A cost-coupled life cycle environmental assessment was implemented to estimate the economic and environmental impact of corn stalk-based ethanol production. Corn-based ethanol production is used as a control group in this study. For both scenarios, the effects of respiratory inorganics, global warming, and non-renewable energy categories have important contributions to the overall environmental impact related to chemical production, coal-based energy generation, or diesel consumption for road transport stages. Corn stalk-based ethanol production is environmentally friendlier than corn-based ethanol production in the dominant categories of respiratory inorganics, global warming, non-renewable energy, carcinogens, land occupation, and terrestrial acidification/nutrification. However, producing corn stalk-based ethanol production is uneconomical because of the relatively high cost of enzymes. In addition, increasing corn stalk consumption efficiencies, decreasing stalk transport distances, and electing natural gas-fired energy-generation (e.g., electricity, steam) technologies are highly recommended for reducing adverse environment or economic effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Journal of Renewable & Sustainable Energy is the property of American Institute of Physics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)