BioKDF Recent Documents
This page shows all documents that have been recently posted the Bioenergy KDF.
Link to the website with documentation and download instructions for the PNNL Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), a community model or long-term, global energy, agriculture, land use, and emissions. BioEnergy production, transformation, and use is an integral part of GCAM modeling and scenarios...
Organization: PNNL
Purpose of Repository Database
The goal of this repository is to promote transparency and ease-of-access to DOE BETO supported public studies involving techno-economic analysis. As such, this database summarizes the economic and technical parameters associated with the modeled biorefinery processes...
Organization: Bioenergy Technologies Office, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
This is a joint report between three national labs, ORNL, INL, and ANL, that describes outcomes from a workshop. The Bioenergy Solutions to Gulf Hypoxia Workshop gathered stakeholders from industry, academia, national laboratories, and U.S. federal agencies to discuss how biomass feedstocks could...
Organization: ORNL, ANL, INL
Advanced biomass feedstocks tend to provide more non-fuel ecosystem goods and services (ES) than 1st-generation alternatives. We explore the idea that payment for non-fuel ES could facilitate market penetration of advanced biofuels by closing the profitability gap. As a specific example, we discuss...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Reducing dependence on fossil‐based energy has raised interest in biofuels as a potential energy source, but concerns have been raised about potential implications for water quality. These effects may vary regionally depending on the biomass feedstocks and changes in land management. Here, we...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Highlights
• Opportunities to improve coproduction of wildlife and biomass-for-energy exist at multiple spatial scales.
• At the landscape scale, we review strategies for increasing biodiversity in biomass production systems, drawing examples from plantations, dedicated perennial grasses, and...
Organization: ORNL
Social and economic indicators can be used to support design of sustainable energy systems. Indicators representing categories of social well-being, energy security, external trade, profitability, resource conservation, and social acceptability have not yet been measured in published sustainability...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The biobased economy is playing an increasingly important role in the American economy.
Through innovations in renewable energies and the emergence of a new generation of biobased products, the sectors that drive the biobased economy are providing job creation and economic growth. To further...
Organization: East Carolina University
Join the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office on Dec. 6, 2018, at 1 p.m. CST for a webinar on “Biomass Production and Water Quality in the Mississippi River Basin.” In this webinar, Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory will jointly present modeling and...
Organization: ORNL
Advanced biomass feedstocks tend to provide more non-fuel ecosystem goods and services (ES) than 1st-generation alternatives. We explore the idea that payment for non-fuel ES could facilitate market penetration of advanced biofuels by closing the profitability gap. As a specific example, we discuss...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Ecological disturbances are occurring with greater frequency and intensity than in the past. Under projected shifts in disturbance regimes and patterns of recovery, societal and environmental impacts are expected to be more extreme and to span larger spatial extents. Moreover, preexisting...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Policy makers are interested in estimates of the potential economic impacts of oil price shocks, particularly during periods of rapid and large increases that accompany severe supply shocks. Literature estimates of the economic impacts of oil price shocks, summarized by the oil price elasticity of...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Understanding the environmental effects of alternative fuel production is critical to characterizing the sustainability of energy resources to inform policy and regulatory decisions. The magnitudes of these environmental effects vary according to the intensity and scale of fuel production along...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Renewable, biomass-based energy options can reduce the climate impacts of fossil fuels.
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
This article connects the science of sustainability theory with applied aspects of sustainability deployment. A suite of 35 sustainability indicators spanning 12 environmental and socioeconomic categories has been proposed for comparing the sustainability of bioenergy production systems across...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The paper describes an approach to landscape design that focuses on integrating bioenergy production with other components of environmental, social and economic systems. Landscape design as used here refers to a spatially explicit, collaborative plan for management of landscapes and supply chains....
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The Paris Agreement and the EU Climate and Energy Framework set ambitious but necessary targets. Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by phasing out the technologies and infrastructures that cause fossil carbon emissions is one of today’s most important challenges. In the EU, bioenergy is...
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.
To date, feedstock resource assessments have evaluated cellulosic and algal feedstocks independently, without consideration of demands for, and resource allocation to, each other. We assess potential land competition between algal and terrestrial feedstocks in the United States, and evaluate a...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
We propose a causal analysis framework to increase understanding of land-use change (LUC) and the reliability of LUC models. This health-sciences-inspired framework can be applied to determine probable causes of LUC in the context of bioenergy. Calculations of net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The ongoing debate about costs and benefits of wood‐pellet based bioenergy production in the southeastern United States (SE USA) requires an understanding of the science and context influencing market decisions associated with its sustainability. Production of pellets has garnered much attention as...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Wood pellet exports from the Southeastern United States (SE US) to Europe have been increasing in response to European Union member state policies to displace coal with renewable biomass for electricity generation. An understanding of the interactions among SE US forest markets, forest management,...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Understanding the complex interactions among food security, bioenergy sustainability, and resource management requires a focus on specific contextual problems and opportunities. The United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals place a high priority on food and energy security; bioenergy plays...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
In order to understand the climate effects of a bioenergy system, a comparison between the bioenergy system and a reference system is required. The reference system describes the situation that occurs in the absence of the bioenergy system with respect to the use of land, energy, and materials. The...
Organization: Technical Research Centre of Finland
Published in Bioenergy and Land Use Change (pp. 141–153). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
While many data sets are increasingly available to describe land cover characteristics, these data require careful analysis and supplemental research before conclusions can be drawn about the scope, magnitude, and...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Bio-oil derived via fast pyrolysis is being developed as a renewable fuel option for petroleum distillates. The compatibility of neat bio-oil with 18 plastic types was evaluated using neat diesel fuel as the baseline. The plastic materials included polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), polyethylene...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Several crops have recently been identified as potential dedicated bioenergy feedstocks for the production of power, fuels, and bioproducts. Despite being identified as early as the 1980s, no systematic work has been undertaken to characterize the spatial distribution of their long‐term production...
Organization: Oregon State University
Energy market conditions have shifted dramatically since the USA renewable fuel standards (RFS1 in 2005; RFS2 in 2007) were enacted. The USA has transitioned from an increasing dependence on oil imports to abundant domestic oil production. In addition, increases in the use of ethanol, the main...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
This analysis estimates the cost of selected oil and biomass supply shocks for producers and consumers in the light-duty vehicle fuel market under various supply chain configurations using a mathematical programing model, BioTrans. The supply chain configurations differ by whether they include...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
We explore the role of biofuels in mitigating the negative impacts of oil supply shocks on fuel markets under a range of oil price trajectories and biofuel blending mandate levels. Using a partial equilibrium model of US biofuels production and petroleum fuels trade, we discuss the adjustments in...
Organization: ORNL
HYSYS 8.8 file and PDF description for the process model developed in HYSYS v8.8 to co-process oxygenated biomass intermediates with petroleum vacuum gas oil (VGO) in a conventional petroleum hydrocracker. HYSYS has built-in hydrocracking/hydrotreating correlations for conventional petroleum feeds...
Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Price Scenarios at $54 and $119 were simulated for Switchgrass, Miscanthus and Willow production from 2017 to 2040. These analyses will be used in a subsequent publication.
Organization: ORNL
This dataset was utilized in a report to highlight parameters that affect near-term sustainable supply of corn stover and forest resources at $56 and $74 per dry ton delivered. While the report focus is restricted to 2018, the modeling runs are available from 2016-2022. In the 2016 Billion-ton...
Organization: ORNL
Production of bioenergy from cellulosic sources is likely to increase due to mandates, tax incentives, and subsidies. However, unchecked growth in the bioenergy industry has the potential to adversely influence land use, biodiversity, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and water resources. It may have...
With the shift from petroleum-based to biomass-based economies, global biomass demand and trade is growing. This trend could become a threat to food security. Though rising concerns about sustainability aspects have led to the development of voluntary certification standards to ensure that biomass...
Organization: Center for Development Research, ZEF, University of Bonn
Bioeconomy has gained political momentum since 2012 when the European Commission adopted the strategy “Innovating for Sustainable Growth: A Bioeconomy for Europe”. Assessing the environmental performance of different bioeconomy value chains (divided in three pillars: food and feed, bio-based...
Organization: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES)
This working paper contains proposals for specific genetic criteria and indicators (C&I) which are expected to be part of a more general set of biological C&I. These proposals are intended for use in guiding tropical forest management but the indicators and verifiers we describe are not in...
The need for new criteria and indicators for the assessment of biodiversity conservation as part of sustainable forest management of tropical forests has been identified as a priority by many international organisations. Those biodiversity criteria and indicators which formed part of a much broader...
There is increasing pressure on the forestry industry to adopt sustainable practices, but a lack of knowledge about how to facilitate this, and how to measure sustainability. This book reviews current thinking about scientifically based indicators, and sustainable management of natural forests and...
Global energy use projections predict that biomass will be an important source of renewable energy in the coming decades. Short-rotation woody crops will be the prime source of this biomass. However, the sustainability of woody crops has been questioned. Using internationally accepted forest...
While there is an increasing demand for active public involvement in forestry decision-making, there are as yet few successful models for achieving this in the new sustainable forest management (SFM) context. This paper describes the special needs of forest managers conducting participatory SFM...
Organization: Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP), Department of Forest Resources Management and Centre for Landscape Research, University of British Columbia
It is expected that international biomass trade will significantly increase in the coming years because of the possibly lower costs of imported biomass, the better supply security through diversification and the support by energy and climate policies of various countries. Concerns about potential...
Organization: Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation, Department of Science, Technology and Society (STS), Utrecht University
European Union Policy on Bioenergy and the Role of Sustainability Criteria and Certification Systems
The EU has set ambitious targets to raise the share of renewable energies, particularly biofuels. With an increasingly controversial public debate and more scientific evidence about the downsites of biofuels, recently the European Unions biofuel targets have been bound to the condition that they...
Current biofuels do not add to the sustainability of transport: This report assesses the impact of the European Commission"s proposal for a new Renewable Directive, focusing on the specific target for the transport sector, which is 10% in 2020. The Commission proposes criteria to guarantee the...
The German Biokraftstoffquotengesetz, the EU Biofuel Directive and other policy making initiatives lead to promote the production and use of bioenergy, liquid biofuel for transportation in particular. Such an increase requires a reliable verification on compliance with sustainability principles on...
Against the background of an increasing global demand for bio-energy, the need for sustainability standards and a certification system ensuring sustainable production and trade has grown rapidly. Nevertheless, there is currently no specific forum for discussions on how to deal with biomass trade at...
Organization: CEPS, Centre for European Policy Studies
To produce, trade on or use agricultural products as fuel—a practice as old as human history—has become a policy riddle spawning emotional debate and multiple, sometimes competing and conflicting, measures and actions. Today, many see fuel derivatives from agricultural produce and forests as a new...
These Notes from the Field summarise the governance guidelines developed by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) to address the key challenges that policy-makers face when designing and implementing policies and regulations for the increasing production, trade and use of bioenergy. The...
Organization: International Risk Governance Council
The sustainable production of bioenergy is vital to avoiding negative impacts on environmental goods such as climate, soil, water, and especially biodiversity. We propose three key issues that should be addressed in any biodiversity risk-mitigation strategy: conservation of areas of significant...
The expectations with respect to biomass as a resource for sustainable energy are sky-high. Many industrialized countries have adopted ambitious policy targets and have introduced financial measures to stimulate the production or use of bioenergy. Meanwhile, the side-effects and associated risks...
Taking Brazilian bioethanol as an example, this paper presents possible sustainability criteria for a certification scheme aimed to minimize negative socio-ecological impacts and to increase the sustainable production of biomass. We describe the methods that have led us to the identification of a...
Organization: Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn
Sustainable bioenergy systems are, by definition, embedded in social, economic, and environmental contexts and depend on support of many stakeholders with different perspectives. The resulting complexity constitutes a major barrier to the implementation of bioenergy projects. The goal of this paper...
Organization: Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods have become increasingly popular in decision-making for sustainable energy because of the multi-dimensionality of the sustainability goal and the complexity of socio-economic and biophysical systems. This article reviewed the corresponding methods in...
Organization: School of Energy and Power Engineering, North China Electric Power University
Environmental impacts associated with the use of fossil fuels, rising prices, potential limitations in supply and concerns about regional and national security are driving the development and use of biomass for bioenergy, biofuels and bioproducts. However, the use of biomass does not automatically...
Organization: State University of New York, College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry (SUNY-ESF), Department of Forest and Natural Resource Management
Developing scientific criteria and indicators should play a critical role in charting a sustainable path for the rapidly developing biofuel industry. The challenge ahead in developing such criteria and indicators is to address the limitations on data and modeling.
Bioenergy from sustainably managed forest ecosystems could provide a renewable, carbon-neutral source of energy in many nations and communities throughout the world. In order for forest bioenergy to be an ecologically sustainable fuel source, woodfuel procurement systems must not adversely impact...
Organization: Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto
The expectations with respect to biomass as a resource for sustainable energy are sky-high. Many industrialized countries have adopted ambitious policy targets and have introduced financial measures to stimulate the production or use of bioenergy. Meanwhile, the side-effects and associated risks...
Sustainable energy is the problem of the 21st century. If biofuels want to be part of the solution they must accept a degree of scrutiny unprecedented in the development of a new industry. That is because sustainability deals explicitly with the role of biofuels in ensuring the well-being of our...
Organization: Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota
Developing scientific criteria and indicators should play a critical role in charting a sustainable path for the rapidly developing biofuel industry. The challenge ahead in developing such criteria and indicators is to address the limitations on data and modeling.
This paper presents an overview of 67 ongoing certification initiatives to safeguard the sustainability of bioenergy. Most recent initiatives are focused on the sustainability of liquid biofuels. Content-wise, most of these initiatives have mainly included environmental principles. Despite serious...
Organization: Department of Science, Technology & Society, Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University
The paper discusses the importance of standards for sustainable bioenergy production. Sustainability of bioenergy production is crucial if bioenergy is supposed to contribute effectively to climate change mitigation. First, a brief overview of current bioenergy policies and of initiatives and...
Organization: ETH Zurich
The biofuel boom has raised great expectations regarding renewable, domestic and carbon-free bioenergy sources but at the same time has led to concerns about the adverse environmental and socio-economic implications such as land-use competition, deforestation and market distortions. In this context...
Rising energy prices, geopolitics as well as concerns over increasing oil prices, national security, and the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on global climate change are driving large-scale efforts to implement bioenergy alternatives. Biomass fuels offer many new opportunities, but if not...
Forest biomass is increasingly being considered as a source of sustainable energy. It is crucial, however, that this biomass be grown and harvested in a sustainable manner. International processes and certification systems have been developed to ensure sustainable forest management (SFM) in general...
Organization: Forest & Landscape Denmark, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen
Environmental impacts associated with the use of fossil fuels, rising prices, potential limitations in supply and concerns about regional and national security are driving the development and use of biomass for bioenergy, biofuels and bioproducts. However, the use of biomass does not automatically...
Organization: Lithuanian Energy Institute Laboratory of Renewable Energy
The objective of this paper is to provide a review on the latest developments on the main initiatives and approaches for the sustainability certification for biofuels and/or bioenergy. A large number of national and international initiatives lately experienced rapid development in the view of the...
Organization: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Energy
The objective of this paper is to give a comprehensive review of initiatives on biomass certification from different viewpoints of stakeholders, including national governments (such as The Netherlands, the UK, Belgium and Germany), the EC, NGOs, companies, and international bodies up until October...
Organization: Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University Heidelberglaan
Indicators are needed to assess environmental sustainability of bioenergy systems. Effective indicators will help in the quantification of benefits and costs of bioenergy options and resource uses. We identify 19 measurable indicators for soil quality, water quality and quantity, greenhouse gases,...
Organization: Center for Bioenergy Sustainability, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The expansion of biofuel production can lead to an array of negative environmental impacts. Therefore, the European Union (EU) has recently imposed sustainability criteria on biofuel production in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). In this article, we analyse the effectiveness of the...
Organization: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
This paper presents a generic approach for selecting sustainability criteria and indicators (C&I) by using a participatory methodology. Selecting appropriate C&I to assess the sustainability of projects or developments is crucial and significantly influences the assessment results. The...
Organization: University of Abertay Dundee
The major challenges for humanity include energy security, food security, climate change, and a growing world population. They are all linked together by an instinctive, and yet increasingly complex and evolving concept, that of sustainability. Industrial biotechnology is seen as part of the...
Organization: Science and Technology Policy Division, Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, OECD
This study analyses and compares all standards and certification schemes for biofuels production that were approved to comply with the EU RED requirements. The study compared all of the EU-recognized schemes for certifying the sustainability of biofuels which had been established as of June, 2013....
Indicators of the environmental sustainability of biofuel production, distribution, and use should be selected, measured, and interpreted with respect to the context in which they are used. The context of a sustainability assessment includes the purpose, the particular biofuel production and...
Organization: ORNL
Eucalyptus is a fast-growing tree native to Australia and could be used to supply biomass for bioenergy and other purposes along the coastal regions of the southeastern United States (USA). At a farmgate price of $66 dry Mg−1, a potential supply of 27 to 41.3 million dry Mg year−1 of Eucalyptus...
