TY - JOUR
T1 - Life-cycle analysis and the ecology of biofuels
AU - Davis, Sarah C.
AU - Anderson-Teixeira, Kristina J.
AU - DeLucia, Evan H.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by the Energy Biosciences Institute and the Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL USA.
Copyright:
Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2009/3
Y1 - 2009/3
N2 - Biofuels have been proposed as an ecologically benign alternative to fossil fuels. There is, however, considerable uncertainty in the scientific literature about their ecological benefit. Here, we review studies that apply life-cycle analysis (LCA), a computational tool for assessing the efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of energy systems, to biofuel feedstocks. Published values for energy efficiency and GHG differ significantly even for an individual species, and we identify three major sources of variation in these LCA results. By providing new information on biogeochemistry and plant physiology, ecologists and plant scientists can increase the accuracy of LCA for biofuel production systems.
AB - Biofuels have been proposed as an ecologically benign alternative to fossil fuels. There is, however, considerable uncertainty in the scientific literature about their ecological benefit. Here, we review studies that apply life-cycle analysis (LCA), a computational tool for assessing the efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) impact of energy systems, to biofuel feedstocks. Published values for energy efficiency and GHG differ significantly even for an individual species, and we identify three major sources of variation in these LCA results. By providing new information on biogeochemistry and plant physiology, ecologists and plant scientists can increase the accuracy of LCA for biofuel production systems.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.tplants.2008.12.006
DO - 10.1016/j.tplants.2008.12.006
M3 - Review article
C2 - 19231273
AN - SCOPUS:61649116715
SN - 1360-1385
VL - 14
SP - 140
EP - 146
JO - Trends in Plant Science
JF - Trends in Plant Science
IS - 3
ER -