Dataset Information

The water footprint of bioenergy.

ABSTRACT: All energy scenarios show a shift toward an increased percentage of renewable energy sources, including biomass. This study gives an overview of water footprints (WFs) of bioenergy from 12 crops that currently contribute the most to global agricultural production: barley, cassava, maize, potato, rapeseed, rice, rye, sorghum, soybean, sugar beet, sugar cane, and wheat. In addition, this study includes jatropha, a suitable energy crop. Since climate and production circumstances differ among regions, calculations have been performed by country. The WF of bioelectricity is smaller than that of biofuels because it is more efficient to use total biomass (e.g., for electricity or heat) than a fraction of the crop (its sugar, starch, or oil content) for biofuel. The WF of bioethanol appears to be smaller than that of biodiesel. For electricity, sugar beet, maize, and sugar cane are the most favorable crops [50 m(3)/gigajoule (GJ)]. Rapeseed and jatropha, typical energy crops, are disadvantageous (400 m(3)/GJ). For ethanol, sugar beet, and potato (60 and 100 m(3)/GJ) are the most advantageous, followed by sugar cane (110 m(3)/GJ); sorghum (400 m(3)/GJ) is the most unfavorable. For biodiesel, soybean and rapeseed show to be the most favorable WF (400 m(3)/GJ); jatropha has an adverse WF (600 m(3)/GJ). When expressed per L, the WF ranges from 1,400 to 20,000 L of water per L of biofuel. If a shift toward a greater contribution of bioenergy to energy supply takes place, the results of this study can be used to select the crops and countries that produce bioenergy in the most water-efficient way.

SUBMITTER: Gerbens-Leenes W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2690604 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The water footprint of bioenergy.

Gerbens-Leenes Winnie W Gerbens-Leenes Winnie W Hoekstra Arjen Y AY van der Meer Theo H TH

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20090603 25

All energy scenarios show a shift toward an increased percentage of renewable energy sources, including biomass. This study gives an overview of water footprints (WFs) of bioenergy from 12 crops that currently contribute the most to global agricultural production: barley, cassava, maize, potato, rapeseed, rice, rye, sorghum, soybean, sugar beet, sugar cane, and wheat. In addition, this study includes jatropha, a suitable energy crop. Since climate and production circumstances differ among region ...[more]

PMID: 19497862

Similar Datasets

Project description:Biomass gasification, especially distribution to power generation, is considered as a promising way to tackle global energy and environmental challenges. However, previous researches on integrated analysis of the greenhouse gases (GHG) abatement potentials associated with biomass electrification are sparse and few have taken the freshwater utilization into account within a coherent framework, though both energy and water scarcity are lying in the central concerns in China's environmental policy. This study employs a Life cycle assessment (LCA) model to analyse the actual performance combined with water footprint (WF) assessment methods. The inextricable trade-offs between three representative energy-producing technologies are explored based on three categories of non-food crops (maize, sorghum and hybrid pennisetum) cultivated in marginal arable land. WF results demonstrate that the Hybrid pennisetum system has the largest impact on the water resources whereas the other two technology options exhibit the characteristics of environmental sustainability. The large variances in contribution ratio between the four sub-processes in terms of total impacts are reflected by the LCA results. The Anaerobic Digestion process is found to be the main contributor whereas the Digestate management process is shown to be able to effectively mitigate the negative environmental impacts with an absolute share. Sensitivity analysis is implemented to detect the impacts of loss ratios variation, as silage mass and methane, on final results. The methane loss has the largest influence on the Hybrid pennisetum system, followed by the Maize system. Above all, the Sorghum system demonstrates the best performance amongst the considered assessment categories. Our study builds a pilot reference for further driving large-scale project of bioenergy production and conversion. The synergy of combined WF-LCA method allows us to conduct a comprehensive assessment and to provide insights into environmental and resource management.

Dataset Information

The water footprint of bioenergy.

Publications

The water footprint of bioenergy.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets