KDF Search Results

This database contains current and historical official USDA data on production, supply and distribution of agricultural commodities for the United States and key producing and consuming countries.

The purpose of this research was to determine whether indirect land use occurs and if so to what extent. Indirect land use is a change from non-cropland to cropland (e.g. deforestation) that may occur in response to increasing scarcity of cropland. As farmers worldwide respond to higher crop prices in order to maintain the global food supply and demand balance, pristine lands are cleared and converted to new cropland to replace the crops for feed and food that were diverted elsewhere to biofuels production.

The basic objective of this research was to estimate land use changes associated with US corn ethanol production up to the 15 billion gallon Renewable Fuel Standard level implied by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. We also used the estimated land use changes to calculate Greenhouse Gas Emissions associated with the corn ethanol production.

This report, generally referred to as the Billion-Ton Study or 2005 BTS, is an estimate of “potential” biomass available within the contiguous United States based on assumptions about inventory production capacity, availability, and technology.

The link provides data and reports related to bioenergy - ethanol and biodiesel produced by Minnesota.

One of the major objectives of the current expansion in bioenergy cropping is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions for environmental benefit. The cultivation of bioenergy and biofuel crops also affects biodiversity more directly, both positively and negatively.

A presentation by Bruce Heine of Magellan Midstream Partners to the 2006 Bioeconomy Conference held at Iowa State University.

A presentation by Andrea Grant of Independent Fuel Terminal Operators Association.

Search for and download detailed data on fueling stations for several different types of alternative fuels.

Transgenic modification of plants is a key enabling technology for developing sustainable biofeedstocks for biofuels production. Regulatory decisions and the wider acceptance and development of transgenic biofeedstock crops are considered from the context of science-based risk assessment. The risk assessment paradigm for transgenic biofeedstock crops is fundamentally no different from that of current generation transgenic crops, except that the focus of the assessment must consider the unique attributes of a given biofeedstock crop and its environmental release.

Soaring global food prices are threatening to push more poor people back below the poverty line; this will probably become aggravated by the serious challenge that increasing population and climate changes are posing for food security. There is growing evidence that human activities involving fossil fuel consumption and land use are contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and consequently changing the climate worldwide. The finite nature of fossil fuel reserves is causing concern about energy security and there is a growing interest in the use of renewable energy sources such as biofuels.

The aim of this study is to show the impact of different assumptions and methodological choices on the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) performance of biofuels by providing the results for different key parameters on a consistent basis. These include co-products allocation or system expansion, N2O emissions from crop cultivation, conversion systems and co-product applications and direct land-use change emissions. The results show that the GHG performance of biofuels varies depending on the method applied and the system boundaries selected.

Interest in liquid biofuels production and use has increased worldwide as part of government policies to address the growing scarcity and riskiness of petroleum use, and, at least in theory, to help mitigate adverse global climate change. The existing biofuels markets are dominated by U.S. ethanol production based on cornstarch, Brazilian ethanol production based on sugarcane, and European biodiesel production based on rapeseed oil.

Governments worldwide are promoting the development of biofuels in order to mitigate the climate impact of using fuels. In this article, I discuss the impacts of biofuels on climate change, water use, and land use. I discuss the overall metric by which these impacts have been measured and then present and discuss estimates of the impacts. In spite of the complexities of the environmental and technological systems that affect climate change, land use, and water use, and the difficulties of constructing useful metrics, it is possible to make some qualitative overall assessments.

This paper describes a preliminary analysis of two technological routes (based on hydrolysis and on gasification + Fischer–Tropsch conversion process) of biofuels production from cellulosic materials. In this paper it was considered the integration of the two alternative routes to a conventional distillery of ethanol production based on fermentation of sugarcane juice. Sugarcane bagasse is the biomass considered as input in both second-generation routes.

The present study is a review of published investigations regarding the economy of ethanol production from lignocellulosic material. The objective is to present relations between and tendencies observed in different cost estimates. The influence of plant capacity and overall product yield on the ethanol production cost is investigated, as well as variations in capital costs in the different processes. The underlying technical and economic assumptions show a large variation between the various studies published. The variation in the ethanol production cost is large, from 18 to 151 US¢/l.

A dry-grind ethanol from corn process analysis is performed. After defining a complete model of the process, a pinch technology analysis is carried out to optimise energy and water demands. The so-defined base case is then discussed in terms of production costs and process profitability. A detailed sensitivity analysis on the most important process and financial variables is carried out. The possibility to adopt different alternatives for heat and power generation combined to the process is evaluated.

Production costs of bio-ethanol from sugarcane in Brazil have declined continuously over the last three decades. The aims of this study are to determine underlying reasons behind these cost reductions, and to assess whether the experience curve concept can be used to describe the development of feedstock costs and industrial production costs. The analysis was performed using average national costs data, a number of prices (as a proxy for production costs) and data on annual Brazilian production volumes.

In the last decade biofuel production has been driven by governmental policies. This article reviews the national strategy plans of the world’s leading producers. Particular attention is dedicated to blending targets, support schemes and feedstock use. Individual country profiles are grouped by continent and include North America (Canada and the US), South America (Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia), Europe (the European Union, France, and Germany), Asia (China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand) and Australia.

In this article the environmental and socio-economical impacts of the production of ethanol from sugarcane in the state of São Paulo (Brazil) are evaluated. Subsequently, an attempt is made to determine to what extent these impacts are a bottleneck for a sustainable and certified ethanol production. Seventeen environmental and socio-economic areas of concern are analysed.