Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 2112–2117

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Bioresource Technology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech

Case Study

An analysis of net energy production and feedstock availability for biobutanol

and bioethanol
Jeffrey Swana a, Ying Yang a, Mohsen Behnam b, Robert Thompson b,⇑
a
Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center at Gateway Park, 60 Prescott Street, Worcester, MA 01605, USA
b
Department of Chemical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Goddard Hall, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, the potential of biobutanol was evaluated as an alternative to bioethanol which is currently
Received 21 May 2010 the predominant liquid biofuel in the US. Life-cycle assessments (LCAs) suggest that the net energy gen-
Received in revised form 13 August 2010 erated during corn-to-biobutanol conversion is 6.53 MJ/L, which is greater than that of the corn-derived
Accepted 16 August 2010
bioethanol (0.40 MJ/L). Additionally, replacing corn with lignocellulosic materials in bioethanol produc-
Available online 24 August 2010
tion can further increase the net energy to 15.90 MJ/L. Therefore, it was interesting to study the possibil-
ity of using domestically produced switchgrass, hybrid poplar, corn stover, and wheat straw as feedstocks
Keywords:
to produce liquid biofuels in the US. By sustainable harvest based on current yields, these materials can
Biobutanol
Bioethanol
be converted to 8.27 billion gallons of biobutanol replacing 7.55 billion gallons of gasoline annually. To
Biofuels further expand the scale, significant crop yield increases and appropriate land use changes are considered
Biomass feedstock two major requirements.
Land utilization Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction There are several options for alternative transportation fuels in

The United States has relied on petroleum as a cheap and abun-
dant fuel source since the early 20th century, but petroleum has
two key attributes that have led to a significant interest in develop-
ing alternatives. First, the earth’s natural carbon cycle has kept CO2
levels relatively stable for thousands of years (Alley et al., 2007).
However, the carbon cycle is now being disrupted by human activ-
ities like burning large quantities of petroleum and coal, resulting
in a net increase in atmospheric CO2 and allegedly increasing aver-
age global temperatures (Plass, 1959; Alley et al., 2007). The sec-
ond attribute is more generally accepted, which is that
petroleum is a finite resource and eventually will be depleted
(Bentley, 2002). When the supply will begin to run out is unknown,
but most likely it will begin to be consumed more than is produced
within the next few decades (Hirsch et al., 2006; Alley et al., 2007).
There is a possibility for exploiting other potential petroleum re-
serves in the Alaskan frontier or Siberia, as well as developing tech-
nologies to convert vast amounts of oil shale into usable fuel.
However, these fuel sources lie primarily in areas of ecological
importance which poses questions of conservation versus con-
sumption. What has become apparent by these facts is the need
for a shift towards sustainability, given our increasing consump-
tion patterns.
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 508 831 5525; fax: +1 508 831 5853.
E-mail address: rwt@wpi.edu (R. Thompson).
this country, but biofuels provide the smoothest transition to a
sustainable transportation sector. The transportation infrastruc-
ture of the US is largely based on liquid-fueled vehicles allowing
individuals to travel freely. The transportation technologies avail-
able which might reduce our cumulative carbon footprint include:
fuel cells, electrics and hybrid electrics, compressed gasses (hydro-
gen/propane/natural gas), and biofuels. Of these, biofuels are the
only option currently being implemented on a large scale through
the blending of ethanol into the gasoline supply and biodiesel into
traditional diesel. The reason for the more immediate impact of
biofuels is due to the reliance of vehicles on internal combustion
engines. Ultimately, a diverse portfolio of several alternative ener-
gies will be necessary, but large scale use of other technologies
would take longer to implement than it would for biofuels. The
US government has recognized this potential, and developed poli-
cies to advance biofuel production and consumption in this coun-
try. In 2007, the US Congress passed the Energy Independence and
Security Act (EISA 2007), which calls for the annual production of
36 billion gallons of biofuels by the year 2022. While this act pro-
vides a set of goals for the future, achieving these goals may be an-
other issue.
In keeping with the argument of rapid implementation into our
current transportation infrastructure, biobutanol has significant
advantages compared to bioethanol as a liquid fuel. While bioeth-
anol has been more broadly implemented, this is partially because
of the maturity of the process, along with the current needs for

