Sustainable biofuel contributions to carbon mitigation and energy independence
- Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
- North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)
- State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Syracuse, NY (United States)
- Leonard Johnson and Assoc., Moscow, ID (United States)
- WoodLife Environmental Consultants, LLC, Corvallis, OR (United States)
- Mississippi State Univ., Mississippi State, MS (United States)
The growing interest in US biofuels has been motivated by two primary national policy goals, (1) to reduce carbon emissions and (2) to achieve energy independence. However, the current low cost of fossil fuels is a key barrier to investments in woody biofuel production capacity. The effectiveness of wood derived biofuels must consider not only the feedstock competition with low cost fossil fuels but also the wide range of wood products uses that displace different fossil intensive products. Alternative uses of wood result in substantially different unit processes and carbon impacts over product life cycles. We developed life cycle data for new bioprocessing and feedstock collection models in order to make life cycle comparisons of effectiveness when biofuels displace gasoline and wood products displace fossil intensive building materials. Wood products and biofuels can be joint products from the same forestland. Furthermore, substantial differences in effectiveness measures are revealed as well as difficulties in valuing tradeoffs between carbon mitigation and energy independence.
- Research Organization:
- Mississippi State Univ., Mississippi State, MS (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG36-06GO86025
- OSTI ID:
- 1079501
- Report Number(s):
- GO8602519; PII: f2040861
- Journal Information:
- Forests, Vol. 2, Issue 4; ISSN 1999-4907
- Publisher:
- MDPICopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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