversity, and point to the challenges associated with evaluating bioenergy sustainability.

Microalgae Feedstocks for Aviation Fuels

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wigmosta, Mark S.; Coleman, Andre; Venteris, Erik

There is significant global interest in developing, testing, and using alternative jet fuels for both commercial and military use in an effort to create a sustainable and stable fuel supply while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, the aviation industry is entirely dependent on a finite-supply of petroleum based fuel sourced in part by politically and economically unstable regions of the world. Commercial jet fuel use within the contiguous United States (CONUS) was 17.8 billion gallons per year (BGY) in 2009, while jet fuel use in 2010 by the U.S. Air Force (USAF), Navy, and Army was 1.5 BGY, 0.6 BGY,more » and 0.8 BGY, respectively (Carter et al., 2011). U.S. commercial and military aviation sectors have set ambitious near-term alternative fuel and environmental performance targets. This includes a tentative Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) goal of 1 BGY alternative fuel use by commercial aircraft by 2018. The USAF has set a target of 50% for USAF domestic aviation via alternative fuels by 2016 (0.73 BGY), and 50% of the Navy’s total energy consumption afloat (0.3 BGY) will come from alternative fuels by 2020 (Carter et al., 2011). If these targets become policy, at least 2 BGY of domestically-produced alternative jet fuel will be required by 2020. The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 established production requirements for domestic alternative fuels under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). For example, 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel must be produced by 2022, of which 21 billion gallons shall be advanced biofuels. EISA defines advanced biofuels as non-corn starch derived biofuels having lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions 50% lower than gasoline. There a number of potential fuel pathways for meeting the RFS. One of these is biomass-based diesel, including jet fuel (Schnepf and Yacobucci, 2013). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) has a stated goal in its 2013 Multi-Year Program Plan (USDOE, 2013) to support the RFS through development of “…commercially viable biomass utilization technologies to encourage the creation of a new domestic bioenergy industry…”. BETO has also recognized the potential for aviation biofuels to support the bioenergy industry, seeing drop-in bio-based jet fuels one of the viable alternatives for the aviation industry and the military to meet their ambitious near-term GHG reduction targets (USDOE, 2014). One of the important Multi-year Program Plan Targets (USDOE, 2013) is to establish feedstock resource assessment models to evaluate the geographic, economic, quality and environmental criteria for which 20 million metric tons of ash free dry weight (AFDW) algal biomass can be produced by 2022. Toward meeting the EISA requirements, algal biofuels may offer a number of advantages. They can produce a range of biofuel feedstocks suitable for diesel and aviation fuels. Microalgae, on a strain-specific basis, can be cultivated using impaired water including saline, and/or brackish pumped groundwater or seawater, treated industrial wastewater, municipal sewage effluent, and produced water generated from oil and gas drilling operations. Additionally, microalgae require nitrogen and phosphates as essential nutrients and could provide water treatment co-benefits to municipalities, industry, and the environment.« less

Synaptic Activity and Bioenergy Homeostasis: Implications in Brain Trauma and Neurodegenerative Diseases

PubMed Central

Khatri, Natasha; Man, Heng-Ye

2013-01-01

Powered by glucose metabolism, the brain is the most energy-demanding organ in our body. Adequate ATP production and regulation of the metabolic processes are essential for the maintenance of synaptic transmission and neuronal function. Glutamatergic synaptic activity utilizes the largest portion of bioenergy for synaptic events including neurotransmitter synthesis, vesicle recycling, and most importantly, the postsynaptic activities leading to channel activation and rebalancing of ionic gradients. Bioenergy homeostasis is coupled with synaptic function via activities of the sodium pumps, glutamate transporters, glucose transport, and mitochondria translocation. Energy insufficiency is sensed by the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), a master metabolic regulator that stimulates the catalytic process to enhance energy production. A decline in energy supply and a disruption in bioenergy homeostasis play a critical role in multiple neuropathological conditions including ischemia, stroke, and neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injuries. PMID:24376435

Life cycle assessment of bioenergy systems: state of the art and future challenges.

PubMed

Cherubini, Francesco; Strømman, Anders Hammer

2011-01-01

The use of different input data, functional units, allocation methods, reference systems and other assumptions complicates comparisons of LCA bioenergy studies. In addition, uncertainties and use of specific local factors for indirect effects (like land-use change and N-based soil emissions) may give rise to wide ranges of final results. In order to investigate how these key issues have been addressed so far, this work performs a review of the recent bioenergy LCA literature. The abundance of studies dealing with the different biomass resources, conversion technologies, products and environmental impact categories is summarized and discussed. Afterwards, a qualitative interpretation of the LCA results is depicted, focusing on energy balance, GHG balance and other impact categories. With the exception of a few studies, most LCAs found a significant net reduction in GHG emissions and fossil energy consumption when bioenergy replaces fossil energy. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On the usage of agricultural raw materials--energy or food? An assessment from an economics perspective.

PubMed

Lenk, Fabian; Bröring, Stefanie; Herzog, Philipp; Leker, Jens

2007-12-01

Bioenergies are promoted across the globe as the answer for global warming and the chance to reduce dependency from fossil energy sources. Despite the fact that renewable energy sources offer the opportunity to reduce CO2 emission and present a chance to increase agricultural incomes, they also come along with some drawbacks that have been mostly neglected in the current discussion. This paper seeks to build a basis for discussing the impacts of the growing subsidization of bioenergy and the resulting usage competition of agricultural raw materials between foods and energy. To assess the usage competition and the subsidization of bioenergy, this article employs a welfare economics perspective associated with an emphasize on the construct of externalities. This will help to foster the discussion on the further subsidization of bioenergy, where funding for R&D on new ways of using non-food raw materials ought to play a significant role.

Diversity, Productivity, and Stability of an Industrial Microbial Ecosystem

PubMed Central

Tang, Pei-Zhong; Becker, Scott; Hoang, Tony; Bilgin, Damla; Lim, Yan Wei; Peterson, Todd C.; Mayfield, Stephen; Haerizadeh, Farzad; Shurin, Jonathan B.; Bafna, Vineet; McBride, Robert

2016-01-01

Managing ecosystems to maintain biodiversity may be one approach to ensuring their dynamic stability, productivity, and delivery of vital services. The applicability of this approach to industrial ecosystems that harness the metabolic activities of microbes has been proposed but has never been tested at relevant scales. We used a tag-sequencing approach with bacterial small subunit rRNA (16S) genes and eukaryotic internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) to measuring the taxonomic composition and diversity of bacteria and eukaryotes in an open pond managed for bioenergy production by microalgae over a year. Periods of high eukaryotic diversity were associated with high and more-stable biomass productivity. In addition, bacterial diversity and eukaryotic diversity were inversely correlated over time, possibly due to their opposite responses to temperature. The results indicate that maintaining diverse communities may be essential to engineering stable and productive bioenergy ecosystems using microorganisms. PMID:26896141

Miscanthus: A Review of European Experience with a Novel Energy Crop

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Scurlock, J.M.O.

1999-02-01

Miscanthus is a tall perennial grass which has been evaluated in Europe over the past 5-10 years as a new bioenergy crop. The sustained European interest in miscanthus suggests that this novel energy crop deserves serious investigation as a possible candidate biofuel crop for the US alongside switchgrass. To date, no agronomic trials or trial results for miscanthus are known from the conterminous US, so its performance under US conditions is virtually unknown. Speculating from European data, under typical agricultural practices over large areas, an average of about 8t/ha (3t/acre dry weight) may be expected at harvest time. As withmore » most of the new bioenergy crops, there seems to be a steep ''learning curve.'' Establishment costs appear to be fairly high at present (a wide range is reported from different European countries), although these may be expected to fall as improved management techniques are developed.« less

Diversity, Productivity, and Stability of an Industrial Microbial Ecosystem.

PubMed

Beyter, Doruk; Tang, Pei-Zhong; Becker, Scott; Hoang, Tony; Bilgin, Damla; Lim, Yan Wei; Peterson, Todd C; Mayfield, Stephen; Haerizadeh, Farzad; Shurin, Jonathan B; Bafna, Vineet; McBride, Robert

2016-04-01

Managing ecosystems to maintain biodiversity may be one approach to ensuring their dynamic stability, productivity, and delivery of vital services. The applicability of this approach to industrial ecosystems that harness the metabolic activities of microbes has been proposed but has never been tested at relevant scales. We used a tag-sequencing approach with bacterial small subunit rRNA (16S) genes and eukaryotic internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) to measuring the taxonomic composition and diversity of bacteria and eukaryotes in an open pond managed for bioenergy production by microalgae over a year. Periods of high eukaryotic diversity were associated with high and more-stable biomass productivity. In addition, bacterial diversity and eukaryotic diversity were inversely correlated over time, possibly due to their opposite responses to temperature. The results indicate that maintaining diverse communities may be essential to engineering stable and productive bioenergy ecosystems using microorganisms. Copyright © 2016, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Climate, economic, and environmental impacts of producing wood for bioenergy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Birdsey, Richard; Duffy, Philip; Smyth, Carolyn; Kurz, Werner A.; Dugan, Alexa J.; Houghton, Richard

2018-05-01

Increasing combustion of woody biomass for electricity has raised concerns and produced conflicting statements about impacts on atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations, climate, and other forest values such as timber supply and biodiversity. The purposes of this concise review of current literature are to (1) examine impacts on net GHG emissions and climate from increasing bioenergy production from forests and exporting wood pellets to Europe from North America, (2) develop a set of science-based recommendations about the circumstances that would result in GHG reductions or increases in the atmosphere, and (3) identify economic and environmental impacts of increasing bioenergy use of forests. We find that increasing bioenergy production and pellet exports often increase net emissions of GHGs for decades or longer, depending on source of feedstock and its alternate fate, time horizon of analysis, energy emissions associated with the supply chain and fuel substitution, and impacts on carbon cycling of forest ecosystems. Alternative uses of roundwood often offer larger reductions in GHGs, in particular long-lived wood products that store carbon for longer periods of time and can achieve greater substitution benefits than bioenergy. Other effects of using wood for bioenergy may be considerable including induced land-use change, changes in supplies of wood and other materials for construction, albedo and non-radiative effects of land-cover change on climate, and long-term impacts on soil productivity. Changes in biodiversity and other ecosystem attributes may be strongly affected by increasing biofuel production, depending on source of material and the projected scale of biofuel production increases.

A Genomic Resource for the Development, Improvement, and Exploitation of Sorghum for Bioenergy

PubMed Central

Brenton, Zachary W.; Cooper, Elizabeth A.; Myers, Mathew T.; Boyles, Richard E.; Shakoor, Nadia; Zielinski, Kelsey J.; Rauh, Bradley L.; Bridges, William C.; Morris, Geoffrey P.; Kresovich, Stephen

2016-01-01

With high productivity and stress tolerance, numerous grass genera of the Andropogoneae have emerged as candidates for bioenergy production. To optimize these candidates, research examining the genetic architecture of yield, carbon partitioning, and composition is required to advance breeding objectives. Significant progress has been made developing genetic and genomic resources for Andropogoneae, and advances in comparative and computational genomics have enabled research examining the genetic basis of photosynthesis, carbon partitioning, composition, and sink strength. To provide a pivotal resource aimed at developing a comparative understanding of key bioenergy traits in the Andropogoneae, we have established and characterized an association panel of 390 racially, geographically, and phenotypically diverse Sorghum bicolor accessions with 232,303 genetic markers. Sorghum bicolor was selected because of its genomic simplicity, phenotypic diversity, significant genomic tools, and its agricultural productivity and resilience. We have demonstrated the value of sorghum as a functional model for candidate gene discovery for bioenergy Andropogoneae by performing genome-wide association analysis for two contrasting phenotypes representing key components of structural and non-structural carbohydrates. We identified potential genes, including a cellulase enzyme and a vacuolar transporter, associated with increased non-structural carbohydrates that could lead to bioenergy sorghum improvement. Although our analysis identified genes with potentially clear functions, other candidates did not have assigned functions, suggesting novel molecular mechanisms for carbon partitioning traits. These results, combined with our characterization of phenotypic and genetic diversity and the public accessibility of each accession and genomic data, demonstrate the value of this resource and provide a foundation for future improvement of sorghum and related grasses for bioenergy production. PMID:27356613

Accounting for Human Health and Ecosystems Quality in Developing Sustainable Energy Products: The Implications of Wood Biomass-based Electricity Strategies to Climate Change Mitigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weldu, Yemane W.

The prospect for transitions and transformations in the energy sector to mitigate climate change raises concerns that actions should not shift the impacts from one impact category to another, or from one sustainability domain to another. Although the development of renewables mostly results in low environmental impacts, energy strategies are complex and may result in the shifting of impacts. Strategies to climate change mitigation could have potentially large effects on human health and ecosystems. Exposure to air pollution claimed the lives of about seven million people worldwide in 2010, largely from the combustion of solid fuels. The degradation of ecosystem services is a significant barrier to achieving millennium development goals. This thesis quantifies the biomass resources potential for Alberta; presents a user-friendly and sector-specific framework for sustainability assessment; unlocks the information and policy barriers to biomass integration in energy strategy; introduces new perspectives to improve understanding of the life cycle human health and ecotoxicological effects of energy strategies; provides insight regarding the guiding measures that are required to ensure sustainable bioenergy production; validates the utility of the Environmental Life Cycle Cost framework for economic sustainability assessment; and provides policy-relevant societal cost estimates to demonstrate the importance of accounting for human health and ecosystem externalities in energy planning. Alberta is endowed with a wealth of forest and agricultural biomass resources, estimated at 458 PJ of energy. Biomass has the potential to avoid 11-15% of GHG emissions and substitute 14-17% of final energy demand by 2030. The drivers for integrating bioenergy sources into Alberta's energy strategy are economic diversification, technological innovation, and resource conservation policy objectives. Bioenergy pathways significantly improved both human health and ecosystem quality from coal fuel. Bioenergy alternatives have higher economic cost than the prevailing scenario of coal-fired generation system. Although coal fuel is the most cost effective way of electricity generation, its combustion results in the loss of 123.5 billion USD per year for Alberta due to societal life cycle cost. This research demonstrated that bioenergy can support the transformation of a fossil-based energy system to a more sustainable power production system; however, respiratory effects is a concern.

Helena Chum | NREL

Science.gov Websites

systems, and international renewable energy activities including agriculture, forestry, bioenergy : Lead author of the Energy Systems Chapter and contributing author of the Agriculture, Forestry and , addressing climate change, sustainability certification of bioenergy and biomass, and integrated systems

Techno-economic analysis of a biomass depot

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jacobson, Jacob Jordan; Lamers, Patrick; Roni, Mohammad Sadekuzzaman

2014-10-01

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) promotes the production of an array of liquid fuels and fuel blendstocks from lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks by funding fundamental and applied research that advances the state of technology in biomass collection, conversion, and sustainability. As part of its involvement in this program, the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) investigates the technical, economic, and environmental performance of different feedstock supply systems and their impacts on the downstream conversion processes.

Comparison of cellulosic ethanol yields from midwestern maize and reconstructed tallgrass prairie systems managed for bioenergy

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Maize- and prairie-based systems were investigated as cellulosic feedstocks by conducting a 9 ha side-by-side comparison on fertile soils in the Midwestern United States. Maize was grown continuously with adequate fertilization over years both with and without a winter rye cover crop, and the 31-spe...

Net farm income and land use under a U.S. greenhouse gas cap and trade

Treesearch

Justin S. Baker; Bruce A. McCarl; Brian C. Murray; Steven K. Rose; Ralph J. Alig; Darius Adams; Greg Latta; Robert Beach; Adam Daigneault

2010-01-01

During recent years, the U.S. agricultural sector has experienced high prices for energy related inputs and commodities, and a rapidly developing bioenergy market. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation would further alter agricultural markets and increase land competition in forestry and agriculture by shifting input costs, creating an agricultural GHG abatement...

Harvesting systems for multiple products an update for the United States

Treesearch

Bryce J. Stokes

1998-01-01

As expected, currently and for years to come, the demand for energy will increase, especially for transportation. Other increases will be for natural gas for residential and industriai use, and for renewables as a response to environmental awareness. However, for the short term, economics dictate energy source selection and use; bioenergy has not been competitive....

Opportunity and development of bio-based composites

Treesearch

Zhiyong Cai; Jerrold E. Winandy

2005-01-01

Our forests are a naturally renewable resource that has been used as a principal source of bio-energy and building materials for centuries. The rapid growth of world population has now resulted in substantial increases in demand and in consumption of all raw materials. This now provides a unique opportunity of developing new bio-based composites. The 100-year history...

Holistic processes and practices for clean energy in strengthening bioeconomic strategies (INDO-NORDEN)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shurpali, Narasinha J.; Parameswaran, Binod; Raud, Merlin; Pumpanen, Jukka; Sippula, Olli; Jokiniemi, Jorma; Lusotarinen, Sari; Virkajarvi, Perttu

2017-04-01

We are proud to introduce the project, INDO-NORDEN, funded in response to the Science and Technology call of the INNO INDIGO Partnership Program (IPP) on Biobased Energy. The project is scheduled to begin from April 2017. The proposed project aims to address both subtopics of the call, Biofuels and From Waste to Energy with research partners from Finland (coordinating unit), India and Estonia. The EU and India share common objectives in enhancing energy security, promoting energy efficiency and energy safety, and the pursuit of sustainable development of clean and renewable energy source. The main objective of INDO-NORDEN is to investigate, evaluate and develop efficient processes and land use practices of transforming forest and agricultural biomass, agricultural residues and farm waste into clean fuels (solid, liquid or gas), by thermochemical or biochemical conversions. Forestry and agriculture are the major bioenergy sectors in Finland. Intensive forest harvesting techniques are being used in Finland to enhance the share of bioenergy in the total energy consumption in the future. However, there are no clear indications how environmentally safe are these intensive forestry practices in Finland. We address this issue through field studies addressing the climate impacts on the ecosystem carbon balance and detailed life cycle assessment. The role of agriculture in Finland is expected to grow significantly in the years to come. Here, we follow a holistic field experimental approach addressing several major issues relevant to Nordic agriculture under changing climatic conditions - soil nutrient management, recycling of nutrients, farm and agricultural waste management, biogas production potentials, greenhouse gas inventorying and entire production chain analysis. There is a considerable potential for process integration in the biofuel sector. This project plans to develop biofuel production processes adopted in Estonia and India with a major aim of enhancing biofuel yields. Additionally, the effects of biomass raw material on ash characteristics and behavior as well as on the fine particle and gas emissions in biomass-fired combustion plants will be evaluated. Thus, the project goes an extra mile in addressing both technological and environmental effects of bioenergy production with combustion processes. Finally, with a voluntary participation of companies with excellent track record in biogas production and CHP technology in participating countries, the project aims to bridge the gap between science, technology and industries.

Fluxes of the greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4 and N2O) above a short-rotation poplar plantation after conversion from agricultural land

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zona, Donatella; Ceulemans, Reinhart

2013-04-01

The increasing demand for renewable energy may lead to the conversion of millions of hectares into bioenergy plantations with a possible substantial transitory carbon (C) loss. In this study we report on the greenhouse gas fluxes (CO2, CH4, and N2O) measured using eddy covariance of a short-rotation bioenergy poplar plantation converted from agricultural fields. During the first six months after the establishment of the plantation (June-Dec 2010) there were substantial CO2, CH4, and N2O emissions (a total of 5.36 ± 0.52 Mg CO2eq ha-1 in terms of CO2 equivalents). Nitrous oxide loss mostly occurred during a week-long peak emission after an unusually large rainfall. This week-long N2O emission represented 52% of the entire N2O loss during one and an half years of measurements. As most of the N2O loss occurred in just this week-long period, accurately capturing these emission events are critical to accurate estimates of the GHG balance of bioenergy. While initial establishment (Jun-Dec 2010) of the plantation resulted in a net CO2 loss into the atmosphere (2.76 ± 0.16 Mg CO2eq ha-1), in the second year (2011) there was substantial net CO2 uptake (-3.51 ± 0.56 Mg CO2eq ha-1). During the entire measurement period, CH4 was a source to the atmosphere (0.63 ± 0.05 Mg CO2eq ha-1 in 2010, and 0.49 ± 0.05 Mg CO2eq ha-1 in 2011), and was controlled by water table depth. Importantly, over the entire measurement period, the sum of the CH4 and N2O losses was much higher (3.51 ± 0.52 Mg CO2eq ha-1) than the net CO2 uptake (-0.76 ± 0.58 Mg CO2eq ha-1). As water availability was an important control on the GHG emission of the plantation, expected climate change and altered rainfall pattern could increase the negative environmental impacts of bioenergy.

A model for deploying switchgrass for bioenergy in an intensive agricultural landscape

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Switchgrass bioenergy research has been conducted in Nebraska since 1990. In that time, significant progress has been made in switchgrass breeding and genetics, molecular genetics, establishment, fertility management, production economics, production energetics, harvest and storage management, ecos...

Bioenergy production and sustainable development: science base for policymaking remains limited.

PubMed

Robledo-Abad, Carmenza; Althaus, Hans-Jörg; Berndes, Göran; Bolwig, Simon; Corbera, Esteve; Creutzig, Felix; Garcia-Ulloa, John; Geddes, Anna; Gregg, Jay S; Haberl, Helmut; Hanger, Susanne; Harper, Richard J; Hunsberger, Carol; Larsen, Rasmus K; Lauk, Christian; Leitner, Stefan; Lilliestam, Johan; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Muys, Bart; Nordborg, Maria; Ölund, Maria; Orlowsky, Boris; Popp, Alexander; Portugal-Pereira, Joana; Reinhard, Jürgen; Scheiffle, Lena; Smith, Pete

2017-03-01

The possibility of using bioenergy as a climate change mitigation measure has sparked a discussion of whether and how bioenergy production contributes to sustainable development. We undertook a systematic review of the scientific literature to illuminate this relationship and found a limited scientific basis for policymaking. Our results indicate that knowledge on the sustainable development impacts of bioenergy production is concentrated in a few well-studied countries, focuses on environmental and economic impacts, and mostly relates to dedicated agricultural biomass plantations. The scope and methodological approaches in studies differ widely and only a small share of the studies sufficiently reports on context and/or baseline conditions, which makes it difficult to get a general understanding of the attribution of impacts. Nevertheless, we identified regional patterns of positive or negative impacts for all categories - environmental, economic, institutional, social and technological. In general, economic and technological impacts were more frequently reported as positive, while social and environmental impacts were more frequently reported as negative (with the exception of impacts on direct substitution of GHG emission from fossil fuel). More focused and transparent research is needed to validate these patterns and develop a strong science underpinning for establishing policies and governance agreements that prevent/mitigate negative and promote positive impacts from bioenergy production.

