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Techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons

BACKGROUND: Ethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstocks (also known as 2nd generation or 2G ethanol process) presents a great potential for reducing both ethanol production costs and climate change impacts since agricultural residues and dedicated energy crops are used as feedstock. This stud...

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Autores principales: Junqueira, Tassia L., Chagas, Mateus F., Gouveia, Vera L. R., Rezende, Mylene C. A. F., Watanabe, Marcos D. B., Jesus, Charles D. F., Cavalett, Otavio, Milanez, Artur Y., Bonomi, Antonio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5348788/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28293288
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-017-0722-3
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author Junqueira, Tassia L.
Chagas, Mateus F.
Gouveia, Vera L. R.
Rezende, Mylene C. A. F.
Watanabe, Marcos D. B.
Jesus, Charles D. F.
Cavalett, Otavio
Milanez, Artur Y.
Bonomi, Antonio
author_facet Junqueira, Tassia L.
Chagas, Mateus F.
Gouveia, Vera L. R.
Rezende, Mylene C. A. F.
Watanabe, Marcos D. B.
Jesus, Charles D. F.
Cavalett, Otavio
Milanez, Artur Y.
Bonomi, Antonio
author_sort Junqueira, Tassia L.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Ethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstocks (also known as 2nd generation or 2G ethanol process) presents a great potential for reducing both ethanol production costs and climate change impacts since agricultural residues and dedicated energy crops are used as feedstock. This study aimed at the quantification of the economic and environmental impacts considering the current and future scenarios of sugarcane biorefineries taking into account not only the improvements of the industrial process but also of biomass production systems. Technology assumptions and scenarios setup were supported by main companies and stakeholders, involved in the lignocellulosic ethanol production chain from Brazil and abroad. For instance, scenarios considered higher efficiencies and lower residence times for pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation (including pentoses fermentation); higher sugarcane yields; and introduction of energy cane (a high fiber variety of cane). RESULTS: Ethanol production costs were estimated for different time horizons. In the short term, 2G ethanol presents higher costs compared to 1st generation (1G) ethanol. However, in the long term, 2G ethanol is more competitive, presenting remarkable lower production cost than 1G ethanol, even considering some uncertainties regarding technology and market aspects. In addition, environmental assessment showed that both 1G (in the medium and long term) and 2G ethanol can reduce climate change impacts by more than 80% when compared to gasoline. CONCLUSIONS: This work showed the great potential of 2G ethanol production in terms of economic and environmental aspects. These results can support new research programs and public policies designed to stimulate both production and consumption of 2G ethanol in Brazil, accelerating the path along the learning curve. Some examples of mechanisms include: incentives to the establishment of local equipment and enzyme suppliers; and specific funding programs for the development and use of energy cane. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13068-017-0722-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-53487882017-03-14 Techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons Junqueira, Tassia L. Chagas, Mateus F. Gouveia, Vera L. R. Rezende, Mylene C. A. F. Watanabe, Marcos D. B. Jesus, Charles D. F. Cavalett, Otavio Milanez, Artur Y. Bonomi, Antonio Biotechnol Biofuels Research BACKGROUND: Ethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstocks (also known as 2nd generation or 2G ethanol process) presents a great potential for reducing both ethanol production costs and climate change impacts since agricultural residues and dedicated energy crops are used as feedstock. This study aimed at the quantification of the economic and environmental impacts considering the current and future scenarios of sugarcane biorefineries taking into account not only the improvements of the industrial process but also of biomass production systems. Technology assumptions and scenarios setup were supported by main companies and stakeholders, involved in the lignocellulosic ethanol production chain from Brazil and abroad. For instance, scenarios considered higher efficiencies and lower residence times for pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation (including pentoses fermentation); higher sugarcane yields; and introduction of energy cane (a high fiber variety of cane). RESULTS: Ethanol production costs were estimated for different time horizons. In the short term, 2G ethanol presents higher costs compared to 1st generation (1G) ethanol. However, in the long term, 2G ethanol is more competitive, presenting remarkable lower production cost than 1G ethanol, even considering some uncertainties regarding technology and market aspects. In addition, environmental assessment showed that both 1G (in the medium and long term) and 2G ethanol can reduce climate change impacts by more than 80% when compared to gasoline. CONCLUSIONS: This work showed the great potential of 2G ethanol production in terms of economic and environmental aspects. These results can support new research programs and public policies designed to stimulate both production and consumption of 2G ethanol in Brazil, accelerating the path along the learning curve. Some examples of mechanisms include: incentives to the establishment of local equipment and enzyme suppliers; and specific funding programs for the development and use of energy cane. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13068-017-0722-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-03-14 /pmc/articles/PMC5348788/ /pubmed/28293288 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-017-0722-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Junqueira, Tassia L.
Chagas, Mateus F.
Gouveia, Vera L. R.
Rezende, Mylene C. A. F.
Watanabe, Marcos D. B.
Jesus, Charles D. F.
Cavalett, Otavio
Milanez, Artur Y.
Bonomi, Antonio
Techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons
title Techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons
title_full Techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons
title_fullStr Techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons
title_full_unstemmed Techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons
title_short Techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons
title_sort techno-economic analysis and climate change impacts of sugarcane biorefineries considering different time horizons
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5348788/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28293288
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-017-0722-3
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