Recipient Organization
MICHIGAN STATE UNIV
(N/A)
EAST LANSING,MI 48824
Performing Department
Chemical Engineering
Non Technical Summary
Current global trajectories for food and energy production are unsustainable. There are currently over seven billion people on the planet and another two billion are expected in the next few decades. Therefore food production must expand significantly and soon. But current food production practices tend to deplete soil and degrade water supplies. Modern agriculture uses enormous quantities of fossil energy both directly and indirectly and is thereby a major greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter.If we expand land under cultivation to supply food, then biodiversity will be further undermined and additional GHGs will likely be released. Also, modern agriculture depends heavily on synthetic pesticides and herbicides with many resulting adverse effects. Thus agriculture must become much more environmentally sustainable and simultaneously greatly increase food output. This is a formidable challenge.Lack of energy access is at the root of human poverty, particularly poverty in rural areas. To provide energy services that will lift people from poverty we must also rapidly expand energy production. But about 85% of current energy use is based on fossil energy. If we expand energy production based on fossil energy resources, we will accelerate buildup of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Furthermore, if we rely on fossil fuels to provide energy services, we will commit scarce capital and other resources to a "dead end". Fossil fuel resources are depleting rapidly. They will soon be either too expensive to use and/or too environmentally-damaging to continue using as rapidly as we are.Instead we should be removing large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in stable forms. Fortunately for the "win-win" agroenergy scenarios described here, one such stable form of carbon is soil organic matter. Increased soil organic matter will also increase soil fertility, increase drought resilience and better retain mineral nutrients.Agriculture is an industry. Like other industries, agriculture must be financially healthy if it is to innovate and become more sustainable. But prices of crop commodities globally are at historically low levels and many farmers are going bankrupt. Thus agriculture must also become more economically sustainable, i.e., more profitable. How will agriculture innovate and become more sustainable if it cannot generate the required cash flow? Simply increasing production of traditional crops will not suffice; these markets are already saturated and further increasing crop production without other systemic changes will likely further depress crop prices.One important part of the answer is that agriculture can, should and must become a large, sustainable producer of energy as well as the driver for many positive environmental outcomes.Having multiple markets for agricultural products (e.g., food, feed and energy) will increase agricultural sector income, and, in some cases, will also reduce farm operating costs. By providing important environmental services, agriculture can also become more economically profitable and will enjoy a level of societal prestige that it does not currently enjoy, but that it badly needs.Our proposed solution is to identify "win-win" approaches that economically benefit agriculture and agricultural communities while simultaneously contributing to the solution of other large societal concerns. These concerns include: feeding a growing world population, providing large amounts of renewable, low-carbon energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing soil fertility, increasing wildlife habitat and improving water quality.This project is focusd around three specific research subtopics that my collaborators and I will pursue in the next five years. All three are centered on sustainable agriculture and integrate food/feed production with large scale, low carbon energy. All three are focused at the farm/local level and represent "win-win" opportunities for farmers to increase their income and while also improving their environmental performance. Data for the analysis are from our work and that of our collaborators; and, we will work together on the modeling, analysis and writing of the papers. Work on these three research topics will benefit the State of Michigan, the nation, and the world.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
50%
Developmental
50%
Goals / Objectives
Agriculture is an industry. Like other industries, agriculture must be financially healthy if it is to innovate and become more sustainable. But prices of crop commodities globally are at historically low levels and many farmers are going bankrupt. Thus agriculture must also become more economically sustainable, i.e., more profitable.How will agriculture innovate and become more sustainable if it cannot generate the required cash flow? Simply increasing production of traditional crops will not suffice; these markets are already saturated and further increasing crop production without other systemic changes will likely further depress crop prices. One important part of the answer is that agriculture can, should and must become a large, sustainable producer of energy as well as the driver for many positive environmental outcomes.Having multiple markets for agricultural products (e.g., food, feed and energy) will increase agricultural sector income, and, in some cases, will also reduce farm operating costs. By providing important environmental services, agriculture can also become more economically profitable and will enjoy a level of societal prestige that it does not currently enjoy, but that it badly needs.Our proposed solution is to identify "win-win" approaches that economically benefit agriculture and agricultural communities while simultaneously contributing to the solution of other large societal concerns. These concerns include: feeding a growing world population, providing large amounts of renewable, low carbon energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing soil fertility, increasing wildlife habitat and improving water quality.This project embraces three specific research topics that my collaborators and I will pursue in the next five years. All three are centered on sustainable agriculture and integrate food/feed production with large scale, low carbon energy. All three are focused at the farm/local level and represent "win-win" opportunities for farmers to increase their income and while also improving their environmental performance.Data for the analysis are largely supplied by my collaborators and by data previously obtained in my lab and published. All additional necessary laboratory and field work will be done by my collaborators. My role will be to participate in the modeling and help in writing the papers. Together we will explore how coproduction of food/feed/energy can simultaneously benefit farmers, society and the environment in three distinct areas.These three areas include: 1) Production of liquid biofuels in the U. S. Midwest and High Plains based on ammonia pretreatment of biomass in regional/local processing facilities called "depots" to produce both enhanced animal feeds and biofuel feedstocks, 2) incorporating ammonia pretreatments in existing sugarcane processing systems to upgrade cane leaf matter and/or bagasse, and 3) on-farm production of biogas from wastes and ensiled double crops to produce electricity and/or biomethane couple with recycle of digestate to sequester carbon and recycle nutrients.The State of Michigan, the nation, and the world will benefit from the knowledge and insights gained in this project.
Project Methods
The project proposal describes three specific research topics that my collaborators and I will pursue in the next five years. All three are centered on sustainable agriculture and integrate food/feed production with large scale, low carbon energy. All three are focused at the farm/local level and represent "win-win" opportunities for farmers to increase their income and while also improving their environmental performance. The first research topic is centered in the U.S., the second is centered in Brazil and the third is primarily focused in Italy and the European Union (EU). The methods employed in each of the three research topics will be briefly treated below.First research topic: U.S. Corn Belt and Great Plains. Agricultural data, including regional biomass yield and total biomass production, marginal land availability, agronomic inputs, and soil dynamics (e.g., soil organic carbon levels, nitrogen losses), are the key input parameters required to model these agroenergy systems. Using Department of Energy funding through the Bioenergy Research Centers program, we will be simultaneously working with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) to develop a plant-landscape model to estimate marginal land availability, its biomass productivity, and county-level environmental consequences and the results from this model will be used in the analysis. The detailed results will provide geographical distribution information of marginal lands in the Corn Belt and High Plains, regional biomass productivity (switchgrass, biomass sorghum, etc.), fertilizer consumption, fuel consumption, soil organic carbon changes, and soil nitrogen emissions.Annual and perennial grasses in those areas will be processed in depots along with corn stover. Corn stover is a feedstock in all the Midwestern agroenergy systems we consider. In previous GLBRC studies, we have done high resolution (56 x 56m) simulations for corn stover and winter rye in the Midwest. The high resolution data includes corn stover collection rate per acre, total acreages involved in the system, soil organic carbon level and soil nitrogen losses. The high resolution data for winter rye as a double crop are also available from previous GLBRC studies.The farm-gate prices of each biomass material will be estimated based on agronomic input costs, operating costs (e.g., planting, buying and applying fertilizer, harvesting, baling, labor, etc.), and land rental fees for marginal land. The rental fee for marginal land is equal to the rental fee for pasture land. In the depot-based decentralized system, farmers would receive economic benefits from selling the pretreated pellets at a farmer-owned depot facility; hence no profit is included in the farm-gate price.The locations of depots and their associated biorefineries greatly influence logistics costs and the resulting environmental impacts as well as the biorefinery sizes, with their attending economies of scale. Existing grain elevators in the Midwest are assumed to be the physical locations for depots, and biorefineries are co-located with coal-fired power plants adjacent large urban areas. Based on these assumptions, the depot locations will be determined based on the regional biomass production near 3000+ existing grain elevators. About 10-20 coal-fired power plants near large urban areas will be selected as biorefinery locations based on the populations within an 80-km radius of the coal-fired power plant.The process data, operational costs, and labor requirements for the depot processes will be obtained from the MSU AFEX Team (Dr. Bringi, Dr. Bals, Dr. Teymouri and Mr. Julian). The Aspen Plus model for the depot-based decentralized biorefinery will be used to estimate the mass and energy balances and the minimum ethanol selling price (MESP). Since the AFEX pretreatment process is decoupled from the biorefinery, the depot-based decentralized biorefinery consists of the following processes: pretreated pellet handling, on-site enzyme production, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation, distillation, cogeneration, and wastewater treatment. The Aspen Plus model also provides the labor requirement in the biorefinery.AFEX-treated biomass selling price and the minimum ethanol selling price (MESP) will be calculated by the discounted cash flow rate of return approach. The lifecycle GHG emissions are normalized to 1 MJ of fuel or to one acre of cropland, as an alternative basis. The system boundaries include biomass production, transportation of biomass from croplands to a depot, the depot, transportation of pretreated pellets, the decentralized biorefinery, avoided grid electricity by excess electricity production, and upstream processes (e.g., chemicals, fuels, etc.).GHG emissions associated with the depot and the depot-based decentralized biorefinery can be estimated from the process data. Excess electricity in the depot-based decentralized biorefinery is exported to the grid to displace the electricity in the state in which the biorefinery is located. The GHG emissions associated with the upstream processes (e.g., diesel, electricity and materials, etc.) are obtained from the U.S. life cycle inventory database. GHG emissions of the conventional (displaced by AFEX) animal feeds will be estimated based on our previous research.Economic factors, in particular the farm-gate price of cellulosic feedstock and its logistics costs, prevent some of biomass from being converted to ethanol fuel. That is, biorefineries will avoid processing high-priced or remote biomass in order to minimize their ethanol selling prices (or maximize their profits). The biorefinery size and life GHG emissions are determined based on supply chains which are established by minimizing ethanol selling price (MESP). MESP is a function of the biorefinery size and the pretreated pellet cost.Depots always supply pretreated pellets to a biorefinery in the highest energy demand area. The first supply chain will be established in the biorefinery located in the highest energy (gasoline) demand areas. The second supply chain will be established in the biorefinery located in the second highest energy demand areas and determined based on depots not participating in the first supply chain. The remaining biorefineries follow the same procedure for establishing the supply chains.The methods described above primarily relate to the application of the AFEX process in U.S.-based bioenergy systems producing ethanol in the Corn Belt and High Plains, and is integrated into our new project funded by the GLBRC. The GLBRC is not funding us to address anything connected with the AFEX process at the depot/farm level. Thus there is no "double-dipping".Second research topic: Integrating AFEX into the Brazilian ethanol/sugar cane system. The second application of AFEX in bionenergy systems will primarily provide data to our Brazilian collaborators, as described in the proposal. However, the project details will depend largely on their current institutional/national priorities when the work actually begins in mid-2019. Our primary contribution is to provide data on the AFEX process as described below. They will then use this data in their modeling efforts. We will jointly write the resulting papers.Third research topic: Integrating AFEX into the Italian biogas industry. In the third application, we primarily provide data to our Italian collaborators who will do most of the actual work of analysis and modeling. Like our Brazilian colleagues, our Italian collaborators will not finalize their work plans until late 2019 because these will be determined by whatever the economic and regulatory climate is at that time. (It is very much a moving target.) We will provide data on AFEX, and our collaborators will use these and other data in modeling the Italian situation. We will jointly write the resulting papers.