A meta-analysis of the greenhouse gas abatement of bioenergy factoring in land use changes.

PubMed

El Akkari, M; Réchauchère, O; Bispo, A; Gabrielle, B; Makowski, D

2018-06-04

Non-food biomass production is developing rapidly to fuel the bioenergy sector and substitute dwindling fossil resources, which is likely to impact land-use patterns worldwide. Recent publications attempting to factor this effect into the climate mitigation potential of bioenergy chains have come to widely variable conclusions depending on their scope, data sources or methodology. Here, we conducted a first of its kind, systematic review of scientific literature on this topic and derived quantitative trends through a meta-analysis. We showed that second-generation biofuels and bioelectricity have a larger greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement potential than first generation biofuels, and stand the best chances (with a 80 to 90% probability range) of achieving a 50% reduction compared to fossil fuels. Conversely, directly converting forest ecosystems to produce bioenergy feedstock appeared as the worst-case scenario, systematically leading to negative GHG savings. On the other hand, converting grassland appeared to be a better option and entailed a 60% chance of halving GHG emissions compared to fossil energy sources. Since most climate mitigation scenarios assume still larger savings, it is critical to gain better insight into land-use change effects to provide a more realistic estimate of the mitigation potential associated with bioenergy.

Assessing wild bees in perennial bioenergy landscapes: effects of bioenergy crop composition, landscape configuration, and bioenergy crop area

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Graham, John B.; Nassauer, Joan I.; Currie, William S.

Wild bee populations are currently under threat, which has led to recent efforts to increase pollinator habitat in North America. Simultaneously, U.S. federal energy policies are beginning to encourage perennial bioenergy cropping (PBC) systems, which have the potential to support native bees. Our objective was to explore the potentially interactive effects of crop composition, total PBC area, and PBC patches in different landscape configurations. Using a spatially-explicit modeling approach, the Lonsdorf model, we simulated the impacts of three perennial bioenergy crops (PBC: willow, switchgrass, and prairie), three scenarios with different total PBC area (11.7%, 23.5% and 28.8% of agricultural landmore » converted to PBC) and two types of landscape configurations (PBC in clustered landscape patterns that represent realistic future configurations or in dispersed neutral landscape models) on a nest abundance index in an Illinois landscape. Our modeling results suggest that crop composition and PBC area are particularly important for bee nest abundance, whereas landscape configuration is associated with bee nest abundance at the local scale but less so at the regional scale. Moreover, strategies to enhance wild bee habitat should therefore emphasize the crop composition and amount of PBC.« less

Incorporating bioenergy into sustainable landscape designs

DOE PAGES

Dale, Virginia H.; Kline, Keith L.; Buford, Marilyn A.; ...

2015-12-30

In this paper, we describe an approach to landscape design that focuses on integrating bioenergy production with other components of environmental, social and economic systems. Landscape design as used here refers to a spatially explicit, collaborative plan for management of landscapes and supply chains. Landscape design can involve multiple scales and build on existing practices to reduce costs or enhance services. Appropriately applied to a specific context, landscape design can help people assess trade-offs when making choices about locations, types of feedstock, transport, refining and distribution of bioenergy products and services. The approach includes performance monitoring and reporting along themore » bioenergy supply chain. Examples of landscape design applied to bioenergy production systems are presented. Barriers to implementation of landscape design include high costs, the need to consider diverse land-management objectives from a wide array of stakeholders, up-front planning requirements, and the complexity and level of effort needed for successful stakeholder involvement. A landscape design process may be stymied by insufficient data or participation. An impetus for coordination is critical, and incentives may be required to engage landowners and the private sector. In conclusion, devising and implementing landscape designs for more sustainable outcomes require clear communication of environmental, social, and economic opportunities and concerns.« less

Food supply and bioenergy production within the global cropland planetary boundary.

PubMed

Henry, R C; Engström, K; Olin, S; Alexander, P; Arneth, A; Rounsevell, M D A

2018-01-01

Supplying food for the anticipated global population of over 9 billion in 2050 under changing climate conditions is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Agricultural expansion and intensification contributes to global environmental change and risks the long-term sustainability of the planet. It has been proposed that no more than 15% of the global ice-free land surface should be converted to cropland. Bioenergy production for land-based climate mitigation places additional pressure on limited land resources. Here we test normative targets of food supply and bioenergy production within the cropland planetary boundary using a global land-use model. The results suggest supplying the global population with adequate food is possible without cropland expansion exceeding the planetary boundary. Yet this requires an increase in food production, especially in developing countries, as well as a decrease in global crop yield gaps. However, under current assumptions of future food requirements, it was not possible to also produce significant amounts of first generation bioenergy without cropland expansion. These results suggest that meeting food and bioenergy demands within the planetary boundaries would need a shift away from current trends, for example, requiring major change in the demand-side of the food system or advancing biotechnologies.

Food supply and bioenergy production within the global cropland planetary boundary

PubMed Central

Olin, S.; Alexander, P.; Arneth, A.; Rounsevell, M. D. A.

2018-01-01

Supplying food for the anticipated global population of over 9 billion in 2050 under changing climate conditions is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Agricultural expansion and intensification contributes to global environmental change and risks the long-term sustainability of the planet. It has been proposed that no more than 15% of the global ice-free land surface should be converted to cropland. Bioenergy production for land-based climate mitigation places additional pressure on limited land resources. Here we test normative targets of food supply and bioenergy production within the cropland planetary boundary using a global land-use model. The results suggest supplying the global population with adequate food is possible without cropland expansion exceeding the planetary boundary. Yet this requires an increase in food production, especially in developing countries, as well as a decrease in global crop yield gaps. However, under current assumptions of future food requirements, it was not possible to also produce significant amounts of first generation bioenergy without cropland expansion. These results suggest that meeting food and bioenergy demands within the planetary boundaries would need a shift away from current trends, for example, requiring major change in the demand-side of the food system or advancing biotechnologies. PMID:29566091

Assessing wild bees in perennial bioenergy landscapes: effects of bioenergy crop composition, landscape configuration, and bioenergy crop area

DOE PAGES

Graham, John B.; Nassauer, Joan I.; Currie, William S.; ...

2017-03-25

Wild bee populations are currently under threat, which has led to recent efforts to increase pollinator habitat in North America. Simultaneously, U.S. federal energy policies are beginning to encourage perennial bioenergy cropping (PBC) systems, which have the potential to support native bees. Our objective was to explore the potentially interactive effects of crop composition, total PBC area, and PBC patches in different landscape configurations. Using a spatially-explicit modeling approach, the Lonsdorf model, we simulated the impacts of three perennial bioenergy crops (PBC: willow, switchgrass, and prairie), three scenarios with different total PBC area (11.7%, 23.5% and 28.8% of agricultural landmore » converted to PBC) and two types of landscape configurations (PBC in clustered landscape patterns that represent realistic future configurations or in dispersed neutral landscape models) on a nest abundance index in an Illinois landscape. Our modeling results suggest that crop composition and PBC area are particularly important for bee nest abundance, whereas landscape configuration is associated with bee nest abundance at the local scale but less so at the regional scale. Moreover, strategies to enhance wild bee habitat should therefore emphasize the crop composition and amount of PBC.« less

Incorporating bioenergy into sustainable landscape designs

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dale, Virginia H.; Kline, Keith L.; Buford, Marilyn A.

In this paper, we describe an approach to landscape design that focuses on integrating bioenergy production with other components of environmental, social and economic systems. Landscape design as used here refers to a spatially explicit, collaborative plan for management of landscapes and supply chains. Landscape design can involve multiple scales and build on existing practices to reduce costs or enhance services. Appropriately applied to a specific context, landscape design can help people assess trade-offs when making choices about locations, types of feedstock, transport, refining and distribution of bioenergy products and services. The approach includes performance monitoring and reporting along themore » bioenergy supply chain. Examples of landscape design applied to bioenergy production systems are presented. Barriers to implementation of landscape design include high costs, the need to consider diverse land-management objectives from a wide array of stakeholders, up-front planning requirements, and the complexity and level of effort needed for successful stakeholder involvement. A landscape design process may be stymied by insufficient data or participation. An impetus for coordination is critical, and incentives may be required to engage landowners and the private sector. In conclusion, devising and implementing landscape designs for more sustainable outcomes require clear communication of environmental, social, and economic opportunities and concerns.« less

Determining the biomass fraction of mixed waste fuels: A comparison of existing industry and {sup 14}C-based methodologies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Muir, G.K.P., E-mail: Graham.Muir@glasgow.ac.uk; Hayward, S.; Tripney, B.G.

2015-01-15

Highlights: • Compares industry standard and {sup 14}C methods for determining bioenergy content of MSW. • Differences quantified through study at an operational energy from waste plant. • Manual sort and selective dissolution are unreliable measures of feedstock bioenergy. • {sup 14}C methods (esp. AMS) improve precision and reliability of bioenergy determination. • Implications for electricity generators and regulators for award of bio-incentives. - Abstract: {sup 14}C analysis of flue gas by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and liquid scintillation counting (LSC) were used to determine the biomass fraction of mixed waste at an operational energy-from-waste (EfW) plant. Results were convertedmore » to bioenergy (% total) using mathematical algorithms and assessed against existing industry methodologies which involve manual sorting and selective dissolution (SD) of feedstock. Simultaneous determinations using flue gas showed excellent agreement: 44.8 ± 2.7% for AMS and 44.6 ± 12.3% for LSC. Comparable bioenergy results were obtained using a feedstock manual sort procedure (41.4%), whilst a procedure based on selective dissolution of representative waste material is reported as 75.5% (no errors quoted). {sup 14}C techniques present significant advantages in data acquisition, precision and reliability for both electricity generator and industry regulator.« less

Land use impacts of low-carbon energy system transition - the case of UK bioenergy deployment under the Carbon Plan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Konadu, D. D.; Sobral Mourao, Z.; Lupton, R.; Skelton, S.

2015-12-01

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change has developed four low-carbon energy transition pathways - the Carbon Plan - towards achieving the legally binding 80% territorial greenhouse gas emissions reduction, stipulated in the 2008 Climate Change Act by 2050. All the pathways require increase in bioenergy deployment, of which a significant amount could be indigenously sourced from crops. But will increased domestic production of energy crops conflict with other land use and ecosystem priorities? To address this question, a coupled analysis of the four energy transition pathways and land use has been developed using an integrated resource accounting platform called ForeseerTM. The two systems are connected by the bioenergy component, and are projected forward in time to 2050, under different scenarios of energy crop composition and yield, and accounting for various constraints on land use for agriculture and ecosystem services. The results show between 7 and 61% of UK agricultural land could be required to meet bioenergy deployment projections under different combinations of crop yield and compositions for the transition pathways. This could result in competition for land for food production and other socio-economic and ecological land uses. Consequently, the potential role of bioenergy in achieving UK emissions reduction targets may face significant deployment challenges.

Managing Bioenergy Production on Arable Field Margins for Multiple Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferrarini, Andrea; Serra, Paolo; Amaducci, Stefano; Trevisan, Marco; Puglisi, Edoardo

2013-04-01

Growing crops for bioenergy is increasingly viewed as conflicting with food production. However, energy use continues to rise and food production requires fuel inputs, which have increased with intensification. The debate should shift from "food or fuel" to the more challenging target: how the increasing demand for food and energy can be met in the future, particularly when water and land availability will be limited. As for food crops, also for bioenergy crops it is questioned whether it is preferable to manage cultivation to enhance ecosystem services ("land sharing" strategy) or to grow crops with lower ecosystem services but higher yield, thereby requiring less land to meet bioenergy demand ("land sparing" strategy). Energy crop production systems differ greatly in the supply of ecosystem services. The use of perennial biomass (e.g. Switchgrass, Mischantus, Giant reed) for energy production is considered a promising way to reduce net carbon emissions and mitigate climate change. In addition, regulating and supporting ecosystem services could be provided when specific management of bioenergy crops is implemented. The idea of HEDGE-BIOMASS* project is to convert the arable field margins to bioenergy crop production fostering a win-win strategy at landscape level. Main objective of the project is to improve land management to generate environmental benefits and increase farmer income. The various options available in literature for an improved field boundary management are presented. The positive/unknown/negative effects of growing perennial bioenergy crops on field margins will be discussed relatively to the following soil-related ecosystem services: (I) biodiversity conservation and enhancement, (II) soil nutrient cycling, (III) climate regulation (reduction of GHG emissions and soil carbon sequestration/stabilization, (IV) water regulation (filtering and buffering), (V) erosion regulation, (VI) pollination and pest regulation. From the analysis of available data, it emerges that production of biomass for bioenergy on field margins improves ecosystem services, depending upon the soil/agroecosystem health status of arable land displaced by the bioenergy crop. Considering that climate change is a dominant driver for agroecosystem health and perennial bionergy crops tend to stabilize soil C in arable land, it will be necessary to focus our attention to the improvement of climate regulation ecosystem service value in ecologically-degraded arable field margins. This management option seems to be the most sustainable strategy to enhance a win-win strategy: namely, sequestering carbon, producing biomasses for energetic purposes, improving the whole set of ecosystem services affected by soil organic matter, leaving, at the same time, more arable land for food and fiber crops. * The HEDGE-BIOMASS project is funded by Italian Minister of Agriculture for the period 2013-2016 and is being followed by BIOMASS Research Center at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Piacenza, Italy).

Whole system analysis of second generation bioenergy production and Ecosystem Services in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henner, Dagmar; Smith, Pete; Davies, Christian; McNamara, Niall

2017-04-01

Bioenergy crops are an important source of renewable energy and are a possible mechanism to mitigate global climate warming, by replacing fossil fuel energy that has higher greenhouse gas emissions. There is, however, uncertainty about the impacts of the growth of bioenergy crops on ecosystem services. This uncertainty is further enhanced by current climate change. It is important to establish how second generation bioenergy crops (Miscanthus, SRC willow and poplar) can contribute by closing the gap between reducing fossil fuel use and increasing the use of other renewable sources in a sustainable way. The project builds on models of energy crop production, biodiversity, soil impacts, greenhouse gas emissions and other ecosystem services, and on work undertaken in the UK on the ETI-funded ELUM project (www.elum.ac.uk). We will present estimated yields for the above named crops in Europe using the ECOSSE, DayCent, SalixFor and MiscanFor models. These yields will be brought into context with a whole system analysis, detailing trade-offs and synergies for land use change, food security, GHG emissions and soil and water security. Methods like water footprint tools, tourism value maps and ecosystem valuation tools and models (e.g. InVest, TEEB database, GREET LCA Model, World Business Council for Sustainable Development corporate ecosystem valuation, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Ecosystem Services Framework) will be used to estimate and visualise the impacts of increased use of second generation bioenergy crops on the above named ecosystem services. The results will be linked to potential yields to generate "inclusion or exclusion areas" in Europe in order to establish suitable areas for bioenergy crop production and the extent of use possible. Policy is an important factor for using second generation bioenergy crops in a sustainable way. We will present how whole system analysis can be used to create scenarios for countries or on a continental scale. As an example, we will present two scenarios for the whole system on a country basis, based on current renewable energy policy, to visualise the impact of changing policy on the use of bioenergy crops. This will include the economic implications which are directly linked to renewable energy policy, best practice management recommendations, impacts on land use change and food security as well as synergies and trade-offs on other ecosystem services (GHG emission, soil C, nitrogen, water and air security). The aim is to show how second generation bioenergy crops can be used sustainably and what is needed to do this successfully on a large scale. The results can form a basis for future policy development in order to reach the goals of the Paris 2015 agreement.

Advances in shrub-willow crops for bioenergy, renewable products, and environmental benefits

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Volk, Timothy A.; Heavey, Justin P.; Eisenbies, Mark H.

Short-rotation coppice systems like shrub willow are projected to be an important source of biomass in the United States for the production of bioenergy, biofuels, and renewable bio-based products, with the potential for auxiliary environmental benefits and multifunctional systems. Almost three decades of research has focused on the development of shrub willow crops for biomass and ecosystem services. The current expansion of willow in New York State (about 500 ha) for the production of renewable power and heat has been possible because of incentive programs offered by the federal government, commitments by end users, the development of reliable harvesting systems,more » and extension services offered to growers. Improvements in the economics of the system are expected as willow production expands further, which should help lower establishment costs, enhance crop management options and increase efficiencies in harvesting and logistics. As a result, deploying willow in multifunctional value-added systems provides opportunities for both potential producers and end users to learn about the system and the quality of the biomass feedstock, which in turn will help overcome barriers to expansion.« less

Advances in shrub-willow crops for bioenergy, renewable products, and environmental benefits

DOE PAGES

Volk, Timothy A.; Heavey, Justin P.; Eisenbies, Mark H.

2016-05-02

Short-rotation coppice systems like shrub willow are projected to be an important source of biomass in the United States for the production of bioenergy, biofuels, and renewable bio-based products, with the potential for auxiliary environmental benefits and multifunctional systems. Almost three decades of research has focused on the development of shrub willow crops for biomass and ecosystem services. The current expansion of willow in New York State (about 500 ha) for the production of renewable power and heat has been possible because of incentive programs offered by the federal government, commitments by end users, the development of reliable harvesting systems,more » and extension services offered to growers. Improvements in the economics of the system are expected as willow production expands further, which should help lower establishment costs, enhance crop management options and increase efficiencies in harvesting and logistics. As a result, deploying willow in multifunctional value-added systems provides opportunities for both potential producers and end users to learn about the system and the quality of the biomass feedstock, which in turn will help overcome barriers to expansion.« less

Modelling impacts of second generation bioenergy production on Ecosystem Services in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henner, Dagmar N.; Smith, Pete; Davies, Christian; McNamara, Niall P.

2015-04-01

Bioenergy crops are an important source of renewable energy and are a possible mechanism to mitigate global climate warming, by replacing fossil fuel energy with higher greenhouse gas emissions. There is, however, uncertainty about the impacts of the growth of bioenergy crops on ecosystem services. This uncertainty is further enhanced by the unpredictable climate change currently going on. The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive model that covers as many ecosystem services as possible at a Continental level including biodiversity, water, GHG emissions, soil, and cultural services. The distribution and production of second generation energy crops, such as Miscanthus, Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) and Short Rotation Forestry (SRF), is currently being modelled, and ecosystem models will be used to examine the impacts of these crops on ecosystem services. The project builds on models of energy crop production, biodiversity, soil impacts, greenhouse gas emissions and other ecosystem services, and on work undertaken in the UK on the ETI-funded ELUM project (www.elum.ac.uk). In addition, methods like water footprint tools, tourism value maps and ecosystem valuation tools and models (e.g. InVest, TEEB database, GREET LCA Model, World Business Council for Sustainable Development corporate ecosystem valuation, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Ecosystem Services Framework) will be utilised. Research will focus on optimisation of land use change feedbacks on ecosystem services and biodiversity, and weighting of the importance of the individual ecosystem services. Energy crops will be modelled using low, medium and high climate change scenarios for the years between 2015 and 2050. We will present first results for GHG emissions and soil organic carbon change after different land use change scenarios (e.g. arable to Miscanthus, forest to SRF), and with different climate warming scenarios. All this will be complemented by the presentation of a matrix including all the factors and ecosystem services influenced by land use change to bioenergy crop production under different climate change scenarios.

Does replacing coal with wood lower CO2 emissions? Dynamic lifecycle analysis of wood bioenergy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sterman, John D.; Siegel, Lori; Rooney-Varga, Juliette N.

2018-01-01

Bioenergy is booming as nations seek to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union declared biofuels to be carbon-neutral, triggering a surge in wood use. But do biofuels actually reduce emissions? A molecule of CO2 emitted today has the same impact on radiative forcing whether it comes from coal or biomass. Biofuels can only reduce atmospheric CO2 over time through post-harvest increases in net primary production (NPP). The climate impact of biofuels therefore depends on CO2 emissions from combustion of biofuels versus fossil fuels, the fate of the harvested land and dynamics of NPP. Here we develop a model for dynamic bioenergy lifecycle analysis. The model tracks carbon stocks and fluxes among the atmosphere, biomass, and soils, is extensible to multiple land types and regions, and runs in ≈1s, enabling rapid, interactive policy design and sensitivity testing. We simulate substitution of wood for coal in power generation, estimating the parameters governing NPP and other fluxes using data for forests in the eastern US and using published estimates for supply chain emissions. Because combustion and processing efficiencies for wood are less than coal, the immediate impact of substituting wood for coal is an increase in atmospheric CO2 relative to coal. The payback time for this carbon debt ranges from 44-104 years after clearcut, depending on forest type—assuming the land remains forest. Surprisingly, replanting hardwood forests with fast-growing pine plantations raises the CO2 impact of wood because the equilibrium carbon density of plantations is lower than natural forests. Further, projected growth in wood harvest for bioenergy would increase atmospheric CO2 for at least a century because new carbon debt continuously exceeds NPP. Assuming biofuels are carbon neutral may worsen irreversible impacts of climate change before benefits accrue. Instead, explicit dynamic models should be used to assess the climate impacts of biofuels.

The Biogeochemistry of Bioenergy Landscapes: Carbon, Nitrogen, and Water Considerations

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The biogeochemical liabilities of grain-based crop production for bioenergy are no different from those of grain-based food production: excessive nitrate leakage, soil carbon and phosphorus loss, nitrous oxide production, and attenuated methane uptake. Contingent problems are well-known, increasingl...

Root biomass and soil carbon response to growing perennial grasses for bioenergy

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Dedicated bioenergy crops such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), miscanthus [Miscanthus x giganteus (Mxg)], indiangrass [Sorghastrum nutans (L.) Nash], and big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman) can provide cellulosic feedstock for biofuel production while maintaining or improving soil and en...

Soil quality impacts of perennial bioenergy crops on marginally-productive lands

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Dedicated perennial energy crops grown on marginally-productive croplands can provide a sustainable supply of bioenergy feedstock while improving soil quality and enhancing ecosystem services. Because marginally-productive croplands typically are at higher risk of degradation, growing highly produc...

NREL National Bioenergy Center Overview

ScienceCinema

Foust, Thomas; Pienkos, Phil; Sluiter, Justin; Magrini, Kim; McMillan, Jim

2018-01-16

The demand for clean, sustainable, secure energy is growing... and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is answering the call. NREL's National Bioenergy Center is pioneering biofuels research and development and accelerating the pace these technologies move into the marketplace.

Sorghum as a Versatile Feedstock for Bioenergy Production

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

World economy development, population increase, and urban expansion accelerate the depletion of naturally preserved energy (fossil fuel), reduction in arable land, and trend of global climate change. Bioenergy, the forms of energy produced from materials of living organisms, holds special promise in...

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Frank, Edward; Pegallapati, Ambica K.; Davis, Ryan

The Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) Multi-year Program Plan (MYPP) describes the bioenergy objectives pursued by BETO, the strategies for achieving those objectives, the current state of technology (SOT), and a number of design cases that explore cost and operational performance required to advance the SOT towards middle and long term goals (MYPP, 2016). Two options for converting algae to biofuel intermediates were considered in the MYPP, namely algal biofuel production via lipid extraction and algal biofuel production by thermal processing. The first option, lipid extraction, is represented by the Combined Algae Processing (CAP) pathway in whichmore » algae are hydrolyzed in a weak acid pretreatment step. The treated slurry is fermented for ethanol production from sugars. The fermentation stillage contains most of the lipids from the original biomass, which are recovered through wet solvent extraction. The process residuals after lipid extraction, which contain much of the original mass of amino acids and proteins, are directed to anaerobic digestion (AD) for biogas production and recycle of N and P nutrients. The second option, thermal processing, comprises direct hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of the wet biomass, separation of aqueous, gas, and oil phases, and treatment of the aqueous phase with catalytic hydrothermal gasification (CHG) to produce biogas and to recover N and P nutrients. The present report describes a life cycle analysis of energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the CAP and HTL options for the three scenarios just described. Water use is also reported. Water use during algal biofuel production comes from evaporation during cultivation, discharge to bleed streams to control pond salinity (“blowdown”), and from use during preprocessing and upgrading. For scenarios considered to date, most water use was from evaporation and, secondarily, from bleed streams. Other use was relatively small at the level of fidelity being modeled now.« less

Integrated metagenomics and molecular ecological network analysis of bacterial community composition during the phytoremediation of cadmium-contaminated soils by bioenergy crops.

PubMed

Chen, Zhaojin; Zheng, Yuan; Ding, Chuanyu; Ren, Xuemin; Yuan, Jian; Sun, Feng; Li, Yuying

2017-11-01

Two energy crops (maize and soybean) were used in the remediation of cadmium-contaminated soils. These crops were used because they are fast growing, have a large biomass and are good sources for bioenergy production. The total accumulation of cadmium in maize and soybean plants was 393.01 and 263.24μg pot -1 , respectively. The rhizosphere bacterial community composition was studied by MiSeq sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis was performed using 16S rRNA gene sequences. The rhizosphere bacteria were divided into 33 major phylogenetic groups according to phyla. The dominant phylogenetic groups included Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Gemmatimonadetes, and Bacteroidetes. Based on principal component analysis (PCA) and unweighted pair group with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) analysis, we found that the bacterial community was influenced by cadmium addition and bioenergy cropping. Three molecular ecological networks were constructed for the unplanted, soybean- and maize-planted bacterial communities grown in 50mgkg -1 cadmium-contaminated soils. The results indicated that bioenergy cropping increased the complexity of the bacterial community network as evidenced by a higher total number of nodes, the average geodesic distance (GD), the modularity and a shorter geodesic distance. Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria were the keystone bacteria connecting different co-expressed operational taxonomic units (OTUs). The results showed that bioenergy cropping altered the topological roles of individual OTUs and keystone populations. This is the first study to reveal the effects of bioenergy cropping on microbial interactions in the phytoremediation of cadmium-contaminated soils by network reconstruction. This method can greatly enhance our understanding of the mechanisms of plant-microbe-metal interactions in metal-polluted ecosystems. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Implications for the hydrologic cycle under climate change due to the expansion of bioenergy crops in the Midwestern United States.

PubMed

Le, Phong V V; Kumar, Praveen; Drewry, Darren T

2011-09-13

To meet emerging bioenergy demands, significant areas of the large-scale agricultural landscape of the Midwestern United States could be converted to second generation bioenergy crops such as miscanthus and switchgrass. The high biomass productivity of bioenergy crops in a longer growing season linked tightly to water use highlight the potential for significant impact on the hydrologic cycle in the region. This issue is further exacerbated by the uncertainty in the response of the vegetation under elevated CO(2) and temperature. We use a mechanistic multilayer canopy-root-soil model to (i) capture the eco-physiological acclimations of bioenergy crops under climate change, and (ii) predict how hydrologic fluxes are likely to be altered from their current magnitudes. Observed data and Monte Carlo simulations of weather for recent past and future scenarios are used to characterize the variability range of the predictions. Under present weather conditions, miscanthus and switchgrass utilized more water than maize for total seasonal evapotranspiration by approximately 58% and 36%, respectively. Projected higher concentrations of atmospheric CO(2) (550 ppm) is likely to decrease water used for evapotranspiration of miscanthus, switchgrass, and maize by 12%, 10%, and 11%, respectively. However, when climate change with projected increases in air temperature and reduced summer rainfall are also considered, there is a net increase in evapotranspiration for all crops, leading to significant reduction in soil-moisture storage and specific surface runoff. These results highlight the critical role of the warming climate in potentially altering the water cycle in the region under extensive conversion of existing maize cropping to support bioenergy demand.

A Genomic Resource for the Development, Improvement, and Exploitation of Sorghum for Bioenergy.

PubMed

Brenton, Zachary W; Cooper, Elizabeth A; Myers, Mathew T; Boyles, Richard E; Shakoor, Nadia; Zielinski, Kelsey J; Rauh, Bradley L; Bridges, William C; Morris, Geoffrey P; Kresovich, Stephen

2016-09-01

With high productivity and stress tolerance, numerous grass genera of the Andropogoneae have emerged as candidates for bioenergy production. To optimize these candidates, research examining the genetic architecture of yield, carbon partitioning, and composition is required to advance breeding objectives. Significant progress has been made developing genetic and genomic resources for Andropogoneae, and advances in comparative and computational genomics have enabled research examining the genetic basis of photosynthesis, carbon partitioning, composition, and sink strength. To provide a pivotal resource aimed at developing a comparative understanding of key bioenergy traits in the Andropogoneae, we have established and characterized an association panel of 390 racially, geographically, and phenotypically diverse Sorghum bicolor accessions with 232,303 genetic markers. Sorghum bicolor was selected because of its genomic simplicity, phenotypic diversity, significant genomic tools, and its agricultural productivity and resilience. We have demonstrated the value of sorghum as a functional model for candidate gene discovery for bioenergy Andropogoneae by performing genome-wide association analysis for two contrasting phenotypes representing key components of structural and non-structural carbohydrates. We identified potential genes, including a cellulase enzyme and a vacuolar transporter, associated with increased non-structural carbohydrates that could lead to bioenergy sorghum improvement. Although our analysis identified genes with potentially clear functions, other candidates did not have assigned functions, suggesting novel molecular mechanisms for carbon partitioning traits. These results, combined with our characterization of phenotypic and genetic diversity and the public accessibility of each accession and genomic data, demonstrate the value of this resource and provide a foundation for future improvement of sorghum and related grasses for bioenergy production. Copyright © 2016 by the Genetics Society of America.

Global impacts of U.S. bioenergy production and policy: A general equilibrium perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evans, Samuel Garner

The conversion of biomass to energy represents a promising pathway forward in efforts to reduce fossil fuel use in the transportation and electricity sectors. In addition to potential benefits, such as greenhouse gas reductions and increased energy security, bioenergy production also presents a unique set of challenges. These challenges include tradeoffs between food and fuel production, distortions in energy markets, and terrestrial emissions associated with changing land-use patterns. Each of these challenges arises from market-mediated responses to bioenergy production, and are therefore largely economic in nature. This dissertation directly addresses these opportunities and challenges by evaluating the economic impacts of U.S. bioenergy production and policy, focusing on both existing and future biomass-to-energy pathways. The analysis approaches the issue from a global, economy-wide perspective, reflecting two important facts. First, that large-scale bioenergy production connects multiple sectors of the economy due to the use of agricultural land resources for biomass production, and competition with fossil fuels in energy markets. Second, markets for both agricultural and energy commodities are highly integrated globally, causing domestic policies to have international effects. The reader can think of this work as being comprised of three parts. Part I provides context through an extensive review of the literature on the market-mediated effects of conventional biofuel production (Chapter 2) and develops a general equilibrium modeling framework for assessing the extent to which these phenomenon present a challenge for future bioenergy pathways (Chapter 3). Part II (Chapter 4) explores the economic impacts of the lignocellulosic biofuel production targets set in the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard on global agricultural and energy commodity markets. Part III (Chapter 5) extends the analysis to consider potential inefficiencies associated with policy-induced competition for biomass between the electricity and transportation fuel sectors.

Field windbreaks for bioenergy production and carbon sequestration

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Tree windbreaks are a multi-benefit land use with the ability to mitigate climate change by modifying the local microclimate for improved crop growth and sequestering carbon in soil and biomass. Agroforestry practices are also being considered for bioenergy production by direct combustion or produci...

Mineral nutrient recovery from pyrolysis systems

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Bioenergy crops such as high-energy sorghum (HES), bioenergy rice, corn stover, and switchgrass can be thermo-chemically converted by pyrolysis to produce bio-oil, synthesis gas from non-condensable gases, and biochar. The biochar fraction can be recycled back to the production field to improve soil...

Associations with flowering time, latitude, and climate in switchgrass

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Switchgrass is a North American perennial grass and emerging bioenergy feedstock, and increasing biomass yields will improve the economic viability of switchgrass as a bioenergy crop. Flowering time is an important determinant of biomass yields in switchgrass because the majority of biomass accumula...

Assessing the Global Potential and Regional Implications of Promoting Bioenergy

EPA Science Inventory

There is no simple answer to the question “are materials from bio-based feedstocks environmentally, and socially, preferable?” Bioenergy as an alternative energy source might be effective in reducing fossil fuel use, slowing global warming effects, and providing increased revenue...

Assessing the global potential and regional implications of promoting bio-energy

EPA Science Inventory

There is no simple answer to the question “are materials from bio-based feedstocks environmentally, and socially, preferable?” Bioenergy as an alternative energy source might be effective in reducing fossil fuel use, slowing global warming effects, and providing increased revenue...

Bioenergy Research | Bioenergy | NREL

Science.gov Websites

range of research from exploring biomass at the molecular level through biorefinery process optimization Bioenergetics We work at the molecular and cellular level to understand and optimize microbial production of biofuels and bioproducts. fanciful illustration of fuel nozzle with molecular structures drawn in

Switchgrass for forage and bioenergy

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Switchgrass is a native warm-season grass that has been used for hay, forage, and conservation purposes for decades and switchgrass research in Nebraska has been ongoing since 1936. Recently, switchgrass has been identified as a model perennial grass for bioenergy in the Great Plains and Midwest. Si...

Dual-Use Bioenergy-Livestock Feed Potential of Giant Miscanthus, Giant Reed, and Miscane

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

High yielding perennial grasses could integrate bioenergy-livestock operations, thereby, offsetting diversions of cropland to lignocellulosic crops, but research is needed to determine chemical composition and digestibility of leaf and stem fractions that might affect downstream uses. The objective...

Kinetic analyses and pyrolytic behavior of Para grass (Urochloa mutica) for its bioenergy potential.

PubMed

Ahmad, Muhammad Sajjad; Mehmood, Muhammad Aamer; Al Ayed, Omar S; Ye, Guangbin; Luo, Huibo; Ibrahim, Muhammad; Rashid, Umer; Arbi Nehdi, Imededdine; Qadir, Ghulam

2017-01-01

The biomass of Urochloa mutica was subjected to thermal degradation analyses to understand its pyrolytic behavior for bioenergy production. Thermal degradation experiments were performed at three different heating rates, 10, 30 and 50°Cmin -1 using simultaneous thermogravimetric-differential scanning calorimetric analyzer, under an inert environment. The kinetic analyses were performed using isoconversional models of Kissenger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) and Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO). The high heating value was calculated as 15.04MJmol -1 . The activation energy (E) values were shown to be ranging from 103 through 233 kJmol -1 . Pre-exponential factors (A) indicated the reaction to follow first order kinetics. Gibbs free energy (ΔG) was measured to be ranging from 169 to 173kJmol -1 and 168 to 172kJmol -1 , calculated by KAS and FWO methods, respectively. We have shown that Para grass biomass has considerable bioenergy potential comparable to established bioenergy crops such as switchgrass and miscanthus. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Life cycle analyses of CO2, energy, and cost for four different routes of microalgal bioenergy conversion.

PubMed

Ventura, Jey-R S; Yang, Benqin; Lee, Yong-Woo; Lee, Kisay; Jahng, Deokjin

2013-06-01

With a target production of 1000 ton of dry algae/yr, lipid content of 30 wt.%, and productivity of 30 g/m(2)-d in a 340-day annual operation, four common scenarios of microalgae bioenergy routes were assessed in terms of cost, energy, and CO2 inputs and outputs. Scenario 1 (biodiesel production), Scenario 2 (Scenario 1 with integrated anaerobic digestion system), Scenario 3 (biogas production), and Scenario 4 (supercritical gasification) were evaluated. Scenario 4 outperformed other scenarios in terms of net energy production (1282.42 kWh/ton algae) and CO2 removal (1.32 ton CO2/ton algae) while Scenario 2 surpassed the other three scenarios in terms of net cost. Scenario 1 produced the lowest energy while Scenario 3 was the most expensive bioenergy system. This study evaluated critical parameters that could direct the proper design of the microalgae bioenergy system with an efficient energy production, CO2 removal, and economic feasibility. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Bioenergy Watershed Restoration in Regions of the West: What are the Environmental/Community Issues?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Graham, R.L.; Huff, D.D.; Kaufmann, M.R.

Throughout the western mountainous regions, wildfire risks are elevated due to both fire suppression activities which have changed the forest structure making it more susceptible to stand-killing fires and the expansion of human structures (houses, light commercial) into these same forests, By providing a market for currently noncommercial but flammable materials (small trees, tops, and branches), new and existing bioenergy industries could be a key factor in reducing the regional forest fuel loads. Although bioenergy would appear to be an ideal answer to the problem in many ways, the situation is complicated and numerous issues need resolution. A public fearfulmore » of logging in these regions needs assurance that harvesting for bioenergy is an environmentally and socially responsible solution to the current fuel build up in these forests. This is especially important given that biomass harvesting cannot pay its own way under current energy market conditions and would have to be supported in some fashion.« less

The Elum Project: A Network of UK Sites to Understand Land-Use Transitions to Bioenergy and Their Implications for Greenhouse Gas Balance and Carbon Cycling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harris, Z. M.; Alberti, G.; Bottoms, E.; Rowe, R.; Parmar, K.; Marshall, R.; Elias, D.; Smith, P.; Dondini, M.; Pogson, M.; Richards, M.; Finch, J.; Ineson, P.; Keane, B.; Perks, M.; Wilkinson, M.; Yamulki, S.; Donnison, I.; Farrar, K.; Massey, A.; McCalmont, J.; Drewer, J.; Sohi, S.; McNamara, N.; Taylor, G.

2014-12-01

Rising anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions coupled with an increasing need to address energy security are resulting in the development of cleaner, more sustainable alternatives to traditional fossil fuel sources. Bioenergy crops have been proposed to be able to mitigate the effects of climate change as well as provide increased energy security. The aim of this project is to assess the impact of land conversion to second generation non-food bioenergy crops on GHG balance for several land use transitions, including from arable, grassland and forest. A network of 6 sites was established across the UK to assess the processes underpinning GHG balance and to provide input data to a model being used to assess the sustainability of different land use transitions. Monthly analysis of soil GHGs shows that carbon dioxide contributes most to the global warming potential of these bioenergy crops, irrespective of transition. Nitrous oxide emissions were low for all crops except arable cropping and methane emissions were very low for all sites. Nearly all sites have shown a significant decrease in CO2 flux from the control land use. Eddy flux approaches, coupled with soil assessments show that for the transition from grassland to SRC willow there is a significant reduction in GHG emissions from soil and a negative net ecosystem exchange due to increased GPP and ecosystem respiration. These results suggest for this land use transition to bioenergy in a UK specific context, there may be a net benefit for ecosystem GHG exchange of transition to bioenergy Finally we are developing a meta-modelling tool to allow land use managers to make location-specific, informed decisions about land use change to bioenergy. This work is based on the Ecosystem Land Use Modelling & Soil Carbon GHG Flux Trial (ELUM) project, which was commissioned and funded by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI). This project is co-ordinated by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (www.elum.ac.uk).

Environmental impact of converting Conservation Reserve Program land to perennial bioenergy crops in Illinois.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blanc-Betes, E.; Hudiburg, T. W.; Khanna, M.; DeLucia, E. H.

2017-12-01

Reducing dependence on fossil fuels by the 20% by 2022 mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act would require 35 billion Ga of ethanol and the loss of 9 to 12 Mha of food producing land to biofuel production, challenging our ability to develop a sustainable bioenergy source while meeting the food demands of a growing population. There are currently 8.5 Mha of land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a US government funded program to incentivize the retirement of environmentally sensitive cropland out of conventional crop production. About 63% of CRP land area could potentially be converted to energy crops, contributing to biofuel targets without displacing food. With high yields and low fertilization and irrigation requirements, perennial cellulosic crops (e.g. switchgrass and Miscanthus) not only would reduce land requirements by up to 15% compared to prairies or corn-based biofuel, but also serve other conservation goals such as C sequestration in soils, and water and air quality improvement. Here, we use the DayCent biogeochemical model to assess the potential of CRP land conversion to switchgrass or Miscanthus to provide a sustainable source of biofuel, reduce GHG emissions and increase soil organic carbon (SOC) storage in the area of Illinois, which at present contributes to 10% of the biofuel production in the US. Model simulations indicate that the replacement of traditional corn-soy rotation with CRP reduces GHG emissions by 3.3 Mg CO2-eq ha-1 y-1 and increases SOC storage at a rate of 0.5 Mg C ha-1 y-1. Conversion of CRP land to cellulosic perennials would further reduce GHG emissions by 1.1 Mg CO2-eq ha-1 y-1 for switchgrass and 6.2 Mg CO2-eq ha-1 y-1 for Miscanthus, and increase C sequestration in soils (1.7 Tg C for switchgrass and 7.7 Tg C for Miscanthus in 30 years). Cellulosic energy crops would increase average annual yields by approximately 5.6 Mg ha-1 for switchgrass and 13.6 Mg ha-1 for Miscanthus, potentially producing 78 and 188 million Ga of bioethanol annually, respectively. This represents an increase of 5% and 12% in the Illinois annual biofuel production, displacing up to 4% of current fossil fuel consumption in the state of Illinois without detriment for food production.

Intra-Annual Changes in Biomass, Carbon, and Nitrogen Dynamics at 4-Year Old Switchgrass Field Trials in West Tennessee, USA

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Switchgrass is a potential bioenergy crop that could promote soil C sequestration in some environments. We compared four switchgrass cultivars on a well-drained Alfisol to test for differences in biomass, C, and N dynamics during the fourth growing season. There was no difference (P >0.05) among cul...

Forest biomass supply for bioenergy in the southeast: Evaluating assessment scale

Treesearch

Christopher S. Galik; Robert C. Abt

2012-01-01

This study evaluates the potential impacts of expanded forest biomass use in the Southeast from present year through 2036, focusing on the forest supply, industrial, and GHG emissions implications of maximizing biomass co-firing with coal. We model demand scenarios at the state, subregional, and regional levels, and assess the influence of study scale on the observed...

Field performance and bioenergy characteristics of four commercial eucalyptus grandis cultivars in Florida

Treesearch

Donald L. Rockwood; Bijay Tamang; Matias Kirst; JY Zhu

2012-01-01

For several methods utilizing woody biomass for energy (Rockwood and others 2008), one of the challenges is the large, continuous fuel supply required. For example, proposed biomass plants in Florida may each require one million tons of biomass/year. When supplies of forest residues and urban wood wastes are limited, short rotation woody crops (SRWC) are a viable...

Historical U.S. cropland areas and the potential for bioenergy production on abandoned croplands.

PubMed

Zumkehr, A; Campbell, J E

2013-04-16

Agriculture is historically a dominant form of global environmental degradation, and the potential for increased future degradation may be driven by growing demand for food and biofuels. While these impacts have been explored using global gridded maps of croplands, such maps are based on relatively coarse spatial data. Here, we apply high-resolution cropland inventories for the conterminous U.S. with a land-use model to develop historical gridded cropland areas for the years 1850-2000 and year 2000 abandoned cropland maps. While the historical cropland maps are consistent with generally accepted land-use trends, our U.S. abandoned cropland estimates of 68 Mha are as much as 70% larger than previous gridded estimates due to a reduction in aggregation effects. Renewed cultivation on the subset of abandoned croplands that have not become forests or urban lands represents one approach to mitigating the future expansion of agriculture. Potential bioenergy production from these abandoned lands using a wide range of biomass yields and conversion efficiencies has an upper-limit of 5-30% of the current U.S. primary energy demand or 4-30% of the current U.S. liquid fuel demand.

