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High-yield maize with large net energy yield and small global warming intensity.

ABSTRACT: Addressing concerns about future food supply and climate change requires management practices that maximize productivity per unit of arable land while reducing negative environmental impact. On-farm data were evaluated to assess energy balance and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of irrigated maize in Nebraska that received large nitrogen (N) fertilizer (183 kg of N · ha(-1)) and irrigation water inputs (272 mm or 2,720 m(3) ha(-1)). Although energy inputs (30 GJ · ha(-1)) were larger than those reported for US maize systems in previous studies, irrigated maize in central Nebraska achieved higher grain and net energy yields (13.2 Mg · ha(-1) and 159 GJ · ha(-1), respectively) and lower GHG-emission intensity (231 kg of CO(2)e · Mg(-1) of grain). Greater input-use efficiencies, especially for N fertilizer, were responsible for better performance of these irrigated systems, compared with much lower-yielding, mostly rainfed maize systems in previous studies. Large variation in energy inputs and GHG emissions across irrigated fields in the present study resulted from differences in applied irrigation water amount and imbalances between applied N inputs and crop N demand, indicating potential to further improve environmental performance through better management of these inputs. Observed variation in N-use efficiency, at any level of applied N inputs, suggests that an N-balance approach may be more appropriate for estimating soil N(2)O emissions than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approach based on a fixed proportion of applied N. Negative correlation between GHG-emission intensity and net energy yield supports the proposition that achieving high yields, large positive energy balance, and low GHG emissions in intensive cropping systems are not conflicting goals.

SUBMITTER: Grassini P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3268318 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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High-yield maize with large net energy yield and small global warming intensity.

Grassini Patricio P Cassman Kenneth G KG

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20120109 4

Addressing concerns about future food supply and climate change requires management practices that maximize productivity per unit of arable land while reducing negative environmental impact. On-farm data were evaluated to assess energy balance and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of irrigated maize in Nebraska that received large nitrogen (N) fertilizer (183 kg of N · ha(-1)) and irrigation water inputs (272 mm or 2,720 m(3) ha(-1)). Although energy inputs (30 GJ · ha(-1)) were larger than those r ...[more]

PMID: 22232684

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Project description:Efforts to mitigate global warming are often justified through calculations of the economic damages that may occur absent mitigation. The earliest such damage estimates were speculative mathematical representations, but some more recent studies provide empirical estimates of damages on economic growth that accumulate over time and result in larger damages than those estimated previously. These heightened damage estimates have been used to suggest that limiting global warming this century to 1.5 °C avoids tens of trillions of 2010 US$ in damage to gross world product relative to limiting global warming to 2.0 °C. However, in order to estimate the net effect on gross world product, mitigation costs associated with decarbonizing the world's energy systems must be subtracted from the benefits of avoided damages. Here, we follow previous work to parameterize the aforementioned heightened damage estimates into a schematic global climate-economy model (DICE) so that they can be weighed against mainstream estimates of mitigation costs in a unified framework. We investigate the net effect of mitigation on gross world product through finite time horizons under a spectrum of exogenously defined levels of mitigation stringency. We find that even under heightened damage estimates, the additional mitigation costs of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C (relative to 2.0 °C) are higher than the additional avoided damages this century under most parameter combinations considered. Specifically, using our central parameter values, limiting global warming to 1.5 °C results in a net loss of gross world product of roughly forty trillion US$ relative to 2 °C and achieving either 1.5 °C or 2.0 °C require a net sacrifice of gross world product, relative to a no-mitigation case, though 2100 with a 3%/year discount rate. However, the benefits of more stringent mitigation accumulate over time and our calculations indicate that stabilizing warming at 1.5 °C or 2.0 °C by 2100 would eventually confer net benefits of thousands of trillions of US$ in gross world product by 2300. The results emphasize the temporal asymmetry between the costs of mitigation and benefits of avoided damages from climate change and thus the long timeframe for which climate change mitigation investment pays off.

Dataset Information

High-yield maize with large net energy yield and small global warming intensity.

Publications

High-yield maize with large net energy yield and small global warming intensity.

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