Comparative study of life cycle environmental and economic impact of corn- and corn stalk-based-ethanol production

Abstract

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.