Improvement of the Davydov theory of bioenergy transport in protein molecular systems.

PubMed

Pang, X F

2000-11-01

The Hamiltonian and the wave function in the Davydov theory have simultaneously been improved and extended, based on some physical and biological grounds and on results from other models. The equations of motion for the improved Davydov model with a quasicoherent two-quanta state and a new interaction term in the Hamiltonian describe bioenergy transport along the molecular chains in protein molecules by a soliton mechanism. Some elementary properties of the soliton, including the nonlinear coupling energy and greatly increased binding energy of the soliton, are also given. The results obtained suggest that the model could be a candidate for a bioenergy transport mechanism in protein molecules.

The impacts of lignin modifications on fungal pathogen and insect interactions in sorghum

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is currently being developed as a dedicated bioenergy feedstock. Modifying lignin content and composition are major targets for bioenergy feedstock improvement. However, lignin has long been implicated as playing a critical role in plant defense responses agains...

Dissecting the genetics of rhizomatousness: Towards sustainable food, forage, and bioenergy

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Rhizomatousness is a key trait influencing both the perenniality and biomass partitioning of plants. Increased understanding of the genetic control of rhizome growth offers potential towards the creation of more sustainable grain, forage, and bioenergy cropping systems. It is also applicable to th...

Genetic Modification in Dedicated Bioenergy Crops and Strategies for Gene Confinement

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Genetic modification of dedicated bioenergy crops is in its infancy; however, there are numerous advantages to the use of these tools to improve crops used for biofuels. Potential improved traits through genetic engineering (GE) include herbicide resistance, pest, drought, cold and salt tolerance, l...

Age-dependent population dynamics of the bioenergy crop Miscanthus x giganteus in Illinois

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Rising global demand for liquid fuels, coupled with new technologies for converting biomass to ethanol, have generated intense interest in the development of herbaceous perennial bioenergy crops. Some plant species being considered as biofeedstocks share traits with invasive species and have histori...

Managing water resources for biomass production in a biofuel economy

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

One goal of our national security policy is to become more energy independent using biofuels. The expanded production of agricultural crops for bioenergy production has introduced new challenges for management of water. Water availability has been widely presumed in the discussion of bioenergy crop ...

Next steps in determining the overall sustainability of perennial bioenergy crops

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Perennial bioenergy crops are being developed and evaluated in the United States to partially offset petroleum transport fuels. Accurate accounting of upstream and downstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is necessary to measure the overall carbon intensity of new biofuel feedstocks. For example, c...

An integrated policy framework for the sustainable exploitation of biomass for bioenergy from marginal lands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Panoutsou, Calliope

2017-04-01

Currently, there are not sufficiently tailored policies focusing on biomass and bioenergy from marginal lands. This paper will provide an integrated policy framework and recommendations to facilitate understanding for the market sectors involved and the key principles which can be used to form future sustainable policies for this issue. The work will focus at EU level policy recommendations and discuss how these can interrelate with national and regional level policies to promote the usage of marginal lands for biomass and bioenergy. Recommended policy measures will be based on the findings of the Biomass Policies (www.biomasspolicies.eu) and S2Biom (www.s2biom.eu) projects and will be prepared taking into account the key influencing factors (technical, environmental, social and economic) on biomass and bioenergy from marginal lands: • across different types of marginality (biophysical such as: low temperature, dryness, excess soil moisture, poor chemical properties, steep slope, etc., and socio-economic resulting from lack of economic competitiveness in certain regions and crops, abandonment or rural areas, etc.) • across the different stages of the biomass value chain (supply, logistics, conversion, distribution and end-use). The aim of recommendations will be to inform policy makers on how to distinguish key policy related attributes across biomass and bioenergy from marginal lands, measure them and prioritise actions with a 'system' based approach.

Implications of Limiting CO2 Concentrations for Land Use and Energy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wise, Marshall A.; Calvin, Katherine V.; Thomson, Allison M.

2009-05-29

This paper is the first to simultaneously examine the implications of extending the concept of placing a value on carbon beyond fossil fuel and industrial emissions to all sources, including those associated with land use and land use change. The paper reports a variety of results that have bearing on recent discussions in the literature regarding the role of bioenergy and the indirect emission of carbon through land-use change as well as the burgeoning literature on interactions between bioenergy and crop prices. This paper goes beyond results currently in the literature by using an integrated assessment model to assess energymore » use and supply, atmospheric composition, land use, and terrestrial carbon in the context of limiting the concentration of atmospheric CO2. We find that when the concept of valuing carbon emissions is extended to all carbon emissions, regardless of origin, that in contrast to a mitigation scenario where only fossil fuel and industrial carbon emissions are valued, deforestation is replaced by afforestation and expanded unmanaged ecosystems; the cost of limiting CO2 concentrations falls; crop prices rise; and human diets are transformed as people shift away from consumption of beef and other carbon-intensive protein sources. The increase in crop prices flows directly from the consideration of land-use change emissions in a comprehensive emissions mitigation program and occurs even in the absence of the use of purpose-grown bioenergy. Finally, we find that the assumed rate of improvement in food and fiber crop productivity (e.g. wheat, rice, corn) has a strong influence on land-use change emissions, making the technology for growing crops potentially as important for limiting atmospheric CO2 concentrations as energy technologies such as CO2 capture and storage.« less

The Effect of Five Biomass Cropping Systems on Soil-Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity Across a Topographic Gradient

Treesearch

Usman Anwar; Lisa A. Schulte; Matthew Helmers; Randall K. Kolka

2017-01-01

Understanding the environmental impact of bioenergy crops is needed to inform bioenergy policy development. We determined the effects of five biomass cropping systems—continuous maize (Zea mays), soybean (Glycine max)-triticale (Triticosecale ×)/soybean-maize, maize-switchgrass (Panicum virgatum...

Biofuels and bioenergy production from municipal solid waste commingled with agriculturally-derived biomass

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The USDA in partnership with Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority (SVSWA) and CR3, a technology holding company from Reno, NV, has introduced a biorefinery concept whereby agriculturally- derived biomass is commingled with municipal solid waste (MSW) to produce bioenergy. This team, which originally...

A Conversation with Blake Simmons, Vice President, Deconstruction Division, and Jon Magnuson, Director, Fungal Biotechnology Group, Joint BioEnergy Institute, Emeryville, CA

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Simmons, Blake A.; Magnuson, Jon

An interview of myself and Blake Simmons conducted by Vicki Glaser, Executive Editor of Industrial Biotechnology. The subject of the interview was the relatively new PNNL led Fungal Biotechnology Group within the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI).

Candidate perennial bioenergy grasses have a higher albedo than annual row crops in the Midwestern US

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The production of perennial cellulosic feedstocks for bioenergy presents the potential to diversify regional economies and the national energy supply, while also serving as climate ‘regulators’ due to a number of biogeochemical and biogeophysical differences relative to row crops. Numerous observati...

Establishment and yield of perennial grass monocultures and binary mixtures for bioenergy in North Dakota

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

To develop appropriate bioenergy production systems to match site-specific situations, establishment and yield were evaluated for switchgrass, intermediate wheatgrass, tall wheatgrass, and three binary mixtures at four sites in North Dakota from 2006 to 2011. Canopy cover at harvest for intermediat...

On the long-term hydroclimatic sustainability of perennial bioenergy crop expansion over the United States

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Large-scale cultivation of perennial bioenergy crops (e.g., miscanthus and switchgrass) offers unique opportunities to mitigate climate change through avoided fossil fuel use and associated greenhouse gas reduction. Although conversion of existing agriculturally intensive lands (e.g., maize and soy)...

Biomass and nutrient mass of Acacia dealbata and Eucalyptus globulus bioenergy plantations

Treesearch

Timothy J. Albaugh; Rafael A. Rubilar; Chris A. Maier; Eduardo A. Acuña; Rachel L. Cook

2017-01-01

We quantified biomass and nutrient accumulation of Acacia dealbata Link and Eucalyptus globulus Labill. planted at stem densities of 5000 and 15000 ha-1 in a bioenergy plantation in Chile. We tested the hypotheses that species and stocking will not affect biomass or nutrient accumulation. Species and...

Modifying lignin composition and content of sorghum biomass for improved bioenergy conversion

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) is an opportune crop for bioenergy due to its high yield potential, and lower nitrogen and water requirements. Transgenic constructs expressing monolignol biosynthetic genes under control of 35S promoter have been developed and used for sorghum transformation to examine the...

Cellulosic ethanol production from warm-season perennial grasses

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Warm-season (C4) perennial grasses are able to produce large quantities of biomass, and will play a key role in bioenergy production, particularly in areas with long warm growing seasons. Several different grass species have been studied as candidate bioenergy crops for the Southeast USA, and each ...

Bioenergy News | Bioenergy | NREL

Science.gov Websites

. April 13, 2018 News Release: Research Team Engineers a Better Plastic-Degrading Enzyme A breakthrough in enzyme research led by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the United Kingdom's University of Portsmouth has led to an improved variant of an enzyme that can

Biogeochemical research priorities for sustainable biofuel and bioenergy feedstock production in the Americas

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Rapid expansion in biomass production for biofuels and bioenergy in the Americas is increasing demands on the ecosystem resources required to sustain soil and site productivity. We review the current state of knowledge and highlight gaps in research on biogeochemical processes and ecosystem sustaina...

Forest carbon response to management scenarios intended to mitigate GHG emissions and reduce fire impacts in the US West Coast region

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hudiburg, T. W.; Law, B. E.; Thornton, P. E.; Luyssaert, S.

2012-12-01

US West coast forests are among the most carbon dense biomes in the world and the potential for biomass accumulation in mesic coastal forests is the highest recorded (Waring and Franklin 1979, Hudiburg et al. 2009). Greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation strategies have recently expanded to include forest woody biomass as bioenergy, with the expectation that this will also reduce forest mortality. We examined forest carbon response and life cycle assessment (LCA) of net carbon emissions following varying combinations of bioenergy management scenarios in Pacific Northwest forests for the period from 2010-2100. We use the NCAR CLM4 model combined with a regional atmospheric forcing dataset and account for future environmental change using the IPCC RCP4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. Bioenergy management strategies include a repeated thinning harvest, a repeated clearcut harvest, and a single salvage harvest in areas with projected insect-related mortality. None of the bioenergy management scenarios reduce net emissions to the atmosphere compared to continued business-as-usual harvest (BAU) by the end of the 21st century. Forest regrowth and reduced fire emissions are not large enough to balance the wood removals from harvest. Moreover, the substitution of wood for fossil fuel energy and products is not large enough to offset the wood losses through decomposition and combustion. However, in some ecoregions (Blue Mountains and East Cascades), emissions from the thinning harvests begin to improve over BAU at the end of the century and could lead to net reductions in those ecoregions over a longer time period (> 100 years). For salvage logging, there is no change compared to BAU emissions by the end of the 21st century because the treatment area is minimal compared to the other treatments and only performed once. These results suggest that managing forests for carbon sequestration will need to include a variety of approaches accounting for forest baseline conditions and in some ecoregions, harvest reductions below current levels will sequester more carbon than additional harvest removals for bioenergy. References: Hudiburg, T., B. E. Law, D. P. Turner, J. Campbell, D. Donato, and M. Duane. 2009. Carbon dynamics of Oregon and Northern California forests and potential land-based carbon storage. Ecological Applications 19:163-180. Waring, R. H., and J. F. Franklin. 1979. Evergreen Coniferous Forests of the Pacific Northwest. Science 204:1380-1386.

Developments in greenhouse gas emissions and net energy use in Danish agriculture - how to achieve substantial CO(2) reductions?

PubMed

Dalgaard, T; Olesen, J E; Petersen, S O; Petersen, B M; Jørgensen, U; Kristensen, T; Hutchings, N J; Gyldenkærne, S; Hermansen, J E

2011-11-01

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture are a significant contributor to total Danish emissions. Consequently, much effort is currently given to the exploration of potential strategies to reduce agricultural emissions. This paper presents results from a study estimating agricultural GHG emissions in the form of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide (including carbon sources and sinks, and the impact of energy consumption/bioenergy production) from Danish agriculture in the years 1990-2010. An analysis of possible measures to reduce the GHG emissions indicated that a 50-70% reduction of agricultural emissions by 2050 relative to 1990 is achievable, including mitigation measures in relation to the handling of manure and fertilisers, optimization of animal feeding, cropping practices, and land use changes with more organic farming, afforestation and energy crops. In addition, the bioenergy production may be increased significantly without reducing the food production, whereby Danish agriculture could achieve a positive energy balance. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Energy crop mapping with enhanced TM/MODIS time series in the BCAP agricultural lands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Cuizhen; Fan, Qian; Li, Qingting; SooHoo, William M.; Lu, Linlin

2017-02-01

Since the mid-2000s, agricultural lands in the United States have been undergoing rapid change to meet the increasing bioenergy demand. In 2009 the USDA Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) was established. In its Project Area 1, land owners are financially supported to grow perennial prairie grasses (switchgrass) in their row-crop lands. To promote the program, this study tested the feasibility of biomass crop mapping based on unique timings of crop development. With a previously published data fusion algorithm - the Enhanced Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (ESTARFM), a 10-day normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series in 2007 was established by fusing MODIS reflectance into TM image series. Two critical dates - peak growing (PG) and peak drying (PD) - were extracted and a unique "PG-0-PD" timing sequence was defined for each crop. With a knowledge-based decision tree approach, the classification of enhanced TM/MODIS time series reached an overall accuracy of 76% against the USDA Crop Data layer (CDL). Especially, our results showed that winter wheat single cropping and wheat-soybean double cropping were much better classified, which may provide additional information for the CDL product. More importantly, this study extracted the first spatial layer of warm-season prairie grasses that have not been published in any national land cover products, which could serve as a base map for decision making of bioenergy land use in BCAP land.

Hope or Hype? What is Next for Biofuels? (LBNL Science at the Theater)

ScienceCinema

Keasling, Jay; Bristow, Jim; Tringe, Susannah Green

2017-12-09

Science at the Theater: From the sun to your gas tank: A new breed of biofuels may help solve the global energy challenge and reduce the impact of fossil fuels on global warming. KTVU Channel 2 health and science editor John Fowler will moderate a panel of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists who are developing ways to convert the solar energy stored in plants into liquid fuels. Jay Keasling is one of the foremost authorities in the field of synthetic biology. He is applying this research toward the production of advanced carbon-neutral biofuels that can replace gasoline on a gallon-for-gallon basis. Keasling is Berkeley Labs Acting Deputy Director and the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Department of Energys Joint BioEnergy Institute. Jim Bristow is deputy director of programs for the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a national user facility in Walnut Creek, CA. He developed and implemented JGIs Community Sequencing Program, which provides large-scale DNA sequencing and analysis to advance genomics related to bioenergy and environmental characterization and cleanup. Susanna Green Tringe is a computational biologist with the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI). She helped pioneer the field of metagenomics, a new strategy for isolating, sequencing, and characterizing DNA extracted directly from environmental samples, such as the contents of the termite gut, which yielded enzymes responsible for breakdown of wood into fuel.

Ecological objectives can be achieved with wood-derived bioenergy

DOE PAGES

Dale, Virginia H.; Kline, Keith L.; Marland, Gregg; ...

2015-08-01

Renewable, biomass-based energy options can reduce the climate impacts of fossil fuels. However, calculating the effects of wood-derived bioenergy on greenhouse gases (GHGs), and thus on climate, is complicated (Miner et al. 2015). To clarify concerns and options about bioenergy, in November 2014, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) produced a second draft of its Framework for Assessing Biogenic CO 2 Emissions fromStationary Sources (http://1.usa.gov/1dikgHq), which considers the latest scientific information and input from stakeholders. Furthermore, the EPA is expected to make decisions soon about the use of woody biomass under the Clean Power Plan, which sets targets for carbonmore » pollution from power plants.« less

Ecological objectives can be achieved with wood-derived bioenergy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dale, Virginia H.; Kline, Keith L.; Marland, Gregg

Renewable, biomass-based energy options can reduce the climate impacts of fossil fuels. However, calculating the effects of wood-derived bioenergy on greenhouse gases (GHGs), and thus on climate, is complicated (Miner et al. 2015). To clarify concerns and options about bioenergy, in November 2014, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) produced a second draft of its Framework for Assessing Biogenic CO 2 Emissions fromStationary Sources (http://1.usa.gov/1dikgHq), which considers the latest scientific information and input from stakeholders. Furthermore, the EPA is expected to make decisions soon about the use of woody biomass under the Clean Power Plan, which sets targets for carbonmore » pollution from power plants.« less

Progress in understanding and overcoming biomass recalcitrance: a BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) perspective

DOE PAGES

Gilna, Paul; Lynd, Lee R.; Mohnen, Debra; ...

2017-11-30

The DOE BioEnergy Science Center has operated as a virtual center with multiple partners for a decade targeting overcoming biomass recalcitrance. BESC has redefined biomass recalcitrance from an observable phenotype to a better understood and manipulatable fundamental and operational property. These manipulations are then the result of deeper biological understanding and can be combined with other advanced biotechnology improvements in biomass conversion to improve bioenergy processes and markets. This article provides an overview of key accomplishments in overcoming recalcitrance via better plants, better microbes, and better tools and combinations. Finally, we present a perspective on the aspects of successful centermore » operation.« less

Progress in understanding and overcoming biomass recalcitrance: a BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) perspective

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gilna, Paul; Lynd, Lee R.; Mohnen, Debra

The DOE BioEnergy Science Center has operated as a virtual center with multiple partners for a decade targeting overcoming biomass recalcitrance. BESC has redefined biomass recalcitrance from an observable phenotype to a better understood and manipulatable fundamental and operational property. These manipulations are then the result of deeper biological understanding and can be combined with other advanced biotechnology improvements in biomass conversion to improve bioenergy processes and markets. This article provides an overview of key accomplishments in overcoming recalcitrance via better plants, better microbes, and better tools and combinations. Finally, we present a perspective on the aspects of successful centermore » operation.« less

Transpirational drying effects on energy and ash content from whole-tree chipping operations in a southern pine plantation

Treesearch

J. Cutshall; D. Greene; S. Baker; Dana Mitchell

2011-01-01

Newly announced North American bioenergy projects will likely increase the demand for woody biomass substantially over the next five to ten years. High harvesting and transportation costs for woody biomass from forests are commonly identified as key constraints to expanding this new industry and meeting expected wood fiber demand. In addition to a cost-competitive...

Impacts of nitrogen fertilization and plant species diversity on soil C accumulation in a lignocellulosic bioenergy cropping system nine years following land conversion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Graaff, M. A.; Jastrow, J. D.

2017-12-01

Ethanol production from second generation biofuel feedstocks, including the perennial grasses switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) and big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) has expanded rapidly, with the aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, land conversion for bioenergy production releases carbon (C) stored in soil to the atmosphere as CO2, and creates a C debt in ecosystems. If biofuels are to aid in curbing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, it is important that this initial C debt be repaid rapidly. A variety of management approaches aimed at increasing NPP and soil C input may be used to accelerate the repayment of soil C. We conducted a long-term field experiment located at the Fermilab National Environmental Research Park in IL, that compares a variety of approaches for perennial feedstock production following conversion of an old-field dominated by C3 grasses to a grassland dominated by C4 perennial grasses. Treatments included a variety of big bluestem and switchgrass cultivars grown in monoculture, diversity manipulated at both the species- and cultivar level, and nitrogen (N) applied at two levels (0 and 67 kg/ha). Previous results from this experiment indicated that four years following initiation of this experiment, only choice of plant species significantly affected the rate of bulk soil C-debt repayment. Here we quantified how nine years of fertilization, plant species, and inter- and intra-specific diversity treatments affect soil C accumulation. To increase our detection of changes in soil C and our mechanistic understanding of the processes that drive C accumulation in this experiment, we used the natural abundance C isotope ratio technique to estimate the contribution and fate of root-derived C to soil organic matter pools. Additionally, we evaluated how the different management approaches affected the ecological sustainability of bioenergy production, by quantifying impacts of the treatments on soil micro-and meso fauna abundance and diversity. Our results will improve our understanding of how alternative management approaches in lignocellulosic biofuel cropping systems regulate soil C sequestration, and the processes that influence it.

Bioenergy Sorghum Crop Model Predicts VPD-Limited Transpiration Traits Enhance Biomass Yield in Water-Limited Environments

PubMed Central

Truong, Sandra K.; McCormick, Ryan F.; Mullet, John E.

2017-01-01

Bioenergy sorghum is targeted for production in water-limited annual cropland therefore traits that improve plant water capture, water use efficiency, and resilience to water deficit are necessary to maximize productivity. A crop modeling framework, APSIM, was adapted to predict the growth and biomass yield of energy sorghum and to identify potentially useful traits for crop improvement. APSIM simulations of energy sorghum development and biomass accumulation replicated results from field experiments across multiple years, patterns of rainfall, and irrigation schemes. Modeling showed that energy sorghum's long duration of vegetative growth increased water capture and biomass yield by ~30% compared to short season crops in a water-limited production region. Additionally, APSIM was extended to enable modeling of VPD-limited transpiration traits that reduce crop water use under high vapor pressure deficits (VPDs). The response of transpiration rate to increasing VPD was modeled as a linear response until a VPD threshold was reached, at which the slope of the response decreases, representing a range of responses to VPD observed in sorghum germplasm. Simulation results indicated that the VPD-limited transpiration trait is most beneficial in hot and dry regions of production where crops are exposed to extended periods without rainfall during the season or to a terminal drought. In these environments, slower but more efficient transpiration increases biomass yield and prevents or delays the exhaustion of soil water and onset of leaf senescence. The VPD-limited transpiration responses observed in sorghum germplasm increased biomass accumulation by 20% in years with lower summer rainfall, and the ability to drastically reduce transpiration under high VPD conditions could increase biomass by 6% on average across all years. This work indicates that the productivity and resilience of bioenergy sorghum grown in water-limited environments could be further enhanced by development of genotypes with optimized VPD-limited transpiration traits and deployment of these crops in water limited growing environments. The energy sorghum model and VPD-limited transpiration trait implementation are made available to simulate performance in other target environments. PMID:28377779

Bioenergy Sorghum Crop Model Predicts VPD-Limited Transpiration Traits Enhance Biomass Yield in Water-Limited Environments.

PubMed

Truong, Sandra K; McCormick, Ryan F; Mullet, John E

2017-01-01

Bioenergy sorghum is targeted for production in water-limited annual cropland therefore traits that improve plant water capture, water use efficiency, and resilience to water deficit are necessary to maximize productivity. A crop modeling framework, APSIM, was adapted to predict the growth and biomass yield of energy sorghum and to identify potentially useful traits for crop improvement. APSIM simulations of energy sorghum development and biomass accumulation replicated results from field experiments across multiple years, patterns of rainfall, and irrigation schemes. Modeling showed that energy sorghum's long duration of vegetative growth increased water capture and biomass yield by ~30% compared to short season crops in a water-limited production region. Additionally, APSIM was extended to enable modeling of VPD-limited transpiration traits that reduce crop water use under high vapor pressure deficits (VPDs). The response of transpiration rate to increasing VPD was modeled as a linear response until a VPD threshold was reached, at which the slope of the response decreases, representing a range of responses to VPD observed in sorghum germplasm. Simulation results indicated that the VPD-limited transpiration trait is most beneficial in hot and dry regions of production where crops are exposed to extended periods without rainfall during the season or to a terminal drought. In these environments, slower but more efficient transpiration increases biomass yield and prevents or delays the exhaustion of soil water and onset of leaf senescence. The VPD-limited transpiration responses observed in sorghum germplasm increased biomass accumulation by 20% in years with lower summer rainfall, and the ability to drastically reduce transpiration under high VPD conditions could increase biomass by 6% on average across all years. This work indicates that the productivity and resilience of bioenergy sorghum grown in water-limited environments could be further enhanced by development of genotypes with optimized VPD-limited transpiration traits and deployment of these crops in water limited growing environments. The energy sorghum model and VPD-limited transpiration trait implementation are made available to simulate performance in other target environments.

Bioenergy sorghum crop model predicts VPD-limited transpiration traits enhance biomass yield in water-limited environments

DOE PAGES

Truong, Sandra K.; McCormick, Ryan F.; Mullet, John E.

2017-03-21

Bioenergy sorghum is targeted for production in water-limited annual cropland therefore traits that improve plant water capture, water use efficiency, and resilience to water deficit are necessary to maximize productivity. A crop modeling framework, APSIM, was adapted to predict the growth and biomass yield of energy sorghum and to identify potentially useful traits for crop improvement. APSIM simulations of energy sorghum development and biomass accumulation replicated results from field experiments across multiple years, patterns of rainfall, and irrigation schemes. Modeling showed that energy sorghum’s long duration of vegetative growth increased water capture and biomass yield by ~30% compared to shortmore » season crops in a water-limited production region. Additionally, APSIM was extended to enable modeling of VPD-limited transpiration traits that reduce crop water use under high vapor pressure deficits (VPDs). The response of transpiration rate to increasing VPD was modeled as a linear response until a VPD threshold was reached, at which the slope of the response decreases, representing a range of responses to VPD observed in sorghum germplasm. Simulation results indicated that the VPD-limited transpiration trait is most beneficial in hot and dry regions of production where crops are exposed to extended periods without rainfall during the season or to a terminal drought. In these environments, slower but more efficient transpiration increases biomass yield and prevents or delays the exhaustion of soil water and onset of leaf senescence. The VPD-limited transpiration responses observed in sorghum germplasm increased biomass accumulation by 20% in years with lower summer rainfall, and the ability to drastically reduce transpiration under high VPD conditions could increase biomass by 6% on average across all years. This work indicates that the productivity and resilience of bioenergy sorghum grown in water-limited environments could be further enhanced by development of genotypes with optimized VPD-limited transpiration traits and deployment of these crops in water limited growing environments. As a result, the energy sorghum model and VPD-limited transpiration trait implementation aremade available to simulate performance in other target environments.« less

Bioenergy sorghum crop model predicts VPD-limited transpiration traits enhance biomass yield in water-limited environments

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Truong, Sandra K.; McCormick, Ryan F.; Mullet, John E.

Bioenergy sorghum is targeted for production in water-limited annual cropland therefore traits that improve plant water capture, water use efficiency, and resilience to water deficit are necessary to maximize productivity. A crop modeling framework, APSIM, was adapted to predict the growth and biomass yield of energy sorghum and to identify potentially useful traits for crop improvement. APSIM simulations of energy sorghum development and biomass accumulation replicated results from field experiments across multiple years, patterns of rainfall, and irrigation schemes. Modeling showed that energy sorghum’s long duration of vegetative growth increased water capture and biomass yield by ~30% compared to shortmore » season crops in a water-limited production region. Additionally, APSIM was extended to enable modeling of VPD-limited transpiration traits that reduce crop water use under high vapor pressure deficits (VPDs). The response of transpiration rate to increasing VPD was modeled as a linear response until a VPD threshold was reached, at which the slope of the response decreases, representing a range of responses to VPD observed in sorghum germplasm. Simulation results indicated that the VPD-limited transpiration trait is most beneficial in hot and dry regions of production where crops are exposed to extended periods without rainfall during the season or to a terminal drought. In these environments, slower but more efficient transpiration increases biomass yield and prevents or delays the exhaustion of soil water and onset of leaf senescence. The VPD-limited transpiration responses observed in sorghum germplasm increased biomass accumulation by 20% in years with lower summer rainfall, and the ability to drastically reduce transpiration under high VPD conditions could increase biomass by 6% on average across all years. This work indicates that the productivity and resilience of bioenergy sorghum grown in water-limited environments could be further enhanced by development of genotypes with optimized VPD-limited transpiration traits and deployment of these crops in water limited growing environments. As a result, the energy sorghum model and VPD-limited transpiration trait implementation aremade available to simulate performance in other target environments.« less

Wood to energy: using southern interface fuels for bioenergy

Treesearch

C. Staudhammer; L.A. Hermansen; D. Carter; Ed Macie

2011-01-01

This publications aims to increase awareness of potential uses for woody biomass in the southern wildland-urban interface (WUI) and to disseminate knowledge about putting bioenergy production systems in place, while addressing issues unique to WUI areas. Chapter topics include woody biomass sources in the wildland-urban interface; harvesting, preprocessing and delivery...

Life-Cycle Assessment of a Distributed-Scale Thermochemical Bioenergy Conversion System

Treesearch

Hongmei Gu; Richard Bergman

2016-01-01

Expanding bioenergy production from woody biomass has the potential to decrease net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve the energy security of the United States. Science-based and internationally accepted life-cycle assessment (LCA) is an effective tool for policy makers to make scientifically informed decisions on expanding renewable energy production from...

Selection signatures in four lignin genes from switchgrass populations divergently selected for in vitro dry matter digestibility

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Switchgrass is undergoing development as a dedicated cellulosic bioenergy crop. Fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol in a bioenergy system, or to volatile fatty acids in a livestock production system, is strongly and negatively influenced by lignification of cell walls. This study dete...

Cover crop and nitrogen fertilization influence soil carbon and nitrogen under bioenergy sweet sorghum

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Cover crop and N fertilization may maintain soil C and N levels under sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench) biomass harvested for bioenergy production. The effect of cover crops (hairy vetch [Vicia villosa Roth], rye [Secaele cereale L.], hairy vetch/rye mixture, and the control [no cover crop...

Cover crops for enriching soil carbon and nitrogen under bioenergy sorghum

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) can be enriched with cover crops under agronomic crops, but little is known about their enrichment under bioenergy crops. Legume (hairy vetch [Vicia villosa Roth]), nonlegume (rye [Secaele cereale L.]), a mixture of legume and nonlegume (hairy vetch and rye) and a co...

Carbon debt and carbon sequestration parity in forest bioenergy production

Treesearch

S.R. Mitchell; M.E. Harmon; K.B. O' Connell

2012-01-01

The capacity for forests to aid in climate change mitigation efforts is substantial but will ultimately depend on their management. If forests remain unharvested, they can further mitigate the increases in atmospheric CO2 that result from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. Alternatively, they can be harvested for bioenergy production and...

Enhancing biomass utilization for bioenergy-crop rotation systems and alternative conversion processes

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Biomass for bioenergy has a great deal of potential for decreasing our dependence upon fossil fuels and decreasing the net CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere. Crop residues are often promoted as a means of meeting the total biomass goals to provide sufficient amounts of materials for liquid fuel pro...

Best management practices: Managing cropping systems for soil protection and bioenergy production

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Interest in renewable alternatives to fossil fuels has increased. Crop residue such as corn stover or wheat straw can be used for bioenergy including a substitution for natural gas or coal. Harvesting crop residue needs to be managed to protect the soil and future soil productivity. The amount of bi...

Land conversion to bioenergy production: water budget and sediment output in a semiarid grassland

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Switchgrass based bioenergy production has been considered a feasible alternative of land use for the mixed-grass prairie and marginal croplands in the High Plains. However, little is known of the effect of this land use change on the water cycle and associated sediment output in this water controll...

Environmental factors affecting the spatial distribution and trophic interactions of arthropod communities at a bioenergy farm in the Southeastern Plains, USA

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The abundance and composition of arthropod communities in agricultural landscapes vary across space and time, responding to environmental features, resources and behavioral cues. As “second-generation” bioenergy feedstocks continue to develop, knowledge is needed about the broader scale ecological i...

Topographic and soil influences on root productivity of three bioenergy cropping systems

Treesearch

Todd A. Ontl; Kirsten S. Hofmockel; Cynthia A. Cambardella; Lisa A. Schulte; Randall K. Kolka

2013-01-01

Successful modeling of the carbon (C) cycle requires empirical data regarding species-specific root responses to edaphic characteristics. We address this need by quantifying annual root production of three bioenergy systems (continuous corn, triticale/sorghum, switchgrass) in response to variation in soil properties across a toposequence within a Midwestern...

Gene Flow in Genetically Engineered Perennial Grasses: Lessons for Modification of Dedicated Bioenergy Crops

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Genetic modification of dedicated bioenergy crops, such as switchgrass, will play a major role in crop improvement for a wide range of beneficial traits specific to biofuels. One obstacle that arises regarding transgenic improvement of perennials used for biofuels is the propensity of these plants t...

The influence of drought-heat stress on long term carbon fluxes of bioenergy crops grown in the Midwestern US

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Perennial grasses are promising feedstocks for bioenergy production in the Midwestern US. Few experiments have addressed how drought influences their carbon fluxes and storage. This study provides a direct comparison of ecosystem-scale measurements of carbon fluxes associated with miscanthus (Miscan...

An outlook for sustainable forest bioenergy production in the Lake States

Treesearch

Dennis R. Becker; Kenneth Skog; Allison Hellman; Kathleen E. Halvorsen; Terry Mace

2009-01-01

The Lake States region of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan offers significant potential for bioenergy production. We examine the sustainability of regional forest biomass use in the context of existing thermal heating, electricity, and biofuels production, projected resource needs over the next decade including existing forest product market demand, and impacts on...

Life-Cycle Inventory Analysis of Bioproducts from a Modular Advanced Biomass Pyrolysis System

Treesearch

Richard Bergman; Hongmei Gu

2014-01-01

Expanding bioenergy production has the potential to reduce net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve energy security. Science-based assessments of new bioenergy technologies are essential tools for policy makers dealing with expanding renewable energy production. Using life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis, this study evaluated a 200-kWe...

Greenhouse gas fluxes and root productivity in a switchgrass and loblolly pine intercropping system for bioenergy production

Treesearch

Paliza Shrestha; John R. Seiler; Brian D. Strahm; Eric B. Sucre; Zakiya H. Leggett

2015-01-01

This study is part of a larger collaborative effort to determine the overall environmental sustainability of intercropping pine (Pinus taeda L.) and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), both of which are promising feedstock for bioenergy production in the Lower Coastal Plain in North Carolina.

Logistics cost analysis of rice residues for second generation bioenergy production in Ghana.

PubMed

Vijay Ramamurthi, Pooja; Cristina Fernandes, Maria; Sieverts Nielsen, Per; Pedro Nunes, Clemente

2014-12-01

This study explores the techno-economic potential of rice residues as a bioenergy resource to meet Ghana's energy demands. Major rice growing regions of Ghana have 70-90% of residues available for bioenergy production. To ensure cost-effective biomass logistics, a thorough cost analysis was made for two bioenergy routes. Logistics costs for a 5 MWe straw combustion plant were 39.01, 47.52 and 47.89 USD/t for Northern, Ashanti and Volta regions respectively. Logistics cost for a 0.25 MWe husk gasification plant (with roundtrip distance 10 km) was 2.64 USD/t in all regions. Capital cost (66-72%) contributes significantly to total logistics costs of straw, however for husk logistics, staff (40%) and operation and maintenance costs (46%) dominate. Baling is the major processing logistic cost for straw, contributing to 46-48% of total costs. Scale of straw unit does not have a large impact on logistic costs. Transport distance of husks has considerable impact on logistic costs. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Forecasting changes in water quality in rivers associated with growing biofuels in the Arkansas-White-Red river drainage, USA

DOE PAGES

Jager, Henriette I.; Baskaran, Latha M.; Schweizer, Peter E.; ...

2014-05-15

We study that the mid-section of the Arkansas-White-Red (AWR) river basin near the 100 th parallel is particularly promising for sustainable biomass production using cellulosic perennial crops and residues. Along this longitudinal band, precipitation becomes limiting to competing crops that require irrigation from an increasingly depleted groundwater aquifer. In addition, the deep-rooted perennial, switchgrass, produces modest-to-high yields in this region with minimal inputs and could compete against alternative crops and land uses at relatively low cost. Previous studies have also suggested that switchgrass and other perennial feedstocks offer environmentally benign alternatives to corn and corn stover. However, water quality implicationsmore » remain a significant concern for conversion of marginal lands to bioenergy production because excess nutrients produced by agriculture for food or for energy contribute to eutrophication in the dead-zone in the Gulf of Mexico. This study addresses water quality implications for the AWR river basin. We used the SWAT model to compare water quality in rivers draining a baseline, pre-cellulosic-bioenergy and post-cellulosic-bioenergy landscapes for 2022 and 2030. Simulated water quality responses varied across the region, but with a net tendency toward decreased amounts of nutrient and sediment, particularly in subbasins with large areas of bioenergy crops in 2030 future scenarios. We conclude that water quality is one aspect of sustainability for which cellulosic bioenergy production in this region holds promise.« less

Stream Health Sensitivity to Landscape Changes due to Bioenergy Crops Expansion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nejadhashemi, A.; Einheuser, M. D.; Woznicki, S. A.

2012-12-01

Global demand for bioenergy has increased due to uncertainty in oil markets, environmental concerns, and expected increases in energy consumption worldwide. To develop a sustainable biofuel production strategy, the adverse environmental impacts of bioenergy crops expansion should be understood. To study the impact of bioenergy crops expansion on stream health, the adaptive neural-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) was used to predict macroinvertebrate and fish stream health measures. The Hilsenhoff Biotic Index (HBI), Family Index of Biological Integrity (Family IBI), and Number of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera taxa (EPT taxa) were used as macroinvertebrate measures, while the Index of Biological Integrity (IBI) was used for fish. A high-resolution biophysical model built using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool was used to obtain water quantity and quality variables for input into the ANFIS stream health predictive models. Twenty unique crop rotations were developed to examine impacts of bioenergy crops expansion on stream health in the Saginaw Bay basin. Traditional intensive row crops generated more pollution than current landuse conditions, while second-generation biofuel crops associated with less intensive agricultural activities resulted in water quality improvement. All three macroinvertebrate measures were negatively impacted during intensive row crop productions but improvement was predicted when producing perennial crops. However, the expansion of native grass, switchgrass, and miscanthus production resulted in reduced IBI relative to first generation row crops. This study demonstrates that ecosystem complexity requires examination of multiple stream health measures to avoid potential adverse impacts of landuse change on stream health.

Yield Response to Mexican Rice Borer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) Injury in Bioenergy and Conventional Sugarcane and Sorghum.

PubMed

Vanweelden, M T; Wilson, B E; Beuzelin, J M; Reagan, T E; Way, M O

2015-10-01

The Mexican rice borer, Eoreuma loftini (Dyar) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) is an invasive stem borer of sugarcane, Saccharum spp., and sorghum, Sorghum bicolor (L.), and poses a threat against the production of dedicated bioenergy feedstocks in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. A 2-yr field study was conducted in Jefferson County, TX, to evaluate yield losses associated with E. loftini feeding on bioenergy and conventional cultivars of sugarcane and sorghum under natural and artificially established E. loftini infestations. Bioenergy sugarcane (energycane) 'L 79-1002' and 'Ho 02-113' and sweet sorghum 'M81E' exhibited reduced E. loftini injury; however, these cultivars, along with high-biomass sorghum cultivar 'ES 5140', sustained greater losses in fresh stalk weight. Negative impacts to sucrose concentration from E. loftini injury were greatest in energycane, high-biomass sorghum, and sweet sorghum cultivars. Even under heavy E. loftini infestations, L 79-1002, Ho 02-113, and 'ES 5200' were estimated to produce more ethanol than all other cultivars under suppressed infestations. ES 5200, Ho 02-113, and L 79-1002 hold the greatest potential as dedicated bioenergy crops for production of ethanol in the Gulf Coast region; however, E. loftini management practices will need to be continued to mitigate yield losses. © The Authors 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Comparison of soil microbial respiration and carbon turnover under perennial and annual biofuel crops in two agricultural soils

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szymanski, L. M.; Marin-Spiotta, E.; Sanford, G. R.; Jackson, R. D.; Heckman, K. A.

2015-12-01

Bioenergy crops have the potential to provide a low carbon-intensive alternative to fossil fuels. More than a century of agricultural research has shown that conventional cropping systems can reduce soil organic matter (SOM) reservoirs, which cause long-term soil nutrient loss and C release to the atmosphere. In the face of climate change and other human disruptions to biogeochemical cycles, identifying biofuel crops that can maintain or enhance soil resources is desirable for the sustainable production of bioenergy. The objective of our study was to compare the effects of four biofuel crop treatments on SOM dynamics in two agricultural soils: Mollisols at Arlington Agricultural Research Station in Wisconsin and Alfisols at Kellogg Biological Station in Michigan, USA. We used fresh soils collected in 2013 and archived soils from 2008 to measure the effects of five years of crop management. Using a one-year long laboratory soil incubation coupled with a regression model and radiocarbon measurements, we separated soils into three SOM pools and their corresponding C turnover times. We found that the active pool, or biologically available C, was more sensitive to management and is an earlier indicator of changes to soil C dynamics than bulk soil C measurements. There was no effect of treatment on the active pool size at either site; however, the percent C in the active pool decreased, regardless of crop type, in surface soils with high clay content. At depth, the response of the slow pool differed between annual and perennial cropping systems. The distribution of C among SOM fractions varied between the two soil types, with greater C content associated with the active fraction in the coarser textured-soil and greater C content associated with the slow-cycling fraction in the soils with high clay content. These results suggest that the effects of bioenergy crops on soil resources will vary geographically, with implications for the carbon-cost of biocrop production.

Field-Scale Partitioning of Ecosystem Respiration Components Suggests Carbon Stabilization in a Bioenergy Grass Ecosystem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Black, C. K.; Miller, J. N.; Masters, M. D.; Bernacchi, C.; DeLucia, E. H.

2014-12-01

Annually-harvested agroecosystems have the potential to be net carbon sinks only if their root systems allocate sufficient carbon belowground and if this carbon is then retained as stable soil organic matter. Soil respiration measurements are the most common approach to evaluate the stability of soil carbon at experimental time scales, but valid inferences require the partitioning of soil respiration into root-derived (current-year C) and heterotrophic (older C) components. This partitioning is challenging at the field scale because roots and soil are intricately mixed and physical separation in impossible without disturbing the fluxes to be measured. To partition soil flux and estimate the C sink potential of bioenergy crops, we used the carbon isotope difference between C3 and C4 plant species to quantify respiration from roots of three C4 grasses (maize, Miscanthus, and switchgrass) grown in a site with a mixed cropping history where respiration from the breakdown of old soil carbon has a mixed C3-C4 signature. We used a Keeling plot approach to partition fluxes both at the soil surface using soil chambers and from the whole field using continuous flow sampling of air within and above the canopy. Although soil respiration rates from perennial grasses were higher than those from maize, the isotopic signature of respired carbon indicated that the fraction of soil CO2 flux attributable to current-year vegetation was 1.5 (switchgrass) to 2 (Miscanthus) times greater in perennials than that from maize, indicating that soil CO2 flux came mostly from roots and turnover of soil organic matter was reduced in the perennial crops. This reduction in soil heterotrophic respiration, combined with the much greater quantities of C allocated belowground by perennial grasses compared to maize, suggests that perennial grasses grown as bioenergy crops may be able to provide an additional climate benefit by acting as carbon sinks in addition to reducing fossil fuel consumption.

Nitrous oxide emissions during establishment of eight alternative cellulosic bioenergy cropping systems in the North Central United States

DOE PAGES

Oates, Lawrence G.; Duncan, David S.; Gelfand, Ilya; ...

