IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v13y2009i8p2003-2011.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An energy analysis of ethanol from cellulosic feedstock-Corn stover

Author

Listed:
  • Luo, Lin
  • van der Voet, Ester
  • Huppes, Gjalt

Abstract

The shift from fossil resources to renewables for energy and materials production has been the driving force for research on energy analysis and environmental impact assessment of bio-based production. This study presents a detailed energy analysis of corn stover based ethanol production using advanced cellulosic technologies. The method used differs from that in LCA and from major studies on the subject as published in Science in two respects. First, it accounts for all the co-products together and so mainly avoids the allocation problems which plague all LCA studies explicitly and other studies implicitly. Second, the system boundaries only involve the content of the energy products used in the system but not the production processes of these energy products, like refining and electricity production. We normalized the six Science studies to this unified method. The resulting values of the total energy product use in both agricultural production and biomass conversion to ethanol are lower than these literature values. LCA-type of values including energy conversion would systematically be higher, in our case study around 45%. The net energy value of cellulosic ethanol production is substantially higher than the ones of the corn-based technologies, and it is similar to incineration and gasification for electricity production. The detailed analysis of energy inputs indicates opportunities to optimize the system. This form of energy analysis helps establishing models for the analysis of more complex systems such as biorefineries.

Suggested Citation

  • Luo, Lin & van der Voet, Ester & Huppes, Gjalt, 2009. "An energy analysis of ethanol from cellulosic feedstock-Corn stover," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(8), pages 2003-2011, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:13:y:2009:i:8:p:2003-2011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364-0321(09)00029-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. 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.
    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. 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.
    2. Prem Woli & Joel Paz, 2014. "Crop Management Effects on the Energy and Carbon Balances of Maize Stover-Based Ethanol Production," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-26, December.
    3. Kusiima, Jamil M. & Powers, Susan E., 2010. "Monetary value of the environmental and health externalities associated with production of ethanol from biomass feedstocks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 2785-2796, June.
    4. Borrion, Aiduan Li & McManus, Marcelle C. & Hammond, Geoffrey P., 2012. "Environmental life cycle assessment of lignocellulosic conversion to ethanol: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(7), pages 4638-4650.
    5. Thompson, Wyatt & Meyer, Seth & Westhoff, Pat, 2009. "How does petroleum price and corn yield volatility affect ethanol markets with and without an ethanol use mandate?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 745-749, February.
    6. Blanco, Luisa & Isenhouer, Michelle, 2010. "Powering America: The impact of ethanol production in the Corn Belt states," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1228-1234, November.
    7. Arababadi, Reza & Moslehi, Salim & El Asmar, Mounir & Haavaldsen, Tore & Parrish, Kristen, 2017. "Energy policy assessment at strategic, tactical, and operational levels: Case studies of EU 20-20-20 and U.S. Executive Order 13514," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 530-538.
    8. Yan, Xiaoyu & Crookes, Roy J., 2009. "Life cycle analysis of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions for road transportation fuels in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(9), pages 2505-2514, December.
    9. Powers, S.E. & Ascough, J.C. & Nelson, R.G. & Larocque, G.R., 2011. "Modeling water and soil quality environmental impacts associated with bioenergy crop production and biomass removal in the Midwest USA," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 222(14), pages 2430-2447.

    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:rensus:v:13:y:2009:i:8:p:2003-2011. 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.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    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.