Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Keywords
Decision Support Tool, Social, Economic, Environmental Indicators, Feedstocks
1. Introduction
The adaptation of environmental and energy policies and the increase in energy prices have changed dramatically
the correlation between the agricultural and energy sectors. For many years, energy products have only been utilized
as an input in agriculture production. However, the use of agricultural products as feedstocks for renewable-fuel &
energy production has increased significantly [1].
Triple-digit increases in energy prices since the beginning of the century have increased significantly the cost of
many agricultural inputs [2]. As a result, these fluctuating policies promoting biofuels are corresponding with energy
price escalations, which have helped stimulate a substantial increase in energy sector demand for renewable-fuel
feedstocks like corn, soybeans and switchgrass.
As of 2012, corn-based ethanol and soybean-based biodiesel supplied almost 6 percent of U.S. transportation fuels,
consuming 42 and 1 percent of U.S. corn and soybean production, respectively [3]. A series of policies have
supported development of biofuels, including the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000, the Energy
Policy Act of 2005 (which mandated increasing domestic use of renewable fuels to 7.5 billion gallons in 2012), the
Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 (which established a 36-billion-gallon mandate for biofuels
by 2022), the 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills [4]. Meeting these goals will require that technical, economic, and research
challenges are met.
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3. Sustainability Indicators
3.1 Environmental Factors
Energy consumption and Greenhouse Gas emissions will be included in the database generated within the
Comprehensive Decision Tool. Figure 3 and Table 1 below display the information gathered for the specified two
products for this study: switchgrass and corn [9,10]. The environmental emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide
and methane will be gathered from literary work and added to the database to be used upon the users request. In the
case of the switchgrass product, the system boundaries were set to the four stages of switchgrass preparation:
establishment, growth, harvest and transport based on the machines used at each stage.
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Grain alone
Air pollutants
CO (kg)
NOX (kg)
SOX (kg)
PM 2.5 (kg)
PM10 (kg)
Pb (kg)
Ozone (kg)
NMVOC (kg)
13
15.7
2.5
0.97
1.21
0
0
4.87
11.13
13.43
2.14
0.83
1.03
0.0003
0.0008
4.16
9.09
10.97
1.75
0.67
0.84
0.0003
0.0007
3.39
11.8
13.71
2.22
0.85
1.06
0.0003
0.0009
4.05
GHGS
CO2 (kg)
CH4 (kg)
N2O (kg)
SF6 (kg)
GWP 100 (Kg CO2e)
GWP 20 (Kg CO2e)
14.49
4.22
3.16
0
2496
2666
1238
3.6
2.7
0.00001
2133
2278
1011
2.94
2.21
0.00001
1741
1860
1276
3.49
2.63
0.00001
21.48
22.88
Indicators
AP (Kg SO2e)
EP (Kg PO4e)
Fossil energy (MJ)
13.68
28.73
22,653
11.68
24.55
19,353
9.54
20.05
15,803
11.96
24.14
19,339
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References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Beckman, J., Borchers, A., and Jones, Carol A., 2013, Agricultures Supply and Demand for Energy and
Energy Products, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
Nickerson, C., Morehart, M., Kuethe, T., Beckman, J., Ifft, J., and Williams, R., 2012, Trends in U.S.
Farmland Values and Ownership, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
Adler, P.R., S.J. Del Grosso, and W.J. Parton., 2007, Life-cycle assessment of net greenhouse-gas flux for
bioenergy cropping systems, Ecological Applications 17:675-691.
Department of Energy, 2008, World Biofuels Study, United States Department of Energy, Office of
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Qin, X., Mohan, T., El-Halwagi, M., Cornforth, G., McCarl, B.A., 2006, Switchgrass as an Alternative
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United States Department of Agriculture. (n.d.). National Agricultural Statistics Service. Retrieved
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switchgrass", Fuel Processing Technology , 113-122.
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switchgrass for several levels of biorefinery investment cost and biomass to ethanol conversion rates.
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