2015-05-14

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from soils are a key sustainability metric of cropping systems. During crop establishment, disruptive land-use change is known to be a critical, but under reported period, for determining GHG emissions. We measured soil N 2O emissions and potential environmental drivers of these fluxes from a three-year establishment-phase bioenergy cropping systems experiment replicated in southcentral Wisconsin (ARL) and southwestern Michigan (KBS). Cropping systems treatments were annual monocultures (continuous corn, corn–soybean–canola rotation), perennial monocultures (switchgrass, miscanthus, and poplar), and perennial polycultures (native grass mixture, early successional community, and restored prairie) all grown using best management practices specific tomore » the system. Cumulative three-year N 2O emissions from annuals were 142% higher than from perennials, with fertilized perennials 190% higher than unfertilized perennials. Emissions ranged from 3.1 to 19.1 kg N 2O-N ha -1 yr -1 for the annuals with continuous corn > corn–soybean–canola rotation and 1.1 to 6.3 kg N 2O-N ha -1 yr -1 for perennials. Nitrous oxide peak fluxes typically were associated with precipitation events that closely followed fertilization. Bayesian modeling of N 2O fluxes based on measured environmental factors explained 33% of variability across all systems. Models trained on single systems performed well in most monocultures (e.g., R 2 = 0.52 for poplar) but notably worse in polycultures (e.g., R 2 = 0.17 for early successional, R 2 = 0.06 for restored prairie), indicating that simulation models that include N 2O emissions should be parameterized specific to particular plant communities. These results indicate that perennial bioenergy crops in their establishment phase emit less N 2O than annual crops, especially when not fertilized. These findings should be considered further alongside yield and other metrics contributing to important ecosystem services.« less

Sorghum to Ethanol Research

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dahlberg, Jeffrey A.; Wolfrum, Edward J.

2010-09-28

The development of a robust source of renewable transportation fuel will require a large amount of biomass feedstocks. It is generally accepted that in addition to agricultural and forestry residues, we will need crops grown specifically for subsequent conversion into fuels. There has been a lot of research on several of these so-called "dedicated bioenergy crops" including switchgrass, miscanthus, sugarcane, and poplar. It is likely that all of these crops will end up playing a role as feedstocks, depending on local environmental and market conditions. Many different types of sorghum have been grown to produce syrup, grain, and animal feedmore » for many years. It has several features that may make it as compelling as other crops mentioned above as a renewable, sustainable biomass feedstock; however, very little work has been done to investigate sorghum as a dedicated bioenergy crop. The goal of this project was to investigate the feasibility of using sorghum biomass to produce ethanol. The work performed included a detailed examination of the agronomics and composition of a large number of sorghum varieties, laboratory experiments to convert sorghum to ethanol, and economic and life-cycle analyses of the sorghum-to-ethanol process. This work showed that sorghum has a very wide range of composition, which depended on the specific sorghum cultivar as well as the growing conditions. The results of laboratory- and pilot-scale experiments indicated that a typical high-biomass sorghum variety performed very similarly to corn stover during the multi-step process required to convert biomass feedstocks to ethanol; yields of ethanol for sorghum were very similar to the corn stover used as a control in these experiments. Based on multi-year agronomic data and theoretical ethanol production, sorghum can achieve more than 1,300 gallons of ethanol per acre given the correct genetics and environment. In summary, sorghum may be a compelling dedicated bioenergy crop that could help provide a major portion of the feedstocks required to produce renewable domestic transportation fuels.« less

Towards a default soil carbon sequestration rate after cropland to Miscanthus conversion in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Poeplau, Christopher; Don, Axel

2013-04-01

In Europe, an estimated 17-21 million hectares (Mha) of land will need to be converted to bioenergy crop production to meet the EU bioenergy targets for 2020. Conventional bioenergy crops, such as maize and oilseed rape, are known for high greenhouse gas emissions. Perennial grases, such as Miscanthus, are seen as sustainable alternative, due to low fertilizer demand, relatively high yields and the potential to sequester soil organic carbon (SOC). However, the variability of currently published SOC stock changes is huge, ranging from -6.8 to +7.7 Mg ha-1 yr-1, which we attribute to different organic manure applications and differences in the baseline SOC stocks between the sampled plots in the paired plot approach. The conversion from cropland to Miscanthus involves a C3-C4 vegetation change, which allows following the incorporation of C4 Miscanthus-derived carbon into the soil by measuring the abundance of the stable isotope 13C. This was done for six different Miscanthus plantations across Europe, which were older than ten years. C3 carbon decomposition was estimated using the carbon turnover model RothC. Both, C4 and C3 carbon dynamics were summed to obtain the vegetation change-induced SOC stock change. We subsequently applied this approach to all European sites, where C4 carbon dynamic after cropland to Miscanthus conversion has been investigated (n=14) and derived a temperature dependant SOC sequestration rate. We found a mean annual accumulation of 0.40±0.20 Mg C ha-1. Furthermore, we conducted a SOC fractionation to assess the incorporation of C4 carbon into different SOC fractions. After a mean time of 16 years, the particulate organic matter (POM) fraction consisted of 68% Miscanthus-derived carbon in 0-10 cm soil depth. The NaOCl resistant fraction, which is considered "inert", consisted of 12% Miscanthus-derived carbon in 0-10 cm soil depth.

Investigating Sustainability Impacts of Bioenergy Usage Within the Eisenwurzen Region in Austria

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Putzhuber, F.; Hasenauer, H.

2009-04-01

Within the past few years sustainability and bioenergy usage become a key term in emphasizing the relationship between economic progress and the protection of the environment. One key difficulty is the definition of criteria and indicators for assessing sustainability issues and their change over time. This work introduces methods to create linear parametric models of the sustainable impact issues relevant in the establishment of new bio-energetic heating systems. Our application example is the Eisenwurzen region in Austria. The total area covers 5743 km km² and includes 99 municipalities. A total of 11 impact issues covering the economic, social and environmental areas are proposed for developing the linear parametric models. The indicator selection for deriving the impact issues is based on public official data from 68 indicators, as well as stakeholder interviews and the impact assessment framework. In total we obtained 415 variables from the 99 municipalities to create the 68 indicators for the Local Administration Unit 2 (LAU2) over the last (if available) 25 years. The 68 indicators are on a relative scale to address the size differences of the municipalities. The idea of the analysis is to create linear models which derive 11 defined impact issues related to the establishment of new bio-energetic heating systems. Each analysis follows a strict statistical procedure based on (i) independent indicator selection, (ii) remove indicators with higher VIF value grater then 6, (iii) remove indicators with α higher than 0,05, (iv) possible linear transformation, (v) remove the non-significant indicators (p-value >0,05), (vi) model valuation, (vii) remove the out-lines plots and (viii) test of the normality distribution of the residual with a Kolmogorov- Smirnov test. The results suggest that for the 11 sustainable impact issues 21 of the 68 indicators are significant drives. The models revealed that it is possible to create tools for assessing impact issues in a municipality level. In this case impact issues related to bio-energy usages on a rural mountain region.

Conversion of Grazed Pastures to Energy Cane as a Biofuel Feedstock Alters Soil GHG Fluxes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gomez-Casanovas, N.; DeLucia, N.; Bernacchi, C.; DeLucia, E. H.

2013-12-01

Changes in land use profoundly affect climate through variations in soil Greenhouse Gas (GHG) exchange. The need for alternative energies is accelerating land use change as marginal land or managed ecosystems are being converted to highly productive second-generation bioenergy crops such as energy cane (Saccharum spp. L). Although the deployment of energy cane is a promising strategy to meet global bioenergy industry demands, few studies have investigated soil GHG fluxes in these crops and sub-tropical low-intensity grazing pasture (bahiagrass, Paspalum notatum L., as forage for cattle, Bos taurus L.) with which they are competing for land. Here, we showed that soil N2O fluxes in bioenergy crops were higher (>250%) than those observed in pastures following fertilization when soil moisture and temperature were high. In the absence of recent fertilization, the N2O source strength in energy cane and pasture sites was similar. Under drier and cooler soil conditions, both pastures and bioenergy crops were weak sources of N2O even when energy cane plots were recently fertilized. Soils on grazed pastures were sources of CH4 during the wet season but became sinks under drier, colder conditions. Energy cane plantations were weak sources of CH4 over a complete wet-dry seasonal cycle. The heterotrophic component of soil respiration was larger (139-155%) in pastures than in energy cane crops, suggesting lower decomposition of SOC in bioenergy crops. In terms of global warming potential, grazed pastures were stronger (120-150%) soil GHG emitters than energy cane crops over a complete wet-dry seasonal cycle. Moreover, pastures became a substantial source of GHG emitters when including estimates of CH4 flux from cattle. Our results suggest that the conversion of pasture to energy cane will be beneficial in relation to GHGs emitted from soils and cattle. Improved understanding of land use impact on soil GHG dynamics will provide valuable information for decision makers debating sustainable bioenergy policies.

Linking climate change mitigation and coastal eutrophication management through biogas technology: Evidence from a new Danish bioenergy concept.

PubMed

Kaspersen, Bjarke Stoltze; Christensen, Thomas Budde; Fredenslund, Anders Michael; Møller, Henrik Bjarne; Butts, Michael Brian; Jensen, Niels H; Kjaer, Tyge

2016-01-15

The interest in sustainable bioenergy solutions has gained great importance in Europe due to the need to reduce GHG emissions and to meet environmental policy targets, not least for the protection of groundwater and surface water quality. In the Municipality of Solrød in Denmark, a novel bioenergy concept for anaerobic co-digestion of food industry residues, manure and beach-cast seaweed has been developed and tested in order to quantify the potential for synergies between climate change mitigation and coastal eutrophication management in the Køge Bay catchment. The biogas plant, currently under construction, was designed to handle an annual input of up to 200,000 t of biomass based on four main fractions: pectin wastes, carrageenan wastes, manure and beach-cast seaweed. This paper describes how this bioenergy concept can contribute to strengthening the linkages between climate change mitigation strategies and Water Framework Directive (WFD) action planning. Our assessments of the projected biogas plant indicate an annual reduction of GHG emissions of approx. 40,000 t CO2 equivalents, corresponding to approx. 1/3 of current total GHG emissions in the Municipality of Solrød. In addition, nitrogen and phosphorous loads to Køge Bay are estimated to be reduced by approx. 63 t yr.(-1) and 9 tyr.(-1), respectively, contributing to the achievement of more than 70% of the nutrient reduction target set for Køge Bay in the first WFD river basin management plan. This study shows that anaerobic co-digestion of the specific food industry residues, pig manure and beach-cast seaweed is feasible and that there is a very significant, cost-effective GHG and nutrient loading mitigation potential for this bioenergy concept. Our research demonstrates how an integrated planning process where considerations about the total environment are integrated into the design and decision processes can support the development of this kind of holistic bioenergy solutions. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Biohydrogen, biomethane and bioelectricity as crucial components of biorefinery of organic wastes: a review.

PubMed

Poggi-Varaldo, Héctor M; Munoz-Paez, Karla M; Escamilla-Alvarado, Carlos; Robledo-Narváez, Paula N; Ponce-Noyola, M Teresa; Calva-Calva, Graciano; Ríos-Leal, Elvira; Galíndez-Mayer, Juvencio; Estrada-Vázquez, Carlos; Ortega-Clemente, Alfredo; Rinderknecht-Seijas, Noemí F

2014-05-01

Biohydrogen is a sustainable form of energy as it can be produced from organic waste through fermentation processes involving dark fermentation and photofermentation. Very often biohydrogen is included as a part of biorefinery approaches, which reclaim organic wastes that are abundant sources of renewable and low cost substrate that can be efficiently fermented by microorganisms. The aim of this work was to critically assess selected bioenergy alternatives from organic solid waste, such as biohydrogen and bioelectricity, to evaluate their relative advantages and disadvantages in the context of biorefineries, and finally to indicate the trends for future research and development. Biorefining is the sustainable processing of biomass into a spectrum of marketable products, which means: energy, materials, chemicals, food and feed. Dark fermentation of organic wastes could be the beach-head of complete biorefineries that generate biohydrogen as a first step and could significantly influence the future of solid waste management. Series systems show a better efficiency than one-stage process regarding substrate conversion to hydrogen and bioenergy. The dark fermentation also produces fermented by-products (fatty acids and solvents), so there is an opportunity for further combining with other processes that yield more bioenergy. Photoheterotrophic fermentation is one of them: photosynthetic heterotrophs, such as non-sulfur purple bacteria, can thrive on the simple organic substances produced in dark fermentation and light, to give more H2. Effluents from photoheterotrophic fermentation and digestates can be processed in microbial fuel cells for bioelectricity production and methanogenic digestion for methane generation, thus integrating a diverse block of bioenergies. Several digestates from bioenergies could be used for bioproducts generation, such as cellulolytic enzymes and saccharification processes, leading to ethanol fermentation (another bioenergy), thus completing the inverse cascade. Finally, biohydrogen, biomethane and bioelectricity could contribute to significant improvements for solid organic waste management in agricultural regions, as well as in urban areas.

Multi-criteria decision analysis for bioenergy in the Centre Region of Portugal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Esteves, T. C. J.; Cabral, P.; Ferreira, A. J. D.; Teixeira, J. C.

2012-04-01

With the consumption of fossil fuels, the resources essential to Man's survival are being rapidly contaminated. A sustainable future may be achieved by the use of renewable energies, allowing countries without non-renewable energy resources to guarantee energetic sovereignty. Using bioenergy may mean a steep reduction and/or elimination of the external dependency, enhancing the countries' capital and potentially reducing of the negative effects that outcome from the use of fossil fuels, such as loss of biodiversity, air, water, and soil pollution, … This work's main focus is to increase bioenergy use in the centre region of Portugal by allying R&D to facilitate determination of bioenergy availability and distribution throughout the study area.This analysis is essential, given that nowadays this knowledge is still very limited in the study area. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was the main tool used to asses this study, due to its unseeingly ability to integrate various types of information (such as alphanumerical, statistical, geographical, …) and various sources of biomass (forest, agricultural, husbandry, municipal and industrial residues, shrublands, used vegetable oil and energy crops) to determine the bioenergy potential of the study area, as well as their spatial distribution. By allying GIS with multi-criteria decision analysis, the initial table-like information of difficult comprehension is transformed into tangible and easy to read results: both intermediate and final results of the created models will facilitate the decision making process. General results show that the major contributors for the bioenergy potential in the Centre Region of Portugal are forest residues, which are mostly located in the inner region of the study area. However, a more detailed analysis should be made to analyze the viability to use energy crops. As a main conclusion, we can say that, although this region may not use only this type of energy to be completely independent in terms of energy, it will certainly reduce the amount of consumed fossil fuels, leading to a substantial reduction of the importation of this product.

Does soil C accrual under perennial grasses managed for bioenergy offset fertilizer induced N2O emission?

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Perennial grasses (e.g., switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) and big bluestem (Andropogon gerdardii Vitman) are often touted as being low input and as having a C-neutral foot print, but managing them as bioenergy feedstock means adding nitrogenous fertilizer or inter-cropping with legumes, which can i...

Woody energy crops in the southeastern United States: two centuries of practitioner experience

Treesearch

Keith L. Kline; Mark D. Coleman

2010-01-01

Forest industry experts were consulted on the potential for hardwood tree species to serve as feedstock for bioenergy in the southeastern United States. Hardwoods are of interest for bioenergy because of desirable physical qualities, genetic research advances, and growth potential. Yet little data is available regarding potential productivity and costs. This paper...

The South's outlook for sustainable forest bioenergy and biofuels production

Treesearch

David Wear; Robert Abt; Janaki Alavalapati; Greg Comatas; Mike Countess; Will McDow

2010-01-01

The future of a wood-based biofuel/bioenergy sector could hold important implications for the use, structure and function of forested landscapes in the South. This paper examines a set of questions regarding the potential effects of biofuel developments both on markets for traditional timber products and on the provision of various non-timber ecosystem services. In...

Forest bioenergy system to reduce the hazard of wildfires: White Mountains, Arizona

Treesearch

Daniel G. Neary; Elaine J. Zieroth

2007-01-01

In an innovative effort, the USDA Forest Service is planning to reduce the long-term threat of catastrophic wildfires by inaugurating a series of forest thinnings for bioenergy. The start-up project is in the Nutrioso area of the Alpine Ranger District, Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. ''The Nutrioso Wildland/Urban Interface Fuels Reduction Project'...

Best practices guidelines for managing water in bioenergy feedstock production

Treesearch

Daniel G. Neary

2015-01-01

In the quest to develop renewable energy sources, woody and agricultural crops are being viewed as an important source of low environmental impact feedstocks for electrical generation and biofuels production (Hall and Scrase 1998, Eriksson et al. 2002, Somerville et al. 2010, Berndes and Smith 2013). In countries like the USA, the bioenergy feedstock potential is...

Impact of second-generation biofuel agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions in the corn-growing regions of the US

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Land use for bioenergy crops is controversial because terrestrial resources that supply food, livestock feed, and ecosystem services already compete for geographical space in some regions of the world. Currently, in the US, both feed and bioenergy are produced from the food crop Zea mays L. (corn), ...

Sustainable bioenergy production from Missouri's Ozark forests

Treesearch

Henry E. Stelzer; Chris Barnett; Verel W. Bensen

2008-01-01

The main source of wood fiber for energy resides in Missouri's forests. Alternative bioenergy systems that can use forest thinning residues are electrical energy, thermal energy, and liquid bio-fuel. By applying a thinning rule and accounting for wood fiber that could go into higher value wood products to all live biomass data extracted from the U.S. Forest...

Logistic regression models of factors influencing the location of bioenergy and biofuels plants

Treesearch

T.M. Young; R.L. Zaretzki; J.H. Perdue; F.M. Guess; X. Liu

2011-01-01

Logistic regression models were developed to identify significant factors that influence the location of existing wood-using bioenergy/biofuels plants and traditional wood-using facilities. Logistic models provided quantitative insight for variables influencing the location of woody biomass-using facilities. Availability of "thinnings to a basal area of 31.7m2/ha...

Biogeochemical research priorities for sustainable biofuel and bioenergy feedstock production in the Americas

Treesearch

Hero T. Gollany; Brian D. Titus; D. Andrew Scott; Heidi Asbjornsen; Sigrid C. Resh; Rodney A. Chimner; Donald J. Kaczmarek; Luiz F.C. Leite; Ana C.C. Ferreira; Kenton A. Rod; Jorge Hilbert; Marcelo V. Galdos; Michelle E. Cisz

2015-01-01

Rapid expansion in biomass production for biofuels and bioenergy in the Americas is increasing demand on the ecosystem resources required to sustain soil and site productivity. We review the current state of knowledge and highlight gaps in research on biogeochemical processes and ecosystem sustainability related to biomass production. Biomass production systems...

Effect of Bioenergy Demands and Supply Response on Markets, Carbon, and Land Use

Treesearch

Karen L. Abt; Robert C. Abt; Christopher Galik

2012-01-01

An increase in the demand for wood for energy, including liquid fuels, bioelectricity, and pellets, has the potential to affect traditional wood users, forestland uses, management intensities, and, ultimately, carbon sequestration. Recent studies have shown that increases in bioenergy harvests could lead to displacement of traditional wood-using industries in the short...

Field-based estimates of global warming potential in bioenergy systems of Hawaii: Crop choice and deficit irrigation

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Replacing fossil fuel with biofuel is environmentally viable only if the net greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of the system is reduced. The effects of replacing annual arable crops with perennial bioenergy feedstocks on net GHG production and soil carbon (C) stock are critical to the system-level bal...

The role of simulation models in monitoring soil organic carbon storage and greenhouse gas mitigation potential in bioenergy cropping systems

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

There is an increased demand on agricultural systems worldwide to provide food, fiber, and feedstock for the emerging bioenergy industry, raising legitimate concerns on the associated impacts of such intensification on the environment. Of the many ecosystem services that could be impacted by the la...

Ex situ growth and biomass of Populus bioenergy crops irrigated and fertilized with landfill leachate

Treesearch

Ronald S. Jr. Zalesny; Adam H. Wiese; Edmund O. Bauer; Donald E. Riemenschneider

2009-01-01

Merging traditional intensive forestry with waste management offers dual goals of fiber and bioenergy production, along with environmental benefits such as soil/water remediation and carbon sequestration. As part of an ongoing effort to acquire data about initial genotypic performance, we evaluated: (1) the early aboveground growth of trees belonging to currently...

The effects of straw or straw-derived gasification biochar applications on soil quality and crop productivity: A farm case study.

PubMed

Hansen, Veronika; Müller-Stöver, Dorette; Imparato, Valentina; Krogh, Paul Henning; Jensen, Lars Stoumann; Dolmer, Anders; Hauggaard-Nielsen, Henrik

2017-01-15

Thermal gasification of straw is a highly efficient technology that produces bioenergy and gasification biochar that can be used as a soil amendment, thereby returning non-renewable nutrients and stable carbon, and securing soil quality and crop productivity. A Danish on-farm field study investigated the impact of traditional straw incorporation vs. straw removal for thermal gasification bioenergy production and the application of straw gasification biochar (GB) on soil quality and crop production. Two rates of GB were applied over three successive years in which the field was cropped with winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), winter oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) and winter wheat, respectively, to assess the potential effects on the soil carbon pool, soil microorganisms, earthworms, soil chemical properties and crop yields. The application of GB did not increase the soil organic carbon content significantly and had no effect on crop yields. The application of straw and GB had a positive effect on the populations of bacteria and protists, but no effect on earthworms. The high rate of GB increased soil exchangeable potassium content and soil pH indicating its potassium bioavailability and liming properties. These results suggest, that recycling GB into agricultural soils has the potential to be developed into a system combining bioenergy generation from agricultural residues and crop production, while maintaining soil quality. However, future studies should be undertaken to assess its long-term effects and to identify the optimum balance between straw removal and biochar application rate. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Six-year growth of Eucalyptus saligna plantings as affected by nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer

Treesearch

Craig D. Whitesell; Dean S. DeBell; Thomas H. Schubert

1987-01-01

Growth responses of Eucalyptus saligna to nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilizers were assessed in bioenergy plantations on abandoned sugarcane land in Hawaii. Fertilizers were applied three times (0, 6, and 15 months after planting) in a factorial design with four dosages each of N (0, 25, 50, and 75 g urea per tree) and P (0, 30, 60, and 90 g...