0960-8524/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2010.08.051
 J. Swana et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 2112–2117
alternative fuels. Ethanol has been made from grain crops for mil-
lennia, and ethanol fermentation is the most mature biotechnolog-
ical process known (Maksoud et al., 1994); therefore, its large scale
integration into our transportation sector was logical. However,
there are a number of disadvantages associated with bioethanol
as a fuel.
Ethanol can only be effectively blended with gasoline at a level
of 10% for use in conventional internal combustion engines (Som-
erville, 2007). Since ethanol has a much higher octane level than
gasoline, engine modifications are required if the proportion of
ethanol reaches beyond 10% in traditional gasoline. Flex fuel vehi-
cles and alternative engines are available that address these prob-
lems, but their adoption will require substantial transition time
(Somerville, 2007). Another issue with ethanol is the transporta-
tion of the gasoline-ethanol blend to gas stations, since existing
pipelines cannot carry gasoline-ethanol blends due to ethanol’s
high miscibility with water. The current method for transporting
the ethanol gasoline mix is by tanker trucks directly to refilling sta-
tions, which further increases the cost for bioethanol production.
On the other hand, butanol can be blended to any concentration
with gasoline for use in modern internal combustion engines
(Ramey and Yang, 2004). In addition, butanol can be transported
in the existing pipeline infrastructure. Compared with gasoline
which has a low heating value (LHV) of 32.3 MJ/L, the LHV of
ethanol is 21.3 MJ/L which equates to a 34% loss in energy density
when using ethanol in place of gasoline. However, the LHV of buta-
nol is 27.8 MJ/L, or almost 90% of the energy density of gasoline
(Wu et al., 2008). Besides, butanol has a higher density and lower
vapor pressure than both ethanol and gasoline, which results in
lower levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) generated
during handling (Dürre, 2008). Therefore, it is clear that butanol
has several advantages over ethanol as an alternative liquid fuel.
An overall comparison between non-renewable energy input
and output for both biobutanol and bioethanol production is nec-
essary in order to support the preference for using biobutanol. Be-
sides this, it is important to further investigate the availability of
domestic biomass resources capable of being converted to those
biofuels.
Therefore, the objectives of this study were (1) to evaluate the
production of biobutanol compared to bioethanol from appropriate
feedstocks through a life-cycle assessment (LCA), and (2) to esti-
mate the amount of biofuels that can be reasonably produced using
the lignocellulosic resources available in the US. Suggestions were
made on the potential scale-up of biofuel production.
2. Methods
2.1. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) for biobutanol and bioethanol
production
The non-renewable energy requirements for ethanol from
either corn or lignocellulosic feedstocks were evaluated along
with the requirement for corn-based butanol production. In order
to determine the non-renewable energy investment involved in
feedstock growth, fertilization, harvesting and transport for both
lignocelluloses and corn grains, values reported in Hammerschlag
(2006) were assessed and used in this study. Energy require-
ments for ethanol fermentation were also obtained from the val-
ues presented in Hammerschlag (2006). In terms of butanol
fermentation, the energy requirements were interpreted as pre-
sented by Wu et al. (2008). Two different processes were ana-
lyzed in terms of butanol purification after fermentation. The
first being the traditional production of ABE, resulting in purified
acetone, butanol, and ethanol after distillation and other process-
ing steps. The second resulted in only the purification of butanol,
2113
where only one distillation column was run resulting in a purifi-
cation of butanol from the product stream but discarding ethanol
and acetone as waste products. Transportation of the fuel prod-
ucts to supplier was not considered as the non-renewable energy
required for transportation of butanol has yet to be determined;
therefore for both major end-products (ethanol and butanol),
only the process from ‘‘well-to-product” instead of ‘‘well-to-
wheel” was evaluated. All energy values were presented in MJ
per liter of product.
To assess the net energy return, the amount of energy present in
one liter of purified product (reported in MJ/L) was taken into ac-
