Biofuel environmental benefits

High energy prices, increasing energy imports, concerns about petroleum supplies, and greater recognition of the environmental consequences of fossil fuels have driven interestin transportation biofuels. Determining whether alternative fuels provide benefits over the fossil fuels they displace requires thorough accounting of the direct and indirect inputs and outputs for their full production and use life cycles. Here we determine the net societal benefits of corn grain (Zea mays ssp. mays) ethanol and soybean (Glycine max) biodiesel, the two predominant U.S. alternative transportation fuels, relative to gasoline and diesel, the fossil fuels they displace in the market. We do so by using current, well supported public data on farm yields, commodity and fuel prices, farm energy and agrichemical inputs, production plant efficiencies, coproduct production, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and other environmental effects.

To be a viable substitute for a fossil fuel, an alternative fuel should not only have superior environmental benefits over the fossil fuel it displaces, be economically competitive with it, and be producible in sufficient quantities to make a meaningful impact on energy demands, but it should also provide a net energy gain over the energy sources used to produce it. We therefore analyze each biofuel industry, including farms and production facilities, as though it were an ‘‘island economy’’ that is a net energy exporter only if the energy value of the biofuel and its coproducts exceeds that of all direct and indirect energy inputs.

Biofuel production requires energy to grow crops and convert them to biofuels. We estimate farm energy use for producing corn and soybeans, including energy use for growing the hybrid or varietal seed planted to produce the crop, powering farm machinery, producing farm machinery and buildings, producing fertilizers and pesticides, and sustaining farmers and their house- holds. We also estimate the energy used in converting crops to biofuels, including energy use in transporting the crops to biofuel production facilities, building and operating biofuel production facilities, and sustaining production facility workers and their households.

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Biofuel environmental benefits