Economics of intercropping loblolly pine and switchgrass for bioenergy markets in the southeastern United States

Treesearch

Andres Susaeta; Janaki Alavalapati Pankaj Lal; D. Evan Mercer; Douglas Carter

2012-01-01

Abstract The main objective of this study was to assess the economics of alley cropping of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) in the southern United States. Assuming a price range of switchgrass between $15 and $50 Mg-1 and yield of 12 Mg ha-1 year-1, we investigated the effect of switchgrass production on the optimal forest management...

Reducing the negative human-health impacts of bioenergy crop emissions through region-specific crop selection

DOE PAGES

Porter, William C.; Rosenstiel, Todd N.; Guenther, Alex; ...

2015-05-06

An expected global increase in bioenergy-crop cultivation as an alternative to fossil fuels will have consequences on both global climate and local air quality through changes in biogenic emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). While greenhouse gas emissions may be reduced through the substitution of next-generation bioenergy crops such as eucalyptus, giant reed, and switchgrass for fossil fuels, the choice of species has important ramifications for human health, potentially reducing the benefits of conversion due to increases in ozone (O₃) and fine particulate matter (PM₂̣₅) levels as a result of large changes in biogenic emissions. Using the Community Earth Systemmore » Model we simulate the conversion of marginal and underutilized croplands worldwide to bioenergy crops under varying future anthropogenic emissions scenarios. A conservative global replacement using high VOC-emitting crop profiles leads to modeled population-weighted O₃ increases of 5–27 ppb in India, 1–9 ppb in China, and 1–6 ppb in the United States, with peak PM₂̣₅ increases of up to 2 μgm⁻³. We present a metric for the regional evaluation of candidate bioenergy crops, as well as results for the application of this metric to four representative emissions profiles using four replacement scales (10–100% maximum estimated available land). Finally, we assess the total health and climate impacts of biogenic emissions, finding that the negative consequences of using high-emitting crops could exceed 50% of the positive benefits of reduced fossil fuel emissions in value.« less

Reducing the negative human-health impacts of bioenergy crop emissions through region-specific crop selection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Porter, William C.; Rosenstiel, Todd N.; Guenther, Alex

An expected global increase in bioenergy-crop cultivation as an alternative to fossil fuels will have consequences on both global climate and local air quality through changes in biogenic emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). While greenhouse gas emissions may be reduced through the substitution of next-generation bioenergy crops such as eucalyptus, giant reed, and switchgrass for fossil fuels, the choice of species has important ramifications for human health, potentially reducing the benefits of conversion due to increases in ozone (O₃) and fine particulate matter (PM₂̣₅) levels as a result of large changes in biogenic emissions. Using the Community Earth Systemmore » Model we simulate the conversion of marginal and underutilized croplands worldwide to bioenergy crops under varying future anthropogenic emissions scenarios. A conservative global replacement using high VOC-emitting crop profiles leads to modeled population-weighted O₃ increases of 5–27 ppb in India, 1–9 ppb in China, and 1–6 ppb in the United States, with peak PM₂̣₅ increases of up to 2 μgm⁻³. We present a metric for the regional evaluation of candidate bioenergy crops, as well as results for the application of this metric to four representative emissions profiles using four replacement scales (10–100% maximum estimated available land). Finally, we assess the total health and climate impacts of biogenic emissions, finding that the negative consequences of using high-emitting crops could exceed 50% of the positive benefits of reduced fossil fuel emissions in value.« less

Modelling energy efficiency of an integrated anaerobic digestion and photodegradation of distillery effluent using response surface methodology.

PubMed

Apollo, Seth; Onyango, Maurice S; Ochieng, Aoyi

2016-10-01

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is efficient in organic load removal and bioenergy recovery when applied in treating distillery effluent; however, it is ineffective in colour reduction. In contrast, ultraviolet (UV) photodegradation post-treatment for the AD-treated distillery effluent is effective in colour reduction but has high energy requirement. The effects of operating parameters on bioenergy production and energy demand of photodegradation were modelled using response surface methodology (RSM) with a view of developing a sustainable process in which the biological step could supply energy to the energy-intensive photodegradation step. The organic loading rate (OLRAD) and hydraulic retention time (HRTAD) of the initial biological step were the variables investigated. It was found that the initial biological step removed about 90% of COD and only about 50% colour while photodegradation post-treatment removed 98% of the remaining colour. Maximum bioenergy production of 180.5 kWh/m(3) was achieved. Energy demand of the UV lamp was lowest at low OLRAD irrespective of HRTAD, with values ranging between 87 and 496 kWh/m(3). The bioenergy produced formed 93% of the UV lamp energy demand when the system was operated at OLRAD of 3 kg COD/m(3) d and HRT of 20 days. The presumed carbon dioxide emission reduction when electricity from bioenergy was used to power the UV lamp was 28.8 kg CO2 e/m(3), which could reduce carbon emission by 31% compared to when electricity from the grid was used, leading to environmental conservation.

Reducing the negative human-health impacts of bioenergy crop emissions through region-specific crop selection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Porter, William C.; Rosenstiel, Todd N.; Guenther, Alex; Lamarque, Jean-Francois; Barsanti, Kelley

2015-05-01

An expected global increase in bioenergy-crop cultivation as an alternative to fossil fuels will have consequences on both global climate and local air quality through changes in biogenic emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). While greenhouse gas emissions may be reduced through the substitution of next-generation bioenergy crops such as eucalyptus, giant reed, and switchgrass for fossil fuels, the choice of species has important ramifications for human health, potentially reducing the benefits of conversion due to increases in ozone (O3) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels as a result of large changes in biogenic emissions. Using the Community Earth System Model we simulate the conversion of marginal and underutilized croplands worldwide to bioenergy crops under varying future anthropogenic emissions scenarios. A conservative global replacement using high VOC-emitting crop profiles leads to modeled population-weighted O3 increases of 5-27 ppb in India, 1-9 ppb in China, and 1-6 ppb in the United States, with peak PM2.5 increases of up to 2 μg m-3. We present a metric for the regional evaluation of candidate bioenergy crops, as well as results for the application of this metric to four representative emissions profiles using four replacement scales (10-100% maximum estimated available land). Finally, we assess the total health and climate impacts of biogenic emissions, finding that the negative consequences of using high-emitting crops could exceed 50% of the positive benefits of reduced fossil fuel emissions in value.

Building Communities: The Community Sequencing Program at JGI (2011 JGI User Meeting)

ScienceCinema

Bristow, Jim

2018-01-22

The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI) invited scientists interested in the application of genomics to bioenergy and environmental issues, as well as all current and prospective users and collaborators, to attend the annual DOE JGI Genomics of Energy Environment Meeting held March 22-24, 2011 in Walnut Creek, CA. The emphasis of this meeting was on the genomics of renewable energy strategies, carbon cycling, environmental gene discovery, and engineering of fuel-producing organisms. The meeting features presentations by leading scientists advancing these topics. DOE JGI Deputy Director Jim Bristow gives a presentation on the Community Sequencing Program at the 6th annual Genomics of Energy and Environment Meeting on March 23, 2011.

Designing Biological Systems for Sustainability and Programmed Environmental Interface (2011 JGI User Meeting)

ScienceCinema

Silver, Pamela

2018-02-13

The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI) invited scientists interested in the application of genomics to bioenergy and environmental issues, as well as all current and prospective users and collaborators, to attend the annual DOE JGI Genomics of Energy & Environment Meeting held March 22-24, 2011 in Walnut Creek, Calif. The emphasis of this meeting was on the genomics of renewable energy strategies, carbon cycling, environmental gene discovery, and engineering of fuel-producing organisms. The meeting features presentations by leading scientists advancing these topics. Pam Silver of Harvard University gives a presentation on "Designing Biological Systems for Sustainability and Programmed Environmental Interface" at the 6th annual Genomics of Energy & Environment Meeting on March 23, 2011.

Impacts of managing perennial grasses in the northern Midwest United States for bioenergy on soil organic C and nitrous oxide emission

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

In the USA perennial grasses [e.g., switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) and big bluestem (Andropogon gerdardii Vitman)] are proposed as cellulosic feedstock. Perennial grasses are often touted as being low input and as having a C-neutral foot print, but managing them as bioenergy feedstock means addin...

Woody biomass for bioenergy and biofuels in the United States -- a briefing paper

Treesearch

Eric M. White

2010-01-01

Woody biomass can be used for the generation of heat, electricity, and biofuels. In many cases, the technology for converting woody biomass into energy has been established for decades, but because the price of woody biomass energy has not been competitive with traditional fossil fuels, bioenergy production from woody biomass has not been widely adopted. However,...

A synthesis of biomass utilization for bioenergy production in the Western United States.

Treesearch

David L. Nicholls; Robert A. Monserud; Dennis P. Dykstra

2008-01-01

We examine the use of woody residues, primarily from forest harvesting or wood products manufacturing operations (and to a limited degree from urban wood wastes), as a feedstock for direct-combustion bioenergy systems for electrical or thermal power applications. We examine opportunities for utilizing biomass for energy at several scales, with an emphasis on larger...

Root and soil total carbon and nitrogen under bioenergy perennial grasses with various nitrogen rates

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Information is scanty about root and soil C and N under bioenergy perennial grasses with various N fertilization rates in semiarid regions. We evaluated the effect of perennial grasses and N rates on root biomass C and N and soil total C (STC) and total N (STN) stocks at the 0-120 cm depth from 2011...

Simulated effects of converting pasture to energy cane for bioenergy with the daycent model: predicting changes to greenhouse gas emissions and soil carbon

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Bioenergy related land use change will likely alter biogeochemical cycles and global greenhouse gas budgets. Energy cane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is a sugarcane variety and an emerging biofuel feedstock for cellulosic bio-ethanol production. It has a potential for high yields and can be grown on f...

Biomass production of herbaceous energy crops in the United States: Field trial results and yield potential maps from the multiyear regional feedstock partnership

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Current knowledge of yield potential and best agronomic management practices for perennial bioenergy grasses is primarily derived from small-scale and short-term studies, yet these studies inform policy at the national scale. In an effort to learn more about how bioenergy grasses perform at the farm...

Bioenergy in a Multifunctional Landscape

ScienceCinema

Watts, Chad; Negri, Cristina; Ssegane, Herbert

2018-06-12

How can our landscapes be managed most effectively to produce crops for food, feed, and bioenergy, while also protecting our water resources by preventing the loss of nutrients from the soil? Dr. Cristina Negri and her team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are tackling this question at an agricultural research site located in Fairbury, Illinois.

Snake oil, silver buckshot, and people who hate us: metaphors and conventional discourses of wood-based bioenergy in the rural southeastern United States

Treesearch

Sarah Hitchner; John Schelhas; J. Peter  Brosius

2016-01-01

Multiple experiences and sources of information influence ideas about wood-based bioenergy, and people often use similar language to reference various discourses (e.g., energy independence, rural development, environmental sustainability). We collected data during ethnographic research in three primary and three secondary field sites in the southeastern...

Profitability potential for Pinus taeda L. (loblolly pine) short-rotation bioenergy plantings in the southern USA

Treesearch

James H. Perdue; John A. Stanturf; Timothy M. Young; Xia Huang; Derek Dougherty; Michael Pigott; Zhimei Guo

2017-01-01

The use of renewable resources is important to the developing bioenergy economy and short rotation woody crops (SRWC) are key renewable feedstocks. A necessary step in advancing SRWC is defining regions suitable for SRWC commercial activities and assessing the relative economic viability among suitable regions. The goal of this study was to assess the potential...

Harvest residue removal and soil compaction impact forest productivity and recovery: Potential implications for bioenergy harvests

Treesearch

Miranda T. Curzon; Anthony W. D' Amato; Brian J. Palik

2014-01-01

Understanding the effects of management on forest structure and function is increasingly important in light of projected increases in both natural and anthropogenic disturbance severity and frequency with global environmental change. We examined potential impacts of the procurement of forest-derived bioenergy, a change in land use that has been suggested as a climate...

Factors influencing soil aggregation and particulate organic matter responses to bioenergy crops across a topographic gradient

Treesearch

Todd A. Ontl; Cynthia A. Cambardella; Lisa A. Schulte; Randall K. Kolka

2015-01-01

Bioenergy crops have the potential to enhance soil carbon (C) pools from increased aggregation and the physical protection of organic matter; however, our understanding of the variation in these processes over heterogeneous landscapes is limited. In particular, little is known about the relative importance of soil properties and root characteristics for the physical...

The Implications of Growing Bioenergy Crops on Water Resources, Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jain, A. K.; Song, Y.; Kheshgi, H. S.

2016-12-01

What is the potential for the crops Corn, Miscanthus and switchgrass to meet future energy demands in the U.S.A., and would they mitigate climate change by offsetting fossil fuel greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? The large-scale cultivation of these bioenergy crops itself could also drive climate change through changes in albedo, evapotranspiration (ET), and GHG emissions. Whether these climate effects will mitigate or exacerbate climate change in the short- and long-term is uncertain. This uncertainty stems from our incomplete understanding of the effects of expanded bioenergy crop production on terrestrial water and energy balance, carbon and nitrogen dynamics, and their interactions. This study aims to understand the implications of growing large-scale bioenergy crops on water resources, carbon and nitrogen dynamics in the United States using a data-modeling framework (ISAM) that we developed. Our study indicates that both Miscanthus and Cave-in-Rock switchgrass can attain high and stable yield over parts of the Midwest, however, this high production is attained at the cost of increased soil water loss as compared to current natural vegetation. Alamo switchgrass can attain high and stable yield in the southern US without significant influence on soil water quantity.

Global Simulation of Bioenergy Crop Productivity: Analytical Framework and Case Study for Switchgrass

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kang, Shujiang; Kline, Keith L; Nair, S. Surendran

A global energy crop productivity model that provides geospatially explicit quantitative details on biomass potential and factors affecting sustainability would be useful, but does not exist now. This study describes a modeling platform capable of meeting many challenges associated with global-scale agro-ecosystem modeling. We designed an analytical framework for bioenergy crops consisting of six major components: (i) standardized natural resources datasets, (ii) global field-trial data and crop management practices, (iii) simulation units and management scenarios, (iv) model calibration and validation, (v) high-performance computing (HPC) simulation, and (vi) simulation output processing and analysis. The HPC-Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (HPC-EPIC) model simulatedmore » a perennial bioenergy crop, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), estimating feedstock production potentials and effects across the globe. This modeling platform can assess soil C sequestration, net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, nonpoint source pollution (e.g., nutrient and pesticide loss), and energy exchange with the atmosphere. It can be expanded to include additional bioenergy crops (e.g., miscanthus, energy cane, and agave) and food crops under different management scenarios. The platform and switchgrass field-trial dataset are available to support global analysis of biomass feedstock production potential and corresponding metrics of sustainability.« less

The impact of cultivar diversity in bioenergy feedstock production systems on soil carbon sequestration rates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Graaff, M.; Morris, G.; Jastrow, J. D.; SIX, J. W.

2013-12-01

Land-use change for bioenergy production can create greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through disturbance of soil carbon (C) pools, but native species with extensive root systems may rapidly repay the GHG debt, particularly when grown in diverse mixtures, by enhancing soil C sequestration upon land-use change. Native bioenergy candidate species, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) and big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) show extensive within-species variation, and our preliminary data show that increased cultivar diversity can enhance yield. We aim to assess how shifting C3-dominated nonnative perennial grasslands to C4-dominated native perennial grasslands for use as bioenergy feedstock affects soil C stocks, and how within-species diversity in switchgrass and big bluestem affects soil C sequestration rates. Our experiment is conducted at the Fermilab National Environmental Research Park, and compares different approaches for perennial feedstock production ranging across a biodiversity gradient, where diversity is manipulated at both the species- and cultivar level, and nitrogen (N) is applied at two levels (0 and 67 kg/ha). Preliminary results indicate that switchgrass and big bluestem differentially affect soil C sequstration, and that increasing diversity may enhance soil C sequestration rates.

Sugarcane for bioenergy production: an assessment of yield and regulation of sucrose content.

PubMed

Waclawovsky, Alessandro J; Sato, Paloma M; Lembke, Carolina G; Moore, Paul H; Souza, Glaucia M

2010-04-01

An increasing number of plant scientists, including breeders, agronomists, physiologists and molecular biologists, are working towards the development of new and improved energy crops. Research is increasingly focused on how to design crops specifically for bioenergy production and increased biomass generation for biofuel purposes. The most important biofuel to date is bioethanol produced from sugars (sucrose and starch). Second generation bioethanol is also being targeted for studies to allow the use of the cell wall (lignocellulose) as a source of carbon. If a crop is to be used for bioenergy production, the crop should be high yielding, fast growing, low lignin content and requiring relatively small energy inputs for its growth and harvest. Obtaining high yields in nonprime agricultural land is a key for energy crop development to allow sustainability and avoid competition with food production. Sugarcane is the most efficient bioenergy crop of tropical and subtropical regions, and biotechnological tools for the improvement of this crop are advancing rapidly. We focus this review on the studies of sugarcane genes associated with sucrose content, biomass and cell wall metabolism and the preliminary physiological characterization of cultivars that contrast for sugar and biomass yield.

Research and Technology Development for Genetic Improvement of Switchgrass

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kausch, Albert; Rhodes, Richard

This research adds to the understanding of switchgrass genetics and the increasing of biomass relevant to production of bioenergy. Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum L., and its related species are well known as potential bioenergy crops since the early 1990s. There are global economic, political, US national security and environmental pressures to increase renewable biofuel production and utilization to offset gasoline and diesel fuel use and climate change, especially in the liquid fuel transportation sector. To realize the potential of bioenergy crops, rapid genetic improvement of the most promising perennial grass feedstocks, such as switchgrass, are anticipated by current genomics, association genetics,more » marker assisted breeding, hybrid plant development, advanced tissue culture, conventional genetics and other approaches to increase yield, processability, and regional adaptation. The technical effectiveness and economic feasibility of the methods or techniques investigated are demonstrated by several publications, presentations and patents produced as an outcome and deliverable of this research. This project is of a broad benefit to the public not only through the dissemination of this information but also to the development of new methods which will be applied to future bioenergy crop improvement as well as other crops.« less

Evaluation on community tree plantations as sustainable source for rural bioenergy in Indonesia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siregar, U. J.; Narendra, B. H.; Suryana, J.; Siregar, C. A.; Weston, C.

2017-05-01

Indonesia has forest plantation resources in rural areas far from the national electricity grid that have potential as feedstock for biomass based electricity generation. Although some fast growing tree plantations have been established for bioenergy, their sustainability has not been evaluated to date. This research aimed to evaluate the growth of several tree species, cultivated by rural communities in Jawa Island, for their sustainability as a source for bio-electricity. For each tree species the biomass was calculated from diameter and height measurements and an estimate made for potential electricity generation based on density of available biomass and calorific content. Species evaluated included Acacia mangium, A. auriculiformis, A. crasicarpa, Anthocephalus cadamba, Calliandra calothirsus, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, Falcataria moluccana, Gmelina arborea, Leucaena leucochephala and Sesbania grandiflora. Among these species Falcataria moluccana and Anthocephalus cadamba showed the best potential for bioenergy production, with up to 133.7 and 67.1 ton/ha biomass respectively, from which 160412 and 80481 Kwh of electricity respectively could be generated. Plantations of these species could potentially meet the estimated demand for biomass feedstock to produce bioenergy in many rural villages, suggesting that community plantations could sustainably provide much needed electricity.

Scaling laws and technology development strategies for biorefineries and bioenergy plants.

PubMed

Jack, Michael W

2009-12-01

The economies of scale of larger biorefineries or bioenergy plants compete with the diseconomies of scale of transporting geographically distributed biomass to a central location. This results in an optimum plant size that depends on the scaling parameters of the two contributions. This is a fundamental aspect of biorefineries and bioenergy plants and has important consequences for technology development as "bigger is better" is not necessarily true. In this paper we explore the consequences of these scaling effects via a simplified model of biomass transportation and plant costs. Analysis of this model suggests that there is a need for much more sophisticated technology development strategies to exploit the consequences of these scaling effects. We suggest three potential strategies in terms of the scaling parameters of the system.

Recent developments in microbial fuel cell technologies for sustainable bioenergy.

PubMed

Watanabe, Kazuya

2008-12-01

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are devices that exploit microbial catabolic activities to generate electricity from a variety of materials, including complex organic waste and renewable biomass. These sources provide MFCs with a great advantage over chemical fuel cells that can utilize only purified reactive fuels (e.g., hydrogen). A developing primary application of MFCs is its use in the production of sustainable bioenergy, e.g., organic waste treatment coupled with electricity generation, although further technical developments are necessary for its practical use. In this article, recent advances in MFC technologies that can become fundamentals for future practical MFC developments are summarized. Results of recent studies suggest that MFCs will be of practical use in the near future and will become a preferred option among sustainable bioenergy processes.

Global spatially explicit CO2 emission metrics at 0.25° horizontal resolution for forest bioenergy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cherubini, F.

2015-12-01

Bioenergy is the most important renewable energy option in studies designed to align with future RCP projections, reaching approximately 250 EJ/yr in RCP2.6, 145 EJ/yr in RCP4.5 and 180 EJ/yr in RCP8.5 by the end of the 21st century. However, many questions enveloping the direct carbon cycle and climate response to bioenergy remain partially unexplored. Bioenergy systems are largely assessed under the default climate neutrality assumption and the time lag between CO2 emissions from biomass combustion and CO2 uptake by vegetation is usually ignored. Emission metrics of CO2 from forest bioenergy are only available on a case-specific basis and their quantification requires processing of a wide spectrum of modelled or observed local climate and forest conditions. On the other hand, emission metrics are widely used to aggregate climate impacts of greenhouse gases to common units such as CO2-equivalents (CO2-eq.), but a spatially explicit analysis of emission metrics with global forest coverage is today lacking. Examples of emission metrics include the global warming potential (GWP), the global temperature change potential (GTP) and the absolute sustained emission temperature (aSET). Here, we couple a global forest model, a heterotrophic respiration model, and a global climate model to produce global spatially explicit emission metrics for CO2 emissions from forest bioenergy. We show their applications to global emissions in 2015 and until 2100 under the different RCP scenarios. We obtain global average values of 0.49 ± 0.03 kgCO2-eq. kgCO2-1 (mean ± standard deviation), 0.05 ± 0.05 kgCO2-eq. kgCO2-1, and 2.14·10-14 ± 0.11·10-14 °C (kg yr-1)-1, and 2.14·10-14 ± 0.11·10-14 °C (kg yr-1)-1 for GWP, GTP and aSET, respectively. We also present results aggregated at a grid, national and continental level. The metrics are found to correlate with the site-specific turnover times and local climate variables like annual mean temperature and precipitation. Simplified equations are derived to infer metric values from the turnover time of the biomass feedstock and the fraction of forest residues left on site after harvest. Our results provide a basis for assessing CO2 emissions from forest bioenergy under different indicators and across various spatial and temporal scales.