Organization: ORNL
Foreword: Governments and the private sector are increasingly aware of the need to pursue sustainability for biomass. Over the past decades many criteria have been drawn up, mandatory or criteria in voluntary standard systems or in public-private agreements. As pressure on the earth’s ecosystems is...
As a promising alternative energy source, biofuel imparts a remarkable role for the sustainability and security in energy sector. Strategies, including policy recommendations have been set to put forward the development and implementation of biofuel by different countries. Recent exploitation of...
This document was prepared to help address these questions by proposing guidelines that define a suite of voluntary biofuel sustainability performance indicators and can be used to inform best-value procurement decisions. These guidelines propose a sustainability framework composed of pillars,...
The aviation industry has committed to hold its carbon emissions steady after 2020 and cut net carbon emissions to half of the 2005 level by 2050. Achieving these goals will require low-carbon fuels, and aviation must drive technology and policy advances to build an aviation biofuel industry with...
Organization: Natural Resources Defense Council
There is a strong interest in the EU to promote the bioeconomy sector within the EU 2020 strategy. It is thus necessary to assure a sound sustainability framework. This paper reviews international and European sustainability initiatives mainly for biomass for bioenergy. The basic and advanced...
The first objective of this paper was to provide an inventory of developments of certification schemes for sustainable biomass production, following recent EU legislation (both formalized and under development). One main pillar is the EU Timber Regulation for legal harvesting; a second one is the...
INTRODUCTION The U.S. Congress passed the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) seven years ago. Since then, biofuels have gone from darling to scapegoat for many environmentalists, policy makers, and the general public. The reasons for this shift are complex and include concerns about environmental...
Organization: Michigan State University
Background: The purpose of the article is to research and analyze the notion of sustainability criteria in their function of an emerging tool to promote and safeguard sustainable products and their sustainable production. The article addresses critical issues, which are important for deeper...
Goal: Enable long- term supply of sustainable feedstock & bioenergy – Identify key indicators of how bioenergy production affects environmental, social & economic sustainability – Determine how those effects can be quantified – Demonstrate quantitative approach to assessment of progress...
Poorly developed biofuels pose severe environmental risks. Procurement officials and risk managers should use only the most stringent and protective certification standards available. Yet assessing how different certification systems rank across the product life cycle is a complex undertaking. That...
Organization: Lands Division, Nature Program, NRDC
The 2016 Billion-Ton Report: Advancing Domestic Resources for a Thriving Bioeconomy is the third in a series of national biomass resource assessments commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy. This report aims to inform national bioenergy policies and research, development, and deployment...
BioMass standards BETO
The Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) is committed to developing the resources, technologies, and systems needed to support a thriving bioenergy industry that protects natural resources and advances environmental, economic, and social benefits. BETO’s Sustainability Area...
The Bioenergy Technologies Office of DOE EERE has sponsored a “scoping study” to assess the potential of high-octane fuel (HOF) to assess its potential to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and to understand barriers to its successful market introduction. The goal was to...
Synthesis manuscript for an Ecology & Society Special Feature on Telecoupling: A New Frontier for Global Sustainability
Abstract: European demand for renewable energy resources has led to rapidly increasing transatlantic exports of wood pellets from the southeastern United States (SE US) since...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Simulated Response of Avian Biodiversity to Biomass Production. 2017. Chapter 10 in R.A. Efroymson et al. eds., 2016 Billion-Ton Report: Advancing Domestic Resources for a Thriving Bioeconomy, Volume 2: Environmental Sustainability Effects of Select Scenarios from Volume 1. ORNL/TM-2016/727. Oak...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Jager, H. I., M. Wu, M. Ha, L. Baskaran and J. Krieg. 2017. Water Quality Responses to Simulated Management Practices on Agricultural Lands Producing Biomass Feedstocks in Two Tributary Basins of the Mississippi River, in R.A. Efroymson et al. eds., 2016 Billion-Ton Report: Advancing Domestic...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Abstract
Exports of woody pellets from the southeastern United States (US) for European power plants have expanded since 2009, leading to concerns about major negative environmental effects. US exports of wood pellets have grown from essentially nothing in 2008 to 4.6 million metric tons in 2015,...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Abstract
The ongoing debate about costs and benefits of wood-pellet based bioenergy production in the southeastern United States (SE USA) requires an understanding of the science and context influencing market decisions associated with its sustainability. Production of pellets has garnered much...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
We implemented the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate water quantity and quality for the Arkansas-White-Red (AWR) river basin. We used the 2009 Cropland Data Layer (CDL-2009) (USDA-NASS, 2009) to represent the baseline (i.e., Scenario Base) land use/land cover. The SWAT model was...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
This spreadsheet serves as an Input file to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Waste-to-Energy System Simulation (WESyS) model developed in Stella Pro (isee systems, Lebanon, NH). WESyS is a national-level system dynamics model that simulates energy production from three sectors of the...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
This spreadsheet serves as an Input file to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Waste-to-Energy System Simulation (WESyS) model developed in Stella Pro (isee systems, Lebanon, NH). WESyS is a national-level system dynamics model that simulates energy production from three sectors of the...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
This spreadsheet serves as an Input file to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Waste-to-Energy System Simulation (WESyS) model developed in Stella Pro (isee systems, Lebanon, NH). WESyS is a national-level system dynamics model that simulates energy production from three sectors of the...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
This spreadsheet serves as an Input file to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Waste-to-Energy System Simulation (WESyS) model developed in Stella Pro (isee systems, Lebanon, NH). WESyS is a national-level system dynamics model that simulates energy production from three sectors of the...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Model-data comparisons are always challenging, especially when working at a large spatial scale and evaluating multiple response variables. We implemented the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate water quantity and quality for the Tennessee River Basin. We developed three innovations...
