We develop an integrated framework to determine and compare greenhouse gas (GHG) intensities and production costs of cellulosic ethanol derived from corn stover, switchgrass, and miscanthus grown on high and low quality soils for three representative counties in the eastern United States. This information is critical for assessing the cost-effectiveness of utilizing cellulosic ethanol for mitigating GHG emissions and designing appropriate policy incentives to support cellulosic ethanol production in the country. We find considerable variations in the GHG intensities and production costs of ethanol across feedstocks and locations mostly due to differences in yields and soil characteristics. As compared to gasoline, the GHG savings from miscanthus-based ethanol ranged between 130%-156% while that from switchgrass ranged between 97%-135%. The corresponding range for GHG savings with corn stover was 57% to 95% and marginally below the threshold of at least 60% for biofuels classified as cellulosic biofuels under the Renewable Fuels Standard. Estimates of the costs of producing ethanol relative to gasoline imply an abatement cost of at least $48 Mg-1 of GHG emissions (carbon dioxide equivalent) abated and can be used to infer the minimum carbon tax rate needed to induce consumption of cellulosic ethanol.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 25. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 March 2022.
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#45
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Altmetric has tracked 30,050,531 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 23,883 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 18.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
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