Biofuel, land and water

The productive cellulosic crops switchgrass and Miscanthus are considered as viable biofuel sources. To meet the 2022 national biofuel target mandate, actions must be taken, e.g., maize cultivation must be intensified and expanded, and other biofuel crops (switchgrass and Miscanthus ) must be cultivated. This raises questions on the use efficiencies of land and water; to date, the demand on these resources to meet the national biofuel target has rarely been analyzed. Here, we present a data-model assimilation analysis, assuming that maize, switchgrass and Miscanthus will be grown on currently available croplands in the US. Model simulations suggest that maize can produce 3.0–5.4 kiloliters (kl) of ethanol for every hectare of land, depending on the feedstock to ethanol conversion efficiency; Miscanthus has more than twice the biofuel production capacity relative to maize, and switchgrass is the least productive of the three potential sources of ethanol. To meet the biofuel target, about 26.5 million hectares of land and over 90 km ^3 of water (of evapotranspiration) are needed if maize grain alone is used. If Miscanthus was substituted for maize, the process would save half of the land and one third of the water. With more advanced biofuel conversion technology for Miscanthus , only nine million hectares of land and 45 km ^3 of water would probably meet the national target. Miscanthus could be a good alternative biofuel crop to maize due to its significantly lower demand for land and water on a per unit of ethanol basis

Agroforestry · Agronomy · Bioenergy · Biofuel · Biology · Cellulose · Cellulosic ethanol · Corn ethanol · Energy crop · Ethanol fuel · Miscanthus · Bioenergy crop production and management · Biofuel production and bioconversion · Environmental Science · Forest Biomass Utilization and Management · Biotechnology

• Comparative water use by maize, perennial crops, restored prairie, and poplar trees in the US Midwest

  Open Access•Stephen K Hamilton, Mir Zaman Hussain et al.•Environmental Research Letters•2015

  Añadir item

• Projecting the land cover change and its environmental impacts in the Cedar River Basin in the Midwestern United States

  Open Access•Yiping Wu, Shuguang Liu et al.•Environmental Research Letters•2013

  Añadir item

• An improved method of constructing a database of monthly climate observations and associated high-resolution grids

  Open Access•Timothy D Mitchell, P D Jones•International Journal of…•2005

  Añadir item

• Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change

  Open Access•Timothy D Searchinger, Timothy Searchinger et al.•Science•2008

  Añadir item

• The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission

  Open Access•T G Farr, P A Rosen et al.•Reviews of Geophysics•2007

  Añadir item

• Farming the planet

  Open Access•Chad Monfreda, Navin Ramankutty et al.•Global Biogeochemical Cycles•2008

  Añadir item

• Beneficial Biofuels—The Food, Energy, and Environment Trilemma

  Open Access•D Tilman, Robert H Socolow et al.•Science•2009

  Añadir item

• Response of switchgrass yield to future climate change

  Open Access•Mirela G Tulbure, Michael C Wimberly et al.•Environmental Research Letters•2012

  Añadir item