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Selected Works of Andy VanLoocke
Article
Impacts of Second-Generation Biofuel Feedstock Production in the Central U.S. on the Hydrologic Cycle and Global Warming Mitigation Potential
Geophysical Research Letters
  • K. J. Harding, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  • T. E. Twine, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  • Andy VanLoocke, Iowa State University
  • J. E. Bagley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • J. Hill, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
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Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
10-28-2016
DOI
10.1002/2016GL069981
Abstract

Biofuel feedstocks provide a renewable energy source that can reduce fossil fuel emissions; however, if produced on a large scale they can also impact local to regional water and carbon budgets. Simulation results for 2005–2014 from a regional weather model adapted to simulate the growth of two perennial grass biofuel feedstocks suggest that replacing at least half the current annual cropland with these grasses would increase water use efficiency and drive greater rainfall downwind of perturbed grid cells, but increased evapotranspiration (ET) might switch the Mississippi River basin from having a net warm-season surplus of water (precipitation minus ET) to a net deficit. While this scenario reduces land required for biofuel feedstock production relative to current use for maize grain ethanol production, it only offsets approximately one decade of projected anthropogenic warming and increased water vapor results in greater atmospheric heat content.

Comments

This article is from Geophysical Research Letters 43 (2016): 10,773, doi: 10.1002/2016GL069981. Posted with permission.

Rights
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Copyright Owner
The Authors
Copyright Date
2016
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Citation Information
K. J. Harding, T. E. Twine, Andy VanLoocke, J. E. Bagley, et al.. "Impacts of Second-Generation Biofuel Feedstock Production in the Central U.S. on the Hydrologic Cycle and Global Warming Mitigation Potential" Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 43 Iss. 20 (2016) p. 10,773 - 10,781
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/andy_vanloocke/22/