IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v34y2009i4p410-436.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integrated energy, environmental and financial analysis of ethanol production from cellulosic switchgrass

Author

Listed:
  • Felix, Erika
  • Tilley, David R.

Abstract

Ethanol production from cellulosic sources such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) requires the use of natural resources, fossil fuels, electricity, and human-derived goods and services. We used emergy accounting to integrate the ultimate amount of environmental, fossil fuel, and human-derived energy required to produce ethanol from switchgrass. Emergy is the total amount of energy of one form required directly and indirectly to make another form of energy. Forty-four percent of required emergy came from the environment either directly or embodied in purchased goods, 30% came from fossil fuels either directly or embodied in purchased goods, and 25% came from human-derived services indirectly. Ethanol production per petroleum use (emergy/emergy) was 4.0-to-1 under our Baseline Scenario, but dropped to 0.5-to-1 under a scenario that assumed higher input prices, lower conversion efficiencies and less waste recycling. At least 75% of total emergy was from non-renewable sources. Energy ‘hidden’ in indirect paths such as goods and services was 65% of the total. Cellulosic-ethanol is not a primary fuel source that substitutes for petroleum because its production relies heavily on non-renewable energy and purchased inputs. It is a means for converting natural resources to liquid fuel.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix, Erika & Tilley, David R., 2009. "Integrated energy, environmental and financial analysis of ethanol production from cellulosic switchgrass," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 410-436.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:34:y:2009:i:4:p:410-436
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2008.10.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544208002946
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2008.10.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duffy, Michael & Nanhou, Virginie, 2002. "Costs of Producing Switchgrass for Biomass in Southern Iowa," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10346, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Slesser, M. & Lewis, C. & Edwardson, W., 1977. "Energy systems analysis for food policy," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 123-129, May.
    3. Shapouri, Hosein & Duffield, James A. & Graboski, Michael S., 1995. "Estimating the Net Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol," Agricultural Economic Reports 34005, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Cleveland, Cutler J. & Kaufmann, Robert K. & Stern, David I., 2000. "Aggregation and the role of energy in the economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 301-317, February.
    5. Farber, Stephen C. & Costanza, Robert & Wilson, Matthew A., 2002. "Economic and ecological concepts for valuing ecosystem services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 375-392, June.
    6. Shapouri, Hosein & Duffield, James A. & Wang, Michael Q., 2002. "The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update," Agricultural Economic Reports 34075, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. Kozo Mayumi & John M. Gowdy (ed.), 1999. "Bioeconomics and Sustainability," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1347.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patterson, Murray & McDonald, Garry & Hardy, Derrylea, 2017. "Is there more in common than we think? Convergence of ecological footprinting, emergy analysis, life cycle assessment and other methods of environmental accounting," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 362(C), pages 19-36.
    2. R. Lal, 2007. "Carbon Management in Agricultural Soils," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 303-322, February.
    3. Gasparatos, Alexandros & El-Haram, Mohamed & Horner, Malcolm, 2009. "Assessing the sustainability of the UK society using thermodynamic concepts: Part 1," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 1074-1081, June.
    4. Malça, João & Freire, Fausto, 2006. "Renewability and life-cycle energy efficiency of bioethanol and bio-ethyl tertiary butyl ether (bioETBE): Assessing the implications of allocation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(15), pages 3362-3380.
    5. Gasparatos, Alexandros & El-Haram, Mohamed & Horner, Malcolm, 2009. "A longitudinal analysis of the UK transport sector, 1970-2010," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 623-632, February.
    6. Lavigne, Amanda & Powers, Susan E., 2007. "Evaluating fuel ethanol feedstocks from energy policy perspectives: A comparative energy assessment of corn and corn stover," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5918-5930, November.
    7. Chen, B. & Chen, G.Q., 2007. "Modified ecological footprint accounting and analysis based on embodied exergy--a case study of the Chinese society 1981-2001," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 355-376, March.
    8. Yoann Verger, 2015. "Sraffa and ecological economics: review of the literature," Working Papers hal-01182894, HAL.
    9. Eaves, James & Eaves, Stephen, 2007. "Renewable corn-ethanol and energy security," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5958-5963, November.
    10. Rausch, Kent D. & Belyea, Ronald L. & Singh, Vijay & Tumbleson, M.E., 2007. "Corn processing coproducts from ethanol production," Biofuels, Food and Feed Tradeoffs Conference, April 12-13, 2007, St, Louis, Missouri 48775, Farm Foundation.
    11. Gasparatos, Alexandros & El-Haram, Mohamed & Horner, Malcolm, 2009. "The argument against a reductionist approach for measuring sustainable development performance and the need for methodological pluralism," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 245-256.
    12. Liu, Jin & Wu, Jianguo & Liu, Fengqiao & Han, Xingguo, 2012. "Quantitative assessment of bioenergy from crop stalk resources in Inner Mongolia, China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 305-318.
    13. Tembo, Gelson & Epplin, Francis M. & Huhnke, Raymond L., 2003. "Integrative Investment Appraisal of a Lignocellulosic Biomass-to-Ethanol Industry," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 28(3), pages 1-23, December.
    14. Hettinga, W.G. & Junginger, H.M. & Dekker, S.C. & Hoogwijk, M. & McAloon, A.J. & Hicks, K.B., 2009. "Understanding the reductions in US corn ethanol production costs: An experience curve approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 190-203, January.
    15. Cobuloglu, Halil I. & Büyüktahtakın, İ. Esra, 2015. "Food vs. biofuel: An optimization approach to the spatio-temporal analysis of land-use competition and environmental impacts," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 418-434.
    16. Petrolia, Daniel R. & Bhattacharjee, Sanjoy & Hudson, Darren & Herndon, Cary W., 2010. "Do Americans want ethanol? A comparative contingent-valuation study of willingness to pay for E-10 and E-85," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 121-128, January.
    17. Sheldon, Seth & Hadian, Saeed & Zik, Ory, 2015. "Beyond carbon: Quantifying environmental externalities as energy for hydroelectric and nuclear power," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 36-44.
    18. Beghin, John C. & Jensen, Helen H., 2008. "Farm policies and added sugars in US diets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 480-488, December.
    19. Liao, Hua & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2010. "China's energy consumption: A perspective from Divisia aggregation approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 28-34.
    20. Hackbart, Vivian C.S. & de Lima, Guilherme T.N.P. & dos Santos, Rozely F., 2017. "Theory and practice of water ecosystem services valuation: Where are we going?," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 218-227.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:34:y:2009:i:4:p:410-436. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.