Organization: Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Growing interest in renewable and domestically produced energy motivates the evaluation of woody bioenergy feedstock production. In the southeastern U.S., woody feedstock plantations, primarily of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), would be intensively managed over short rotations (10-12 years) to...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The development of modern high efficiency bioenergy technologies has the
potential to improve energy security and access while reducing environmental impacts
and stimulating low-carbon development. While modern bioenergy production is
increasing in the world, it still makes a small contribution to...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Co-Optimization (Co-Optima) initiative is accelerating the introduction of affordable, scalable, and sustainable fuels and high-efficiency, low-emission engines with a first-of-its-kind effort to simultaneously tackle fuel and engine research and development...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
This report provides a status of the markets and technology development involved in growing a domestic bioenergy economy. It compiles and integrates information to provide a snapshot of the current state and historical trends influencing the development of bioenergy markets. This information is...
Organization: U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office
Concerns about CO2 emissions and fossil fuel supplies have enhanced interest in using crop residues for biofuel production; however, maintaining soil organic C (SOC) through residue return is vital for maintaining soil productivity. Our objectives were to simulate long-term SOC dynamics using...
Interest in renewable energy sources derived from plant biomass is increasing, raising concerns about fuel vs. food competition. One strategy to produce additional cellulosic biomass without reducing food-harvest potential is to grow winter cover crops after harvest of the primary summer crop. This...
Continuous measurement of soil NO emissions is needed to constrain NO budget and emission factors. Here, we describe the performance of a low-power Teledyne NO analyzer and automated chamber system, powered by wind and solar, that can continuously measure soil NO emissions. Laboratory testing of...
Difficulties in accessing high-quality data on trace gas fluxes and performance of bioenergy/bioproduct feedstocks limit the ability of researchers and others to address environmental impacts of agriculture and the potential to produce feedstocks. To address those needs, the GRACEnet (Greenhouse...
Cellulosic biofuel production may generate new markets and revenue for farmers. However, residue removal may cause environmental problems such as soil erosion and soil organic matter (SOM) loss. The objective of this study was to determine the amounts of residue necessary for SOM maintenance under...
Corn (Zea mays L.) stover was identified as a renewable non-food agricultural feedstock for production of liquid fuels, biopower, and other bioproducts, but it is also needed for erosion control, carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling. To help balance these multiple demands, our objectives were...
Advanced biofuels will be developed using cellulosic feedstock rather than grain or oilseed crops that can also be used for food and feed. To be sustainable, these new agronomic production systems must be economically viable without degrading the soil and other natural resources. This review...
The cob fraction of corn (Zea mays L.) residue has characteristics that reduce concerns associated with residue removal making it a potential biofuel feedstock. The contribution the cob makes to soil C and nutrient dynamics is unknown. A litterbag study was conducted in no-tillage plots under...
Corn (Zea mays L.) residue is being considered as a feedstock for biofuels production. The impact of removing corn residue on soil productivity is not well understood. A corn-soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation was established in 2000 to determine the effect of removing corn residue at three...
Corn cobs were once viewed as an important biofuel feedstock early in U.S. history to heat houses, farm buildings, and small businesses. However, with the advent of combines, which left the cob in the field, the use of corn cobs as a biofuel declined dramatically. Corn cobs are used on a limited...
Second generation ethanol bioconversion technologies are under demonstration-scale development for the production of lignocellulosic fuels to meet the US federal Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS2). Bioconversion technology utilizes the fermentable sugars generated from the cellulosic fraction of the...
Removal of corn (Zea mays L.) stover as a biofuel feedstock is being considered. It is important to understand the implications of this practice when establishing removal guidelines to ensure the long-term sustainability of both the biofuel industry and soil health. Aboveground and belowground...
This study developed a computational strategy that utilizes data inputs from multiple spatial scales to investigate how variability within individual fields can impact sustainable residue removal for bioenergy production. Sustainable use of agricultural residues for bioenergy production requires...
This study provides a spatially comprehensive assessment of sustainable agricultural residue removal potential across the United States for bioenergy production. Earlier assessments determining the quantity of agricultural residue that could be sustainably removed for bioenergy production at the...
Agricultural residues have been identified as a significant potential resource for bioenergy production, but serious questions remain about the sustainability of harvesting residues. Agricultural residues play an important role in limiting soil erosion from wind and water and in maintaining soil...
Agricultural residues have near-term potential as a feedstock for bioenerg y production, but their removal must be managed carefully to maintain soil health and productivity. Recent studies have shown that subfield scale variability in soil properties (e.g., slope, texture, and organic matter...
Quantifying lignin and carbohydrate composition of corn (Zea mays L.) is important to support the emerging cellulosic biofuels industry. Therefore, field studies with 0 or 100 % stover removal were established in Alabama and South Carolina as part of the Sun Grant Regional Partnership Corn Stover...
Harvesting of corn stover (plant residues) for cellulosic ethanol production must be balanced with the requirement for returning plant residues to agricultural fields to maintain soil structure, fertility, crop protection, and other ecosystem services. High rates of corn stover removal can be...
Application of biochar to highly weathered tropical soils has been shown to enhance soil quality and decrease leaching of nutrients. Little, however, is known about the effects of biochar applications on temperate region soils. Our objective was to quantify the impact of biochar on leaching of...
Biochar, a co-product of thermochemical conversion of lignocellulosic materials into advanced biofuels, may be used as a soil amendment to enhance the sustainability of biomass harvesting. We investigated the impact of biochar amendments (0, 5, 10, and 20 g-biochar kg− 1 soil) on the quality of a...
The use of corn ( Zea mays L.) as a bio-energy feedstock has attracted the attention of many producers. Recently, the focus has shifted from grain-based to cellulose-based ethanol production. In addition to biological conversion of corn stover to ethanol, thermal conversion (pyrolysis) of stover is...
Emerging cellulosic bioenergy markets can provide land managers with additional options for crop production decisions. For example, integrating dedicated bioenergy crops such as perennial grasses and short rotation woody species within the agricultural landscape can have positive impacts on several...