count. For pure ethanol and butanol, the energy density is dis-
cussed as the LHV for reasons which have been previously
discussed (Akinci et al., 2008). The LHV provides the output of en-
ergy contained in 1 liter of fuel (energy output). For the traditional
ABE fermentation in which three products were involved, the en-
ergy density was calculated by adding the energy present in 1 liter
of butanol and then determining the volume of ethanol and ace-
tone which would be co-produced and adding the energy value
associated with those calculated volumes. When considering the
non-renewable energy required for butanol production, initially
only the amount of corn-grain required to produce 1 liter of buta-
nol was taken into account, but along with this fermentation ace-
tone and ethanol were also produced in quantities which have
been defined by Wu et al. (2008) so their LHVs were added to
the ‘‘total LHV” of the ABE fermentation. The calculation of ‘‘net en-
ergy return” was a simple subtraction of the amount of energy re-
quired to produce 1 liter of fuel from the energy density (LHV) of
each fuel.
2.2. Evaluation of the domestic biomass availability for biofuel
production
Four representative high-yield domestic lignocelluloses were
chosen in order to estimate the potential of using lignocellulosic
biomass as the feedstock for biofuel production. The composition
of each feedstock was obtained from the Biomass Feedstock Com-
position and Property Database (http://www.afdc.energy.gov/
biomass/progs/search1.cgi). Planting areas and yields were deter-
mined either from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics
Services (http://www.nass.usda.gov/index.asp) or from the estimates
based on the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP FY,
2007 Annual Summary). The estimated biofuel production
potential was compared with those scenarios published in the
Billion-ton biomass report given by DOE and USDA (Perlack et al.,
2005) for further analysis.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Biobutanol production and the life-cycle assessment
Overall, the only difference between bioethanol and biobutanol
production lies in the final fermentation step. Once harvested and
properly pretreated, the raw materials are hydrolyzed to release
reducing sugars from the biomass matrix, and then exposed to spe-
cific microbial organisms which anaerobically consume the reduc-
ing sugars to produce desired alcohols. Saccharomyces cerevisiae
and Clostridium acetobutylicum appear to be the most commonly
used species for bioethanol and biobutanol production respectively
(Weber et al., 2010). That is not to say that these are the only two
microbes being researched for their respective products; Z. mobilis,
P. stipitis, Clostridium beijerinckii, and Escherichia coli are all cur-
rently being studied among many others for biofuel production
from sugar source. While ethanol fermentation by S. cerevisiae
results in high ethanol yield with little co-product formation,
2114 J. Swana et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 2112–2117
Clostridium strains produce a mixture of fermentation products
composed of acetone, butanol and ethanol at a ratio of 3:6:1, which
is normally recognized as ABE fermentation. Though the productiv-
ity of butanol fermentation has been improved over years (Qureshi
and Ezeji, 2008), the complexity of the fermentation products
inevitably brings new challenges in downstream processing.
One primary focus of this study was to analyze the life-cycles of
corn-based ethanol production by S. cerevisiae and butanol produc-
tion by C. acetobutylicum. The life-cycle analyses discussed further
take into consideration the energy requirements from ‘‘well-to-
product”; that is, from the production of the biomass feedstock
used in fermentation all the way to the resulting purified fermen-
tation product. The reason for not considering these fuels in a
‘‘well-to-wheels” (WtW) life-cycle is due to the lack of information
provided in transporting butanol as a liquid fuel, though it should
be pointed out that transportation of butanol will require less non-
renewable energy input than would ethanol due to the ability for
transport through existing pipeline infrastructure as compared to
ethanol transport which requires more intricate methods (Keasling
and Chou, 2008).
Basically, the non-renewable energy investment and the energy
output generated by fuel consumption were compared in this
study. Life-cycle assessments (LCAs) have been applied to corn
grain-to-ethanol as well as lignocelluloses-to-ethanol conversions
(Hammerschlag, 2006; Davis et al., 2009). However, there is only
one published LCA that considered butanol production from corn
(none for butanol made from lignocellulosic materials) based on
a simulation of a biobutanol plant scaled up from small scale fer-
mentations (Wu et al., 2008). In that study, the authors used their
own simulated butanol plant to complete a LCA on the corn-to-
butanol process and compared it to the corn-to-ethanol process
using the GREET model generated by Argonne National Laboratory.
From an energy perspective they found that ethanol is a more
energetically favorable fuel to produce than butanol, a result
inconsistent with the analysis of Akinci et al. (2008). This may sug-
gest that development is still needed in biobutanol production,
considering its advantages as a fuel over ethanol (Akinci et al.,
2008).
The process modeled by Wu et al. (2008) was followed in this
study to determine the energy input necessary for the ABE fermen-
tation process. After harvest and transport, the corn grain under-
goes a standard dry-milling process as for that of bioethanol
where high temperatures, mechanical shearing, and enzymes gen-
erate glucose monomers providing feed for the remaining steps.
The feed is added batch-wise and the fermentation products un-
dergo gas stripping which has been shown to improve product
recovery. The products from gas stripping are introduced to three
Fig. 1. Process flow sheet from butanol fermentation to downstream processing (modified from Wu et al. 2008). Shown is the fermentation and processing of corn grain
feedstocks into different fuel types.
successive distillations producing butanol, acetone, and dilute eth-
anol respectively. Ethanol can only be distilled to a certain concen-
tration due to the formation of an azeotrope with water and can be
further purified using a molecular sieve (Wu et al., 2008). This en-
tire downstream process of ABE fermentation is outlined in Fig. 1.
Considering that the planting, cultivation (including fertiliza-
tion), harvest, and transport of the feedstock (corn) should require
the same energy inputs for both ethanol and butanol production,
we used the review published by Hammerschlag (2006), which in-
cluded a number of different LCAs on bioethanol from various
authors, and normalized the energy inputs for the various stages
of production. Our calculations involved averaging energy invest-
ments needed for the agricultural and transportation aspects of
the process and adding that to the energy required for the fermen-
tation process provided by Wu et al. (2008) model . The combina-
tion of these numbers allowed us to estimate the total energy input
for biobutanol from corn and compare that to what has been re-
ported for bioethanol from corn. Besides butanol production alone
(Fig. 1 steps 1–3), an energy balance of the entire acetone-butanol-
ethanol (ABE) production (Fig. 1 steps 1–7) has also been calcu-
lated as shown in Table 1. There is insufficient information about
the conversion of lignocellulosic sources to butanol through fer-
mentation to complete an LCA for that specific process (Qureshi
et al., 2007). However, a number of LCAs on the lignocellulose-
to-ethanol production was included in Hammerschlag (2006) and
those corresponding values were averaged in this study, excluding
those of Pimental & Patzek which were vastly different from the
others. Those lignocellulose-based results are also presented in
Table 1.
The ABE fermentation process results in the production of three
products – acetone, butanol and ethanol, but not all of these need
to be purified downstream of the fermentation step. If only the en-
ergy required for butanol distillation was considered, this results in
the greatest net energy return using corn-grain as a feedstock
(6.53 MJ/L gained). The decrease in energy investment in butanol
production compared with ABE is probably due to the fact that
recovering butanol alone avoids dealing with the azeotrope forma-
tion between ethanol and water which requires tremendous en-
ergy for separation. Comparatively, the net energy return
associated with corn-to-ethanol conversion only results in an en-
ergy return of 0.4 MJ/L, after an input of ca. 21 MJ/L, and, thus, is
essentially an energy-neutral process.
Here the net energy production presented was associated with a
specific case for biobutanol as the literature documenting the en-
ergy requirements for ABE fermentation is lacking. In this regard
changes to steps in the process including strain selection, fermen-
tation and downstream processing optimization will affect the
 J. Swana et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 2112–2117 2115

Table 1
Net energy returns for different fuel mixture products (MJ/L).

Agriculturea Feedstock transporta Process Total Fuel energy density Net energy return
ABE 5.62 0.50 32.23 38.35 41.34 2.99
BtOH 5.62 0.50 15.15 21.27 27.80 6.53
EtOH (corn) 5.62 0.50 14.78 20.90 21.30 0.40
EtOH (lign.) 2.63 0.73 2.03 5.40 21.30 15.90

Note: Each fuel production process corresponds to different steps in Fig. 1. ABE – steps 1–7, BtOH – steps 1–3. All values correspond to energy input in MJ per liter of fuel(s)
produced. Net energy return is calculated by the difference between the total energy used during fuel production (in MJ consumed per L fuel produced) and the energy
density of the fuel produced.
a
Estimated from Hammerschlag (2006).

overall results presented here. It should be noted that at least in
terms of net energy production for ethanol, our values correspond
with more recent reviews (Davis et al., 2009).
When comparing the corn-based ethanol process to the ligno-
cellulosic-based ethanol, it is strikingly apparent that the latter
one shows a significant increase in the net energy produced. This
is largely due to the use of lignin as a fuel source to power the fer-
mentation and processing steps (Hammerschlag, 2006; Akinci
et al., 2008). Interestingly, there is an excess of energy produced
in the combustion of this lignin and this energy can be converted
to electricity for use in the grid, although the electricity produced
in this process is not included in this review (Hammerschlag,
2006). Similarly, our results indicate that the net energy produc-
tion of butanol using lignocellulosic material may have a larger
net energy balance than ethanol if only butanol is purified from
the fermentation product stream (essentially without purifying
ethanol or acetone). Companies have realized the intense energy
requirement in purification of product streams and have developed
novel technologies in purification which allow for efficient (and
cheap) production of butanol from abundant feedstocks (http://
www.technologyreview.com/business/21602/). In this regard it is
important to understand the availability of lignocellulosic material
within this country. The following section highlights the realistic
production capacity of lignocelluloses-based biofuels in the United
States.
3.2. Biomass resources
3.2.1. Current biofuel production potential of four major domestic
lignocelluloses
Various biomass sources have been used for biofuel production,
and currently the lignocelluloses are considered the most promis-
ing feedstocks, due to their abundance in nature and its richness in
cellulose (which does not directly interfere with the food supply).
However, challenges for lignocellulose-to-biofuel conversion still
exist because cellulose, different from starch, is a polysaccharide
closely interacting with both hemicelluloses and lignin in the plant
cell wall complex, and the hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose re-
quires significant investment of energy compared to starch-to-glu-
Table 2
Major components of four lignocelluloses for biofuels (Biomass Feedstock Composi-
tion and Property Database, 2009).
Percent composition Switchgrass Hybrid Corn
poplar stover
Cellulose 35 42 36
Hemicellulose 26 21 25
Extractives 14 2 6
Ash 6 1 11
Total lignin 17 25 18
Uronic acids 2 3 3 2
cose digestion. Four representative lignocelluloses, summarized in
Table 2, are discussed as potential biofuel feedstocks in this report.
Cellulose content is of upmost interest as current technology
promotes the fermentation of hexoses, mostly glucose, to liquid
fuels like ethanol and butanol (Davis et al., 2009). Hemicellulose,
on the other hand, is a polysaccharide mainly composed of pen-
toses which are not usually consumed by microorganisms to pro-
duce biofuels (Van Vleet and Jeffries, 2009). Before breaking
down cellulose to glucose through hydrolysis, pretreatment of
the lignocellulosic material is usually required to separate and re-
move the barriers created by hemicellulose, lignin, and other com-
ponents from the cellulose substrate (Foyle et al., 2007).
Besides biomass composition, yield is another decisive factor to
evaluate the feasibility of a feedstock for biofuel production (Bush
et al., 2001). Ragauskas et al. (2006) concluded that the successful
scale-up of biomass-to-biofuel processes depends on stable
expression of desired physical and chemical traits of each biomass
selected, and sustainable biofuel production requires a two-fold in-
crease of current biomass yield per unit area (Ragauskas et al.,
2006).
Switchgrass is a perennial plant and promising energy crop
which has been reported to reach 30% full yield potential (about
2 tons/acre) in the first year after planting, then 70% (about 5
tons/acre) and 100% (about 7 tons/acre) for the second and third
years afterwards, respectively (Garland, 2008). Here, the average
annual productivity is conservatively estimated to be 5 tons/acre
in further calculations, though some well established cultures in
the Southeastern United States can provide a higher yield (Rine-
hart, 2006). For hybrid poplar, which is a fast-growing hardwood
tree with 3–5 feet elongation every year, the annual productivity
is estimated to be 10 dry ton/acre (Yokoyama and Tahara, 2001;
Michigan Biomass Energy Program, 2002). The estimation of plant-
ing areas for switchgrass and poplar is based on the Summary and
Enrollment Statistics of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
released by the USDA (CRP FY, 2007 Annual Summary). It is as-
sumed that for switchgrass the total acreage is composed of lands
assigned by three conservation practices (CPs) namely ‘CP1 new
introduced grasses and legumes’, ‘CP2 new native grasses’ and
‘CP10 existing grasses and legumes’. The total acreage for poplar
is calculated by including another three CPs: ‘CP3A new hardwood
trees’, ‘CP11 existing trees’ and ‘CP32 hardwood trees previous ex-
pired’ (for more details, refer to page 23 of the Summary and
Enrollment Statistics of CRP for fiscal year 2007). Therefore, the
planting areas for switchgrass and poplar are estimated to be
25.8 and 1.6 million acres, respectively (Table 3).
Wheat
According to data released by the USDA’s National Agricultural
straw Statistics Service (http://www.nass.usda.gov/index.asp), the aver-
32
age harvested areas (from 2005 to 2009) nationwide for corn and
23 wheat were 78.1 and 50.7 million acres, respectively. The average
13 yield was 153 bushel/acre (3.89 ton/acre) for corn and 42 bushel/
10 acre (1.14 ton/acre) for wheat in these consecutive five years. It
17
is assumed that the harvest index (harvest index, R = X/(X + S), X:
grain yield; S: stover or straw weight at maturity of the crop) for
2116 J. Swana et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 2112–2117

Table 3
The possible annual yields of ethanol and butanol using the four lignocelluloses as feedstock (areas for switchgrass and poplar are based on the cumulative acres under different
conservation practices shown in the CRP Summary and Enrollment Statistics released by USDA in 2007 (CRP FY, 2007 Annual Summary); areas for corn stover and wheat straw are
based on the information provided by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service for five consecutive years 2005–2009 (USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service)).

Area Yield (dry %Removal %Cellulose %Cellulose maintained %Glucose yield %EtOH Ethanol %BuOH Butanol
(million ton/acre) rate after pretreatmenta in hydrolysisb fermentation (billion fermentation (billion
acres) yieldc gallon) yieldd gallon)
Switchgrass 25.8 5 100 35 90 80 51 5.55 42 4.45
Poplar 1.6 10 100 42 90 80 51 0.83 42 0.66
Corn stover 78.1 3.89 25e 36 90 80 51 3.36 42 2.70
75f 10.08 8.10
Wheat straw 50.7 1.14 25e 32 90 80 51 0.57 42 0.46
75f 1.71 1.38
a
It is assumed that 90% of the cellulose is maintained after pretreatment which mainly aims at removing hemicellulose and lignin from the biomass complex (Lloyd and
Wyman, 2005; Sun and Cheng, 2005). Also it is assumed that the strain used in fermentation can only consume hexose but not pentose.
b
In industrial scale, acid hydrolysis instead of enzymatic hydrolysis is used and has been reported to reach above 80% saccharification yield by bench scale experiments
(Torget et al., 1997).
c
According to the ethanol fermentation reaction: C6 H12 O6 ! 2C2 H5 OH þ 2CO2 , theoretical EtOH fermentation yield = 2 MðC2 H5 OHÞ=MðC6 H1 2O6 Þ = 0.51.
d
Source (Qureshi and Blaschek, 1999).
e
Suggested sustainable removal rate of agricultural residues.
f
Possible full removal rate of agricultural residues.

Table 4
The ethanol or butanol production potential of the four representative lignocelluloses from lands available (CRP lands are included in Scenarios 2 and 3 but not Scenario 1). These
Scenarios were originally presented in the Billion-ton biomass report (Perlack et al., 2005).

Scenario 1a Scenario 2 (moderate)b Scenario 2 (high)c Scenario 3 (moderate)d Scenario 3 (high)e

Million dry tons/year
Corn stover 74.8 169.7 256.1 169.7 256.1
Wheat straw Wheat-winter 8.8 27.4 44.9 27.4 40.9
Wheat-spring 2.2 7.4 12.2 7.4 10.9
Switchgrass Grasses (CRP) 0.0 25.4 25.4 15.4 15.4
Perennials 0.0 0.0 0.0 146.5 368.3
Poplar Trees (CRP) 0.0 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2
Wood fiber 0.2 0.2 0.2 9.2 9.2
Billion gallon biofuel produced
Ethanol or 7.4 10.0 14.6 16.2 30.1
Butanol 6.1 8.2 12.0 13.3 24.8
a
Current availability of biomass from agricultural lands – baseline summary. Biomass on CRP lands is not included in Scenario 1.
b
Biomass from agricultural lands under moderate crop yield increase without land use change. Biomass on CRP lands has been taken into account for Scenarios 2 and 3.
c
Biomass from agricultural lands under high crop yield increase without land use change.
d
Biomass from agricultural lands under moderate crop yield increase with land use change (mainly the re-allocation of agricultural lands for perennial grass establishment,
same with (e)).
e
Biomass from agricultural lands under high crop yield increase with land use change.

both corn and wheat is 50% (Sawyer and Mallarino, 2007; Engel
et al., 2003). Therefore, the potential yield of corn stover is 3.89
ton/acre and wheat straw being 1.14 ton/acre. Different from her-
baceous and woody crops, the removal rate of agricultural residues
is constrained