All Biomass Is Local: Using Life Cycle Analysis to Enhance Biofuel - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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All Biomass Is Local: Using Life Cycle Analysis to Enhance Biofuel - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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All Biomass Is Local: Using Life Cycle Analysis to Enhance Biofuel Sustainability Seungdo Kim and Bruce E. Dale Michigan State University 3rd International Conference on Life Cycle Management Zurich, August 27-29, 2007 Mature vs. Immature

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SLIDE 1

All Biomass Is Local: Using Life Cycle Analysis to Enhance Biofuel Sustainability

Seungdo Kim and Bruce E. Dale Michigan State University 3rd International Conference on Life Cycle Management Zurich, August 27-29, 2007

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SLIDE 2

Mature vs. Immature Industries

  • Life cycle analysis plays a somewhat different

roles for mature industries (eg, petroleum refining) than it does for immature industries (eg, bioethanol production)

  • For mature industries the purpose of LCA is

primarily to document & drive incremental environmental improvement

  • For immature industries, the purpose of LCA is to

understand & guide revolutionary environmental improvement

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SLIDE 3

Objective

  • Understand & improve the overall environmental

performance of corn based ethanol production

– Identify roles of N2O and of carbon sequestered by soil in GHG profile – Estimate local environmental effects due to farming sites on the ethanol fuel system – Determine the effects of alternative agricultural management practices, eg. cover crops, for reducing nitrogen losses from soil during corn cultivation – This represents a “revolutionary” change in agricultural practice (large departure from status quo)

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SLIDE 4

Scope

  • Functional unit: bioethanol derived from corn

grain used in an E10 fueled vehicle

– reference flow: one gal of ethanol

  • Overall system boundary

– Corn production, dry milling, E10 fueled vehicle

  • peration
  • Environmental impacts

– nonrenewable energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions: global impacts – acidification, eutrophication and photochemical smog formation: these “local” impacts estimated by the TRACI model (USEPA)

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SLIDE 5

System Boundary

Agriculture process

  • Corn culture
  • Transportation of corn grain

Biorefinery

  • Dry mill
  • Alternative product systems for DDGS

(i.e., corn grain & soybean meal) Vehicle operation

  • Distribution of ethanol
  • Gasoline production
  • E10 fueled vehicle operation
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SLIDE 6

Farming sites

  • 38 counties in eight states (Indiana, Illinois,

Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota)

– To determine soil organic carbon and soil nitrogen dynamics in corn cultivation

  • Eight counties are chosen

– To determine soil organic carbon and soil nitrogen dynamics in other cropping systems – To estimate environmental performance of the ethanol application system. – Each county has an existing ethanol plant

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SLIDE 7

Ethanol Plants

Macon, Mo (MMO) Hardin, IA (HIA) Fulton, IL (FIL) Hamilton, NE (HNE) Tuscola, MI (TMI) Codington, SD (CSD) Freeborn, MN (FMN) Morrison, MN (MMN)

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SLIDE 8

Soil Organic Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics

  • Simulated by the DAYCENT model

– Predicting

  • Soil organic carbon level
  • N2O and NOx emissions from soil, NO3
  • leaching

– Information required

  • County-based soil textures

– clay, slit, sand

  • County-based data

– Daily maximum and minimum temperature – Daily precipitation

  • Cropping management

– Tillage, application rate of nitrogen fertilizer, irrigation, etc

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SLIDE 9

Soil Organic Carbon Submodel

Source: Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Century soil organic matter model: user's guide and reference, Colorado State University

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SLIDE 10

Overall Carbon Sequestration* in Corn Agriculture: 8 Counties

317 305 247 146 82 43 444 359 275

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Hardin Fulton Tuscola Morrison Freeborn Macon Hamilton Codington Avg

C sequestration [CO2 kg/ha]

* Current tillage practices- “averages” are simply inadequate to represent system

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SLIDE 11

Cropping Systems

  • Conventional corn cultivation (referred as

CORN)

– Under current tillage practices

  • Planting winter cover crops in the CORN

system (referred as COVER)

– Plant winter cover crops after corn harvest, kill cover crop before planting corn in the subsequent growing season – Winter wheat

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SLIDE 12

Winter Cover Crops in Corn Rotation

Winter cover crop May 5, 2005 Holt, MI

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SLIDE 13

Bare Corn Field- Holt, Michigan May 5, 2005

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SLIDE 14

Dry Milling

  • Process information: ASPEN PLUS models

(NREL study, 2000)

– Ethanol yield: 2.7 gal per bushel – DDGS: 8.4 kg per bushel – Energy consumption

  • Electricity: 0.80 kWh per gallon
  • Natural gas: 32,329 Btu per gallon
  • Allocation: System expansion approach

– Introducing alternative product systems for co- products: DDGS: corn grain and soybean meal

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SLIDE 15

GHG Profile in the CORN System

GHG of corn production: 1.2 ~ 4.8 ton CO2 per ha C-seq : carbon sequestration by soil Others: GHG emissions associated with agronomic inputs and fuel consumption

2011 2115 1789 1481 1214 1855 1967 1830 2486 2520 1689 1935 2652 2115 2042 2180 2150 1673 1957 2217 2422 1884 2794 2336 3472 2249 1832 2757 2718 2241 2354 3194 2310 2338 3062 1647 4169 4838

  • 2000

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000

IA1 IA2 IA3 IA4 IA5 IA6 IA7 IA8 IA9 IA10 IA11 IA12 IL1 IL2 IL3 IL4 IL5 IL6 IL7 IL8 IL9 IL10 IL11 IN1 IN2 IN3 IN4 IN5 IN6 IN7 MI1 MN1 MN2 MO NE1 NE2 NE3 SD1

Counties GHG [kg CO2 eq./ha] N2O from soil C-seq Others

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SLIDE 16

Effects of Cover Crop in Corn System

378 1704 4862 1428 2241 1061 2794 1935 803 2354 3194 1800 3963 3062 1647 964

  • 4000
  • 2000

2000 4000 6000 8000

HIA:CORN HIA:COVER FIL:CORN FIL:COVER TMI:CORN TMI:COVER MMN:CORN MMN:COVER FMN:CORN FMN:COVER MMO:CORN MMO:COVER HNE:CORN HNE:COVER CSD:CORN CSD:COVER

Counties

GHG [kg CO2 eq./ha]

Others C-seq N2O from soil

GHG emissions CORN: 1.6 ~ 4.8 ton CO2 per ha COVER: .38 ~ 3.9 ton CO2 per ha

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SLIDE 17

Effects of Winter Cover Crops

GHG

97% 97% 98% 98% 98% 99% 98% 97% 100% 98% 96% 96% 96% 97% 96% 96% 96%

93% 94% 95% 96% 97% 98% 99% 10 0 % 10 1% HIA FIL TMI MMN FMN MMO HN E CSD GVO

System

%

  • f GVO

w/ o cover crop w cover crop

ACID

110% 118% 120% 119% 106% 122% 111% 112% 100% 117% 106% 103% 102% 111% 108% 106% 103%

8 0 % 8 5% 90 % 95% 10 0 % 10 5% 110 % 115% 120 % 125% HIA FIL TMI MMN FMN MMO HNE CSD GVO System %

  • f GVO

EUTRO

108% 129% 138% 132% 105% 157% 113% 109% 100% 104% 96% 102% 101% 106% 96% 101% 98%

90 % 10 0 % 110 % 120 % 130 % 140 % 150 % 160 % 170 % HIA FIL TMI MMN FMN MMO HNE CSD GVO

System %

  • f GVO

PHOTO

123% 137% 137% 140% 116% 144% 126% 127% 100% 111% 117% 111% 135% 109% 124% 116% 116%

90 % 10 0 % 110 % 120 % 130 % 140 % 150 % HIA FIL TMI MMN FMN MMO HNE CSD GVO

System %

  • f GVO
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SLIDE 18

Cover Crops Reduce Nitrogen Losses Tenfold*

197.00 479.00 397.00 41.40 65.00 194.00

100 200 300 400 500 600

CPSN (grain) CC (grain) CC (56% ) CwCo (70% ) CwSCo (70% ) CS (54% )

Cropping system

Inorganic nitrogen losses (kg N/ha)

5 to 10x reduction

*40 year time scale, Washington County, Illinois

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SLIDE 19

Conclusions

  • Corn field considered here releases GHG

emissions: 1.2 ~ 4.8 metric ton CO2 eq. ha-1

– Most GHG emissions come from N2O from soil (0.6 ~ 4.0 metric ton CO2 eq. ha-1) – Carbon sequestered by soil ranges from 2.2x10-3 to 0.5 metric ton CO2 eq. ha-1

  • Planting winter cover crops (COVER system)

increases soil organic carbon level by 1.1 ~ 15 times and reduces N2O emissions from soil by 3 ~ 55 %

– lower GHG emissions associated with the corn field

cont’d

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SLIDE 20
  • E10 fuel reduces nonrenewable energy

consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (global impacts) compared to gasoline fuel

  • However, E10 fuel increases acidification,

eutrophication and photochemical smog formation (“local” effects) compared to gasoline fuel, primarily due to nitrogen fertilizer in corn cultivation

  • Environmental performance of ethanol fuel

system (farm to tailpipe) varies significantly with corn production sites, particularly for local environmental impacts

  • Winter cover crops improve the environmental

performance of ethanol fuel for all environmental impacts considered here

cont’d

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SLIDE 21
  • Local conditions (farm specific conditions):

– strongly influence ethanol fuel environmental impacts – these impacts vary widely with location

  • Therefore:

– using averages to represent agricultural system environmental impacts is probably not justified and should be avoided. – location specific knowledge of these impacts is required– “all biomass is local”

All Biomass Is Local

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SLIDE 22

Acknowledgements

  • U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
  • DuPont Biobased Materials
  • U.S. Dept. of Energy
  • Nature Works, LCC
  • GlaxoSmithKline
  • Metabolix
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SLIDE 23

Questions ??

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SLIDE 24

To (Mis)quote the Godfather: “It’s Not Business, It’s Personal”

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SLIDE 25

Cover Crop Increases Soil Fertility While Still Removing Lots of Stover

35 40 45 50 55 60 65 1994 2004 2014 2024 2034 Year SOC (Mg/ha) CPSN (grain) CC (grain) CC (50%) CwCo (70%) CwSCoS (70%) CS (54%)

CPSN (grain) CC (50 %) CS (54%) CC (grain) CwSCo (70%) CwCo (70%)