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Land demand for ethanol production

Author

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  • Leal, Manoel Regis L.V.
  • Horta Nogueira, Luiz A.
  • Cortez, Luis A.B.

Abstract

Several key indicators of the sustainability of biofuels are related to the land used to produce the feedstock. Most of the agronomic costs and energy use (fertilizers, herbicides, soil preparation, and harvesting) are more related to the cropped area than to the feedstock quantity produced; this is also the case of soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (CO2 and N2O) and land use change (LUC) impacts, both direct (dLUC) and indirect (iLUC), socio-economic impacts (land tenure, land prices and traditional crop displacement), impacts on biodiversity and on the environment (soil, water and air). Today, biofuels use only a little more than 2% of the world arable land but if their use to displace fossil fuels increases, as indicated by some low carbon scenarios, the land demand for the production of feedstocks could become a constraint to the expansion. It is quite apparent that the biofuel yields, present and future, should be one of the main characteristics to be evaluated in the initial screening process. This work uses the cases of corn and sugarcane ethanol to draw some comparisons on the use of these biofuels to meet the targets of some of the International Energy Agency (IEA) biofuel use scenarios in terms of land demand and also will use some of the most important study results concerning the GHG emission reduction potential, including LUC and iLUC impacts, when meeting the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) of the European Union (EU) and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) of the USA. Some technology improvements will be considered including the integration of first and second generation technologies in the same site processing corn or sugarcane for ethanol.

Suggested Citation

  • Leal, Manoel Regis L.V. & Horta Nogueira, Luiz A. & Cortez, Luis A.B., 2013. "Land demand for ethanol production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 266-271.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:102:y:2013:i:c:p:266-271
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2012.09.037
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Weng, Yuwei & Chang, Shiyan & Cai, Wenjia & Wang, Can, 2019. "Exploring the impacts of biofuel expansion on land use change and food security based on a land explicit CGE model: A case study of China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 514-525.
    2. Rodriguez, Renata del G. & Scanlon, Bridget R. & King, Carey W. & Scarpare, Fabio V. & Xavier, Alexandre C. & Pruski, Fernando F., 2018. "Biofuel-water-land nexus in the last agricultural frontier region of the Brazilian Cerrado," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 1330-1345.
    3. Chen, Xiaoguang & Khanna, Madhu, 2018. "Effect of corn ethanol production on Conservation Reserve Program acres in the US," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 124-134.
    4. Whittaker, Carly & Borrion, Aiduan Li & Newnes, Linda & McManus, Marcelle, 2014. "The renewable energy directive and cereal residues," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 207-215.
    5. Jurandir Zullo & Vânia Rosa Pereira & Andrea Koga-Vicente, 2018. "Sugar-energy sector vulnerability under CMIP5 projections in the Brazilian central-southern macro-region," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 489-502, August.
    6. Lucena, André F.P. & Clarke, Leon & Schaeffer, Roberto & Szklo, Alexandre & Rochedo, Pedro R.R. & Nogueira, Larissa P.P. & Daenzer, Kathryn & Gurgel, Angelo & Kitous, Alban & Kober, Tom, 2016. "Climate policy scenarios in Brazil: A multi-model comparison for energy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 564-574.
    7. de Oliveira Bordonal, Ricardo & Lal, Rattan & Alves Aguiar, Daniel & de Figueiredo, Eduardo Barretto & Ito Perillo, Luciano & Adami, Marcos & Theodor Rudorff, Bernardo Friedrich & La Scala, Newton, 2015. "Greenhouse gas balance from cultivation and direct land use change of recently established sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) plantation in south-central Brazil," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 547-556.
    8. Zhang, Bo & Sarathy, S. Mani, 2016. "Lifecycle optimized ethanol-gasoline blends for turbocharged engines," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 38-53.
    9. Gouzaye, Amadou & Epplin, Francis M., 2016. "Land requirements, feedstock haul distance, and expected profit response to land use restrictions for switchgrass production," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 59-66.
    10. García-Bustamante Carlos Alberto & Aguilar-Rivera Noé & Zepeda-Pirrón Manuel & Armendáriz-Arnez Cynthia, 2018. "Development of indicators for the sustainability of the sugar industry," Environmental & Socio-economic Studies, Sciendo, vol. 6(4), pages 22-38, December.
    11. Gonzalez-Salazar, Miguel Angel & Venturini, Mauro & Poganietz, Witold-Roger & Finkenrath, Matthias & L.V. Leal, Manoel Regis, 2017. "Combining an accelerated deployment of bioenergy and land use strategies: Review and insights for a post-conflict scenario in Colombia," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 159-177.
    12. Wen, Pei-Ling & Lin, Jin-Xu & Lin, Shih-Mo & Feng, Chun-Chiang & Ko, Fu-Kuang, 2015. "Optimal production of cellulosic ethanol from Taiwan's agricultural waste," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 294-304.

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