Developing tools to identify marginal lands and assess their potential for bioenergy production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Galatsidas, Spyridon; Gounaris, Nikolaos; Dimitriadis, Elias; Rettenmaier, Nils; Schmidt, Tobias; Vlachaki, Despoina

2017-04-01

The term "marginal land" is currently intertwined in discussions about bioenergy although its definition is neither specific nor firm. The uncertainty arising from marginal land classification and quantification is one of the major constraining factors for its potential use. The clarification of political aims, i.e. "what should be supported?" is also an important constraining factor. Many approaches have been developed to identify marginal lands, based on various definitions according to the management goals. Concerns have been frequently raised regarding the impacts of marginal land use on environment, ecosystem services and sustainability. Current tools of soil quality and land potentials assessment fail to meet the needs of marginal land identification and exploitation for biomass production, due to the lack of comprehensive analysis of interrelated land functions and their quantitative evaluation. Land marginality is determined by dynamic characteristics in many cases and may therefore constitute a transitional state, which requires reassessment in due time. Also, marginal land should not be considered simply a dormant natural resource waiting to be used, since it may already provide multiple benefits and services to society relating to wildlife, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, etc. The consequences of cultivating such lands need to be fully addressed to present a balanced view of their sustainable potential for bioenergy. This framework is the basis for the development of the SEEMLA tools, which aim at supporting the identification, assessment, management of marginal lands in Europe and the decision-making for sustainable biomass production of them using appropriate bioenergy crops. The tools comprise two applications, a web-based one (independent of spatial data) and a GIS-based application (land regionalization on the basis of spatial data), which both incorporate: - Land resource characteristics, restricting the cultivation of agricultural crops but effectively sustaining bioenergy plants (soil, climate, topography, vegetation, etc.) - Bioenergy plant characteristics and their ability to grow on marginal lands - Needs and concerns on environmental issues and ecosystem benefits and services (biodiversity, carbon sequestration potential, soil organic carbon trend, etc.) - Sustainability assessments (incl. e.g. LCA) of biomass production at market scale - Analysis results of generic scenarios for biomass production, harvesting, logistics and conditioning, as well as biomass conversion and use from pilot cases growing various crops The SEEMLA approach of marginal lands evaluation will provide private and public stakeholders with necessary guidance for selecting suitable lands and implementing efficient exploitation strategies for bioenergy production, on the basis of sound environmental and socio-economic criteria.

Potential Impact of Bioenergy Demand on the Sustainability of the Southern Forest Resource

Treesearch

Karen L. Abt; Robert C. Abt

2012-01-01

The use of woody biomass for the production of domestic bioenergy to meet policy-driven demands could lead to significant changes in the forest resource. These impacts may be limited if woody biomass from forests is defined as only the residues from logging. Yet, if only residue is used, the contribution of woody biomass to a renewable energy portfolio will also be...

Bioenergy production systems and biochar application in forests: potential for renewable energy, soil enhancement, and carbon sequestration

Treesearch

Kristin McElligott; Debbie Dumroese; Mark Coleman

2011-01-01

Bioenergy production from forest biomass offers a unique solution to reduce wildfire hazard fuel while producing a useful source of renewable energy. However, biomass removals raise concerns about reducing soil carbon and altering forest site productivity. Biochar additions have been suggested as a way to mitigate soil carbon loss and cycle nutrients back into forestry...

Biofuels, bioenergy, and bioproducts from sustainable agricultural and forest crops: proceedings of the short rotation crops international conference

Treesearch

Ronald S., Jr. Zalesny; Rob Mitchell; Jim, eds. Richardson

2008-01-01

The goal of this conference was to initiate and provide opportunities for an international forum on the science and application of producing both agricultural and forest crops for biofuels, bioenergy, and bioproducts. There is a substantial global need for development of such systems and technologies that can economically and sustainably produce short rotation crops...

The financial feasibility of delivering forest treatment residues to bioenergy facilities over a range of diesel fuel and delivered biomass prices

Treesearch

Greg Jones; Dan Loeffler; Edward Butler; Susan Hummel; Woodam Chung

2013-01-01

Forest treatments have the potential to produce significant quantities of forest residue biomass, which includes the tops and limbs from merchantable trees and smaller trees removed to meet management objectives. We spatially analyzed the sensitivity of financially feasible biomass volumes for delivery to a bioenergy facility across 16 combinations of delivered biomass...

Engineering Photosynthetic Organisms for the Production of Renewable Energy Products and Environmental Remediation

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-11-25

and education in bioenergy and environmental biotechnology at West Virginia State University (WVSU). Bioenergy and environmental biotechnology research...and education affected by the acquisition of this new equipment and instrumentations includes development of new technology to produce biofuels...ADDRESS (ES) U.S. Army Research Office P.O. Box 12211 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2211 Biofuels, STEM education , environmental biotechnology

Technoeconomic and policy drivers of project performance for bioenergy alternatives using biomass from beetle-killed trees

Treesearch

Robert M. Campbell; Nathaniel M. Anderson; Daren E. Daugaard; Helen T. Naughton

2018-01-01

As a result of widespread mortality from beetle infestation in the forests of the western United States, there are substantial stocks of biomass suitable as a feedstock for energy production. This study explored the financial viability of four production pathway scenarios for the conversion of beetle-killed pine to bioenergy and bioproducts in the Rocky Mountains....

Algal Biofuels Strategy. Proceedings from the March 26-27, 2014, Workshop, Charleston, South Carolina

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None, None

2014-06-01

This report is based on the proceedings of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office’s Algal Biofuel Strategy Workshop on March 26-27, 2014, in Charleston, South Carolina. The workshop objective was to convene stakeholders to engage in discussion on strategies over the next 5 to 10 years to achieve affordable, scalable, and sustainable algal biofuels.

Fostering sustainable feedstock production for advanced biofuels on underutilised land in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mergner, Rita; Janssen, Rainer; Rutz, Dominik; Knoche, Dirk; Köhler, Raul; Colangeli, Marco; Gyuris, Peter

2017-04-01

Background In context of growing competition between land uses, bioenergy development is often seen as one of possible contributors to such competition. However, the potential of underutilized land (contaminated, abandoned, marginal, fallow land etc.) which is not used or cannot be used for productive activities is not exhausted and offers an attractive alternative for sustainable production of different biomass feedstocks in Europe. Depending on biomass feedstocks, different remediation activities can be carried out in addition. Bioenergy crops have the potential to be grown profitably on underutilized land and can therefore offer an attractive source of income on the local level contributing to achieving the targets of the Renewable Energy Directive (EC/2009). The FORBIO project The FORBIO project demonstrates the viability of using underutilised land in EU Member States for sustainable bioenergy feedstock production that does not affect the supply of food, feed and land currently used for recreational or conservation purposes. Project activities will serve to build up and strengthen local bioenergy value chains that are competitive and that meet the highest sustainability standards, thus contributing to the market uptake of sustainable bioenergy in the EU. Presented results The FORBIO project will develop a methodology to assess the sustainable bioenergy production potential on available underutilized lands in Europe at local, site-specific level. Based on this methodology, the project will produce multiple feasibility studies in three selected case study locations: Germany (lignite mining and sewage irrigation fields in the metropolis region of Berlin and Brandenburg), Italy (contaminated land from industrial activities in Sulcis, Portoscuso) and Ukraine (underutilised marginal agricultural land in the North of Kiev). The focus of the presentation will be on the agronomic and techno-economic feasibility studies in Germany, Italy and Ukraine. Agronomic feasibility studies consider agronomic performances in different climatic zones, soil conditions, land morphology, availability of irrigation infrastructures and limitations due to anthropic soil contamination. The outcomes of the techno-economic feasibility studies for the biomasses selected as potentially feasible for underutilized lands in the selected case study locations will be presented.

Effect of Corn Dried Distiller Grains with Solubles (DDGS) in Dairy Cow Diets on Manure Bioenergy Production Potential

PubMed Central

Massé, Daniel I.; Jarret, Guillaume; Benchaar, Chaouki; Saady, Noori M. Cata

2014-01-01

Simple Summary Among the measures proposed to reduce environmental pollution from the livestock sector, animal nutrition has a strong potential to reduce enteric and manure storages methane emissions. Changes in diet composition also affect the bioenergy potential of dairy manures. Corn dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS), which are rich in fat, can be included in animal diets to reduce enteric methane (CH4) emissions, while increasing the bioenergy potential of the animal manure during anaerobic digestion. The inclusion of 30% DDGS in the cow diet caused a significant increase of 14% in daily bioenergy production (NL methane day−1·cow−1). abstract The main objective of this study was to obtain scientifically sound data on the bioenergy potential of dairy manures from cows fed different levels of corn dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS). Three diets differing in corn DDGS content were formulated: 0% corn DDGS (DDGS0; control diet), 10% corn DDGS (DDGS10) and 30% corn DDGS (DDGS30). Bioenergy production was determined in psychrophilic (25 ± 1 °C) sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) fed 3 g COD L−1·day−1 during a two-week feeding period followed by a two-week react period. Compared to the control diet, adding DDGS10 and DDGS30 to the dairy cow diet increased the daily amount of fat excreted in slurry by 29% and 70%, respectively. The addition of DDGS30 increased the cows’ daily production of fresh feces and slurry by 15% and 11%, respectively. Furthermore, the incorporation of DDGS30 in the diet increased the daily amounts of dry matter (DM), volatile solids (VS), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and hemicellulose by 18%, 18%, 30%, 15% and 53%, respectively, compared to the control diet. While the addition of DDGS did not significantly affect the specific CH4 production per kg VS compared to the control diet, DDGS30 increased the per cow daily CH4 production by 14% compared to the control diet. PMID:26479885

Identification and Characterization of microRNA319a and Its Putative Target Gene, PvPCF5, in the Bioenergy Grass Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum).

PubMed

Xie, Qi; Liu, Xue; Zhang, Yinbing; Tang, Jinfu; Yin, Dedong; Fan, Bo; Zhu, Lihuang; Han, Liebao; Song, Guilong; Li, Dayong

2017-01-01

Due to its high biomass yield, low environmental impact, and widespread adaptability to poor soils and harsh conditions, switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum L.), a warm-region perennial herbaceous plant, has attracted much attention in recent years. However, little is known about microRNAs (miRNAs) and their functions in this bioenergy grass. Here, we identified and characterized a miRNA gene, Pvi-MIR319a , encoding microRNA319a in switchgrass. Transgenic rice lines generated by overexpressing the Pvi-MIR319a precursor gene exhibited broader leaves and delayed flowering compared with the control. Gene expression analysis indicated at least four putative target genes were downregulated. Additionally, we cloned a putative target gene ( PvPCF5 ) of Pvi-MIR319a from switchgrass. PvPCF5, a TCP transcription factor, is a nuclear-localized protein with transactivation activity and control the development of leaf. Our results suggest that Pvi-MIR319a and its target genes may be used as potential genetic regulators for future switchgrass genetic improvement.

Optimizing the use of bamboo biomass for energy and fiber from small-scale plantations in Thailand

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Darabant, András; Haruthaithanasan, Maliwan; Atkla, Wanida; Phudphong, Tepa; Thanavat, Eakpong; Haruthaithanasan, Kasem

2014-05-01

Farmers in Thailand have recently started to establish bamboo plantations on marginal land, aiming at utilizing them for bioenergy and fiber. On two sites in eastern Thailand, first-year yield data of Bambusa beecheyana and Dendrocalamus membranaceus plantations indicated vast differences between sites (1 vs. 18 t*ha-1*a-1), but none between species. In terms of feedstock quality for power plants, High Heating Values (19.2 to 19.5 MJ*t-1) did not, but culm moisture contents did differ between species (51% for B. beecheyana vs. 45% for D. membranaceus), and culm sections (38% wet base at top vs. 55% at bottom). This gradient was stronger in D. membranaceus, which additionally showed significantly higher moisture content in internodes, as compared to nodes (46% vs. 43%). Analysis of fiber yield and quality indicated better suitability of D. membranaceus as opposed to B. beecheyana to be used in the textile industry. Our results provide guidance on increasing value addition to bamboo biomass by optimizing the allotment of different species and biomass compartments to different uses (bioenergy, fibers).

Spatial-temporal variation of marginal land suitable for energy plants from 1990 to 2010 in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jiang, Dong; Hao, Mengmeng; Fu, Jingying; Zhuang, Dafang; Huang, Yaohuan

2014-07-01

Energy plants are the main source of bioenergy which will play an increasingly important role in future energy supplies. With limited cultivated land resources in China, the development of energy plants may primarily rely on the marginal land. In this study, based on the land use data from 1990 to 2010(every 5 years is a period) and other auxiliary data, the distribution of marginal land suitable for energy plants was determined using multi-factors integrated assessment method. The variation of land use type and spatial distribution of marginal land suitable for energy plants of different decades were analyzed. The results indicate that the total amount of marginal land suitable for energy plants decreased from 136.501 million ha to 114.225 million ha from 1990 to 2010. The reduced land use types are primarily shrub land, sparse forest land, moderate dense grassland and sparse grassland, and large variation areas are located in Guangxi, Tibet, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. The results of this study will provide more effective data reference and decision making support for the long-term planning of bioenergy resources.

BECCS capability of dedicated bioenergy crops under a future land-use scenario targeting net negative carbon emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, E.; Yamagata, Y.

2014-12-01

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is a key component of mitigation strategies in future socio-economic scenarios that aim to keep mean global temperature rise below 2°C above pre-industrial, which would require net negative carbon emissions in the end of the 21st century. Because of the additional need for land, developing sustainable low-carbon scenarios requires careful consideration of the land-use implications of deploying large-scale BECCS. We evaluated the feasibility of the large-scale BECCS in RCP2.6, which is a scenario with net negative emissions aiming to keep the 2°C temperature target, with a top-down analysis of required yields and a bottom-up evaluation of BECCS potential using a process-based global crop model. Land-use change carbon emissions related to the land expansion were examined using a global terrestrial biogeochemical cycle model. Our analysis reveals that first-generation bioenergy crops would not meet the required BECCS of the RCP2.6 scenario even with a high fertilizer and irrigation application. Using second-generation bioenergy crops can marginally fulfill the required BECCS only if a technology of full post-process combustion CO2 capture is deployed with a high fertilizer application in the crop production. If such an assumed technological improvement does not occur in the future, more than doubling the area for bioenergy production for BECCS around 2050 assumed in RCP2.6 would be required, however, such scenarios implicitly induce large-scale land-use changes that would cancel half of the assumed CO2 sequestration by BECCS. Otherwise a conflict of land-use with food production is inevitable.

BECCS capability of dedicated bioenergy crops under a future land-use scenario targeting net negative carbon emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, Etsushi; Yamagata, Yoshiki

2014-09-01

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is a key component of mitigation strategies in future socioeconomic scenarios that aim to keep mean global temperature rise below 2°C above preindustrial, which would require net negative carbon emissions in the end of the 21st century. Because of the additional need for land, developing sustainable low-carbon scenarios requires careful consideration of the land-use implications of deploying large scale BECCS. We evaluated the feasibility of the large-scale BECCS in RCP2.6, which is a scenario with net negative emissions aiming to keep the 2°C temperature target, with a top-down analysis of required yields and a bottom-up evaluation of BECCS potential using a process-based global crop model. Land-use change carbon emissions related to the land expansion were examined using a global terrestrial biogeochemical cycle model. Our analysis reveals that first-generation bioenergy crops would not meet the required BECCS of the RCP2.6 scenario even with a high-fertilizer and irrigation application. Using second-generation bioenergy crops can marginally fulfill the required BECCS only if a technology of full postprocess combustion CO2 capture is deployed with a high-fertilizer application in the crop production. If such an assumed technological improvement does not occur in the future, more than doubling the area for bioenergy production for BECCS around 2050 assumed in RCP2.6 would be required; however, such scenarios implicitly induce large-scale land-use changes that would cancel half of the assumed CO2 sequestration by BECCS. Otherwise, a conflict of land use with food production is inevitable.

Changing pollutants to green biogases for the crop food cycle chain.

PubMed

Zong, B Y; Xu, F J; Zong, B D; Zhang, Z G

2012-09-01

When fossil fuels on the Earth are used up, which kind of green energy can be used to replace them? Do every bioenergy generation or crop food chain results in environmental pollution? These questions are major concerns in a world facing restricted supplies of energy and food as well as environmental pollutions. To alleviate these issues, option biogases are explored in this paper. Two types of biogas generators were used for modifying the traditional crop food chain [viz. from atmospheric CO(2) photosynthesis to crops, crop stem/husk biowastes (burnt in cropland or as home fuels), to livestock droppings (dumping away), pork and people foods, then to CO(2)], via turning the biowaste pollutants into green bioenergies. By analyzing the traditional food chain via observation method, the drawbacks of by-product biowastes were revealed. Also, the whole cycle chain was further analyzed to assess its "greenness," using experimental data and other information, such as the material balance (e.g., the absorbed CO(2), investment versus generated food, energy, and wastes). The data show that by using the two types of biogas generators, clean renewable bioenergy, crop food, and livestock meat could be continuously produced without creating any waste to the world. The modification chain largely reduced CO(2) greenhouse gas and had a low-cost investment. The raw materials for the gas generators were only the wastes of crop stems and livestock droppings. Thus, the recommended CO(2) bioenergy cycle chain via the modification also greatly solved the environmental biowaste pollutions in the world. The described two type biogases effectively addressed the issues on energy, food, and environmental pollution. The green renewable bioenergy from the food cycle chain may be one of suitable alternatives to fossil and tree fuels for agricultural countries.

Development and use of bioenergy feedstocks for semi-arid and arid lands

DOE PAGES

Cushman, John C.; Davis, Sarah C.; Yang, Xiaohan; ...

2015-04-01

Here we report that global climate change is predicted to increase heat, drought, and soil-drying conditions, and thereby increase crop sensitivity to water vapour pressure deficit, resulting in productivity losses. Increasing competition between agricultural freshwater use and municipal or industrial uses suggest that crops with greater heat and drought durability and greater water-use efficiency will be crucial for sustainable biomass production systems in the future. Agave (Agavaceae) and Opuntia (Cactaceae) represent highly water-use efficient bioenergy crops that could diversify bioenergy feedstock supply yet preserve or expand feedstock production into semi-arid, abandoned, or degraded agricultural lands, and reclaim drylands. Agave andmore » Opuntia are crassulacean acid metabolism species that can achieve high water-use efficiencies and grow in water-limited areas with insufficient precipitation to support traditional C 3 or C 4 bioenergy crops. Both Agave and Opuntia have the potential to produce above-ground biomass rivalling that of C 3 and C 4 crops under optimal growing conditions. The low lignin and high amorphous cellulose contents of Agave and Opuntia lignocellulosic biomass will be less recalcitrant to deconstruction than traditional feedstocks, as confirmed by pretreatments that improve saccharification of Agave. Refined environmental productivity indices and geographical information systems modelling have provided estimates of Agave and Opuntia biomass productivity and terrestrial sequestration of atmospheric CO 2; however, the accuracy of such modelling efforts can be improved through the expansion of field trials in diverse geographical settings. Lastly, we note that life cycle analysis indicates that Agave would have productivity, life cycle energy, and greenhouse gas balances comparable or superior to those of traditional bioenergy feedstocks, but would be far more water-use efficient.« less

Potential for Woody Bioenergy Crops Grown on Marginal Lands in the US Midwest to Reduce Carbon Emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sahajpal, R.; Hurtt, G. C.; Fisk, J. P.; Izaurralde, R. C.; Zhang, X.

2012-12-01

While cellulosic biofuels are widely considered to be a low carbon energy source for the future, a comprehensive assessment of the environmental sustainability of existing and future biofuel systems is needed to assess their utility in meeting US energy and food needs without exacerbating environmental harm. To assess the carbon emission reduction potential of cellulosic biofuels, we need to identify lands that are initially not storing large quantities of carbon in soil and vegetation but are capable of producing abundant biomass with limited management inputs, and accurately model forest production rates and associated input requirements. Here we present modeled results for carbon emission reduction potential and cellulosic ethanol production of woody bioenergy crops replacing existing native prairie vegetation grown on marginal lands in the US Midwest. Marginal lands are selected based on soil properties describing use limitation, and are extracted from the SSURGO (Soil Survey Geographic) database. Yield estimates for existing native prairie vegetation on marginal lands modeled using the process-based field-scale model EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate) amount to ~ 6.7±2.0 Mg ha-1. To model woody bioenergy crops, the individual-based terrestrial ecosystem model ED (Ecosystem Demography) is initialized with the soil organic carbon stocks estimated at the end of the EPIC simulation. Four woody bioenergy crops: willow, southern pine, eucalyptus and poplar are parameterized in ED. Sensitivity analysis of model parameters and drivers is conducted to explore the range of carbon emission reduction possible with variation in woody bioenergy crop types, spatial and temporal resolution. We hypothesize that growing cellulosic crops on these marginal lands can provide significant water quality, biodiversity and GHG emissions mitigation benefits, without accruing additional carbon costs from the displacement of food and feed production.