Harvesting feedstock for biofuel production must not degrade soil, water, or air resources. Our objective is to provide an overview of field research being conducted to quantify effects of harvesting corn (Zea mays L.) stover as a bioenergy feedstock. Coordinated field studies are being conducted...
For the soil and plant analysis community, development and expansion of biofuels will create many opportunities to provide a wide variety of analytical services. Our objective is to explore potential areas where those services could be marketed to support sustainable development of biofuels. One of...
Corn (Zea mays L.) stover was identified as an important feedstock for cellulosic bioenergy production because of the extensive area upon which the crop is already grown. This report summarizes 239 site-years of field research examining effects of zero, moderate, and high stover removal rates at 36...
Corn (Zea mays L.) stover has been identified as a major feedstock for cellulosic bioenergy. This report summarizes grain and stover yield as well as N, P, and K removal at several Sun Grant Regional Partnership (SGRP) sites. National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) grain yields were used...
Sustainable feedstock harvest strategies are needed to ensure bioenergy production does not irreversibly degrade soil resources. The objective for this study was to document corn (Zea mays L.) grain and stover fraction yields, plant nutrient removal and replacement costs, feedstock quality, soil-...
A presentation to share author's perspective on the importance of the 2011 BT2 data; to acknowledge the ARS REAP (Renewable Energy Assessment Project) team for their contributions to the BT2 report; and to predict ARS REAP team uses for BT2 data with regard to research needs and implementation...
To be sustainable, feedstock harvest must neither degrade soil, water, or air resources nor negatively impact productivity or subsequent crop yields. Simulation modeling will help guide the development of sustainable feedstock production practices, but not without field validation. This paper...
Sustainable production of cellulosic feedstocks for second-generation biofuels must not degrade soil, water or air resources. Critical functions such as (i) sustaining biological productivity, (ii) regulating and portioning soil water, (iii) storing and cycling nutrients, and (iv) filtering and...
Second-generation biofuels will be developed using cellulosic feedstocks rather than grain or oilseed crops that can also be used for food and feed, but to be sustainable, production of these feedstocks must not degrade soil, water or air resources. Simulation models can be useful for designing...
One-pass harvest equipment has been developed to collect corn (Zea mays L.) grain, stover, and cobs that can be used as bioenergy feedstock. Nutrients removed in these feedstocks have soil fertility implication and affect feedstock quality. The study objectives were to quantify nutrient...
Corn’s (Zea mays L.) stover is a potential nonfood, herbaceous bioenergy feedstock. A vital aspect of utilizing stover for bioenergy production is to establish sustainable harvest criteria that avoid exacerbating soil erosion or degrading soil organic carbon (SOC) levels. Our goal is to empirically...
The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), investments in lignocellulosic biorefineries by both the Department of Energy (DOE) and commercial entities, as well as many other market, security, and policy drivers, have increased public interest in harvesting nongrain biomass (i.e., crop...
Corn stover is targeted as a potential non-food bioenergy feedstock, especially in the Midwest United States. Three parallel experiments on adjacent fields, one is managed without tillage since 1995, a second experiment is managed without tillage since 2005, and the third is managed with chisel...
The use of plant biomass for energy has existed since humans mastered the use of fire, although utilization beyond the open fire has evolved. The concept of using recent biomass as a major energy feedstock is being revisited, driven by high consumer demand (growing population), declining domestic...
Corn (Zea mays L.) stover is a potential bioenergy feedstock, but little is known about the impacts of reducing stover return on yield and soil quality in the Northern US Corn Belt. Our study objectives were to measure the impact of three stover return rates (Full (~7.8 Mg ha−1 yr−1), Moderate (~3....
In-field measurements of direct soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions provide critical data for quantifying the net energy efficiency and economic feasibility of crop residue-based bioenergy production systems. A major challenge to such assessments has been the paucity of field studies addressing the...
Many questions have surfaced regarding short-and long-term impacts of corn (Zea mays L.) residue removal for use in the biofuels industry. To address these concerns, a field study was established in eastern South Dakota in 2000 using no-till soil management within a 2-yr corn/soybean [Glycine max (...
Net benefits of bioenergy crops, including maize and perennial grasses such as switchgrass, are a function of several factors including the soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestered by these crops. Life cycle assessments (LCA) for bioenergy crops have been conducted using models in which SOC...
Economic, environmental, and energy independence issues are contributing to rising fossil fuel prices, petroleum supply concerns, and a growing interest in biomass feedstocks as renewable energy sources. Potential feedstocks include perennial grasses, timber, and annual grain crops with our focus...
Harvesting crop residue needs to be managed to protect agroecosystem health and productivity. DAYCENT, a process-based modeling tool, may be suited to accommodate region-specific factors and provide regional predictions for a broad array of agroecosystem impacts associated with corn stover harvest...
To prepare for a 2014 launch of commercial scale cellulosic ethanol production from corn/maize (Zea mays L.) stover, POET-DSM near Emmetsburg, IA has been working with farmers, researchers, and equipment dealers through “Project Liberty” on harvest, transportation, and storage logistics of corn...
Harvesting crop residues for bioenergy or bio-product production may decrease soil organic matter (SOM) content, resulting in the degradation of soil physical properties and ultimately soil productivity. Using the least limiting water range (LLWR) to evaluate improvement or degradation of soil...
Corn stover removal, whether for silage, bedding, or bioenergy production, could have a variety of environmental consequences through its effect on soil processes, particularly N2O production and soil respiration. Because these effects may be episodic in nature, weekly snapshots with static...
Rigorous economic analyses are crucial for the successful launch of lignocellulosic bioenergy facilities in 2014 and beyond. Our objectives are to (1) introduce readers to a query tool developed to use data downloaded from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) REAPnet for constructing enterprise...
This paper was presented at the 2012 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software in Leipzig, Germany on July 15, 2012.
Abstract: Agricultural residues are the largest near term source of cellulosic biomass for bioenergy production, but removing agricultural residues sustainably...
The 2012 Sun Grant National Conference on Science for Biomass Feedstock Production and Utilization was held on 2–5 October 2012, in New Orleans, LA, USA. The Sun Grant Initiative set out to highlight recent advances in science and technology contributing to the deployment of conventional and...
Potential global biodiversity impacts from near-term gasoline production are compared to
biofuel, a renewable liquid transportation fuel expected to substitute for gasoline in the near term
(i.e., from now until c. 2030). Petroleum exploration activities are projected to extend across more
than 5.8...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
This report summarizes the results of an IEA Bioenergy inter-Task project involving collaborators from Tasks 37 (Energy from Biogas), 38 (Climate Change Effects of Biomass and Bioenergy Systems), 39 (Commercialising Conventional and Advanced Liquid Biofuels from Biomass), 40 (Sustainable...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Several EU countries import wood pellets from the south-eastern United States. The imported wood pellets are (co-)fired in power plants with the aim of reducing overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electricity and meeting EU renewable energy targets. To assess whether GHG emissions are...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Need to put description
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
A vibrant, resilient and productive agricultural sector is fundamental to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Bringing about such a transformation requires optimizing a range of agronomic, environmental and socioeconomic outcomes from agricultural systems – from crop yields, to...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The four-day Tour explored how innovations supported by government and industry are enabling the deployment of a more sustainable bioeconomy. The bioeconomy refers to the use of renewable biomass in place of fossil inputs such as coal and petroleum for production of products and services, including...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
We propose a causal analysis framework to increase understanding of land-use change (LUC) and the reliability of LUC models. This health-sciences-inspired framework can be applied to determine probable causes of LUC in the context of bioenergy. Calculations of net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The Regional Feedstock Partnership (the Partnership) has published a report to summarize its accomplishments from 2008–2014. DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) partnered with the Sun Grant Initiative and Idaho National Laboratory to co-author this report.
The report, entitled Regional...
Organization: U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO)
In January 2017, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) published a report, titled Biofuels and Bioproducts from Wet and Gaseous Waste Streams: Challenges and Opportunities. The report is the first comprehensive assessment of the resource potential and...
Organization: U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO)
With the goal of understanding environmental effects of a growing bioeconomy, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), national laboratories, and U.S. Forest Service research laboratories, together with academic and industry collaborators, undertook a study to estimate environmental effects of...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Biorefineries, like other industrial facilities, require permits to emit air pollutants. Typically, air emission permits both to begin construction and later to begin operation are required. The permit applications necessitate interpretation of air quality regulations to determine applicability,...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Potential Avenues for High Biofuels Penetration in the U.S. Aviation Market, Supplemental Tableau Workbook, 2016
Emily Newes, National Renewable Energy Laboratory Jeongwoo Han, Argonne National Laboratory Steve Peterson, Lexidyne LLC
Organization: NREL
In July 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) released a request for information (RFI) to seek input from industry, academia, national laboratories, and other biofuels and bioproducts stakeholders to identify existing capabilities to produce lignocellulosic...
Organization: U.S. Department of Energy's Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO)
One approach to assessing progress towards sustainability makes use of multiple indicators spanning the
environmental, social, and economic dimensions of the system being studied. Diverse indicators have different
units of measurement, and normalization is the procedure employed to transform...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboraotry
The Biomass Energy Data Book is a statistical compendium prepared and published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) under contract with the Biomass Program in the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program of the Department of Energy (DOE). Designed for use as a convenient reference...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Waste to Energy System Simulation Model (WESyS) - Scenario Inputs and Supplemental Tableau Workbook
Daniel Inman, Ethan Warner, Anelia Milbrandt, Alberta Carpenter, Ling Tao, Emily Newes, and Steve Peterson (Lexidyne, LLC)
Abstract
Conversion of biogas from organic waste materials to usable energy...
Organization: NREL
The 2016 Billion-Ton Report: Advancing Domestic Resources for a Thriving Bioeconomy is the third in a series of Energy Department national assessments that have calculated the potential supply of biomass in the United States. The report concludes that the United States has the future potential to...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The Gridded Population of the World (GPW) series, now in its fourth version (GPWv4), models the distribution of human population (counts and densities) on a continuous global surface. Since the release of the first version of this global population grid in 1995, the essential inputs have been...
Organization: Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)
The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) is a unique, dual-university research program. With research centers at the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University and the Center for National Food and Agricultural Policy (CNFAP) at the University of...
Organization: The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI)
This 2016 Multi-Year Program Plan (MYPP) sets forth the goals and structure of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). It identifies the research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities the Office will focus on over the next five years and outlines why these activities are...
The DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office initiated a collaborative research program between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to investigate HOF in late 2013. The program objective was to provide a quantitative...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Understanding the complex interactions among food security, bioenergy sustainability, and resource management
requires a focus on specific contextual problems and opportunities. The United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable
Development Goals place a high priority on food and energy security; bioenergy plays...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The Federal Activities Report on the Bioeconomy has been prepared to emphasize the significant potential for an even stronger U.S. bioeconomy through the production and use of biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower. Bioeconomy activities have already touched on the interests of many federal agencies...
Organization: U.S. Department of Energy, Bioenergy Technologies Office
Abstract: Cellulosic-based biofuels are needed to help meet energy needs and to strengthen rural investment and development in the midwestern United States (US). This analysis identifies 11 categories of indicators to measure progress toward sustainability that should be monitored to determine if...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
This report provides a status of the markets and technology development involved in growing a domestic bioenergy economy as it existed at the end of calendar year 2013. It compiles and integrates information to provide a snapshot of the current state and historical trends influencing the...
Organization: NREL
The Bioenergy Technologies Office of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy sponsored a scoping study to assess the potential of ethanolbased
high octane fuel (HOF) to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
HOF blends used in an engine...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Nitrogen (N) is an important nutrient as it often limits productivity, but in excess can impair water quality. Most studies on watershed N cycling have occurred in upland forested catchments where snowmelt dominates N export; fewer studies have focused on low-relief watersheds that lack snow. We...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
This dataset reports the pre-treatment hydrology and pre- and post-treatment water quality data from a watershed-scale experiment that is evaluating the effects of growing short-rotation loblolly pine for bioenergy on water quality and quantity in the southeastern U.S. The experiment is taking...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The following reports, papers, and websites relate to Intermediate Ethanol Blend Studies supported or partially supported by the Department of Energy since 2007; also listed are relevant industry-funded materials studies and relevant EPA and Coordinating Research Council websites. Numerous oral...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Conventional feedstock supply systems exist and have been developed for traditional agriculture and forestry systems. These conventional feedstock supply systems can be effective in high biomass-yielding areas (such as for corn stover in Iowa and plantation-grown pine trees in the southern United...
Organization: Idaho National Laboratory
The paper describes an approach to landscape design that focuses on integrating bioenergy production with their components of environmental, social and economic systems. Landscape design as used here refers to a spatially explicit, collaborative plan for management of landscapes and supply chains....
Organization: Environmental Sciences Divsion, ORNL
A new approach to hydrogen production using an integrated pyrolysis–microbial electrolysis process is described. The aqueous stream generated during pyrolysis of switchgrass was used as a substrate for hydrogen production in a microbial electrolysis cell, achieving a maximum hydrogen production...
Organization: ORNL
The Biomass Scenario Model (BSM) is a system dynamics model that represents the entire biomass-to-biofuels supply chain, from feedstock to fuel use. It is a tool designed to better understand biofuels policy as it impacts the development of the supply chain for biofuels in the United States.
This...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Transitioning to a larger biofuels industry requires a robust biomass-to-biofuels system of systems that operates within existing agriculture, forestry, energy, and transportation markets. Using the existing fuel supply chain infrastructure as a framework, this paper discusses a vision for biomass-...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
The Biomass Scenario Model (BSM) is a system dynamics model that represents the entire biomass-to-biofuels supply chain, from feedstock to fuel use. The BSM is a complex model that has been used for extensive analyses; the model and its results can be better understood if input data used for...
Organization: NREL
This paper analyzes the rural Chinese biomass supply system and models supply chain operations according to U.S. concepts of logistical unit operations: harvest and collection, storage, transportation, preprocessing, and handling and queuing. In this paper, we quantify the logistics cost of corn...
Organization: Idaho National Laboratory
Pioneer cellulosic biorefineries across the United States rely on a conventional feedstock supply system based on one-year contracts with local growers, who harvest, locally store, and deliver feedstock in low-density format to the conversion facility. While the conventional system is designed for...
Organization: Idaho National Laboratory
Direct catalytic conversion of ethanol to hydrocarbon blend-stock can increase biofuels use in current vehicles beyond the ethanol blend-wall of 10–15%. Literature reports describe quantitative conversion of ethanol over zeolite catalysts but high C2 hydrocarbon formation renders this approach...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
We attempted to reconcile three microbial maintenance models (Herbert, Pirt, and Compromise) through a theoretical reassessment. We provided a rigorous proof that the true growth yield coefficient (YG) is the ratio of the specific maintenance rate (a in Herbert) to the maintenance coefficient (m in...
Organization: ORNL, Environmental Sciences Division
While soil enzymes have been explicitly included in the soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition models, there is a serious lack of suitable data for model parameterization. This study provides well-documented enzymatic parameters for application in enzyme-driven SOC decomposition models from a...
Organization: ORNL, Environmental Sciences Division
Water consumption and water quality continue to be key factors affecting environmental sustainability in biofuel production. This review covers the findings from biofuel water analyses published over the past 2 years to underscore the progress made, and to highlight advancements in understanding...
Organization: Argonne National Laboratory
Water sustainability is an integral part of the environmental sustainability. Water use, water quality, and the demand on water resource for bioenergy production can have potential impacts to food, feed, and fiber production and to our social well-being. With the support from United State...
Organization: Argonne National Laboratory
Global development of the biofuel sector is proceeding rapidly. Biofuel feedstock continues to be produced from a variety of agricultural and forestry resources. Large-scale feedstock production for biofuels could change the landscape structure and affect water quantity, water quality, and...
Organization: Argonne National Laboratory
Using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for large-scale watershed modeling could be useful for evaluating the quality of the water in regions that are dominated by nonpoint sources in order to identify potential “hot spots” for which mitigating strategies could be further developed. An...
Organization: Argonne National Laboratory
This project looks at the potential of blending ethanol with natural gasoline to produce Flex-Fuels (ASTM D5798-13a) and high-octane, mid-level ethanol blends. Eight natural gasoline samples were collected from pipeline companies or ethanol producers around the United States.
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
The objective of this work was to measure knock resistance metrics for ethanol-hydrocarbon blends with a primary focus on development of methods to measure the heat of vaporization (HOV). Blends of ethanol at 10 to 50 volume percent were prepared with three gasoline blendstocks and a natural...
Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
High-octane fuels (HOFs) such as mid-level ethanol blends can be leveraged to design vehicles with increased engine efficiency, but producing these fuels at refineries may be subject to energy efficiency penalties. It has been questioned whether, on a well-to-wheels (WTW) basis, the use of HOFs in...
Organization: Argonne National Laboratory
The United States government has been promoting increased use of biofuels, including ethanol from non-food feedstocks, through policies contained in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The objective is to enhance energy security, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and provide...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
This report evaluates infrastructure implications for a high-octane fuel, i.e., a blend of 25% denatured ethanol and 75% gasoline (E25) or higher (E25+), for use with a new high-efficiency type of vehicle. E25+ is under consideration due to federal regulations requiring the use of more renewable...
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Fact Sheet for High Octane Fuels: Challenges & Opportunities
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory