Annual Basis Carbon (ABC) Analysis of Biofuel Production at the Facility Level
dc.contributor.author | DeCicco, John | |
dc.contributor.author | Krishnan, Rashmi | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2015-08-13T04:15:29Z | |
dc.date.available | 2015-08-13T04:15:29Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2015-08-12 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/113068 | |
dc.description.abstract | Liquid biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are considered important renewable replacements for petroleum fuels such as gasoline and diesel. Biomass-based energy carriers are traditionally treated as inherently carbon neutral, so that only the fossil-based carbon dioxide (CO2) and other non-CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with their production are counted when assessing their global warming impact. This accounting convention is embedded by construction in lifecycle assessment (LCA) models, which on a direct basis (i.e., excluding economically induced effects) often find that biofuels from efficient industrial agricultural production systems reduce GHG emissions relative to their fossil fuel counterparts. LCA modeling can be subjected to an independent empirical test that bounds a biofuel's potential GHG reduction within the dynamics of the terrestrial carbon cycle. Such a test can be performed using annual basis carbon (ABC) accounting, which entails spatially and temporally explicit analysis of the direct GHG exchanges between the atmosphere and a physical vehicle-fuel system. An ABC case study of a corn ethanol biorefinery and the farmland that supplies it shows that using the ethanol it produced instead of gasoline provided no significant reduction in GHG emissions, in contrast to an LCA result that found a 40% GHG reduction for the same facility. ABC accounting reveals that the renewable ethanol so produced was not carbon neutral when substituting for gasoline, and sensitivity analysis indicates that its net GHG emissions impacts are likely to higher than those of petroleum gasoline in practice. | en_US |
dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
dc.subject | energy, climate, policy, biofuels, carbon, fuels, transportation, ethanol, gasoline, renewable | en_US |
dc.title | Annual Basis Carbon (ABC) Analysis of Biofuel Production at the Facility Level | en_US |
dc.type | Technical Report | en_US |
dc.subject.hlbsecondlevel | Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences | |
dc.subject.hlbtoplevel | Engineering | |
dc.contributor.affiliationum | Energy Institute | en_US |
dc.contributor.affiliationum | SNRE | en_US |
dc.contributor.affiliationumcampus | Ann Arbor | en_US |
dc.description.bitstreamurl | http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113068/1/ABC-Facility-Level-Analysis-2015.pdf | |
dc.identifier.orcid | orcid.org/0000-0003-4923-1398 | en_US |
dc.description.filedescription | Description of ABC-Facility-Level-Analysis-2015.pdf : Report | |
dc.identifier.name-orcid | DeCicco, John; 0000-0003-4923-1398 | en_US |
dc.owningcollname | Energy Institute (formerly the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project) |
Files in this item
Remediation of Harmful Language
The University of Michigan Library aims to describe library materials in a way that respects the people and communities who create, use, and are represented in our collections. Report harmful or offensive language in catalog records, finding aids, or elsewhere in our collections anonymously through our metadata feedback form. More information at Remediation of Harmful Language.
Accessibility
If you are unable to use this file in its current format, please select the Contact Us link and we can modify it to make it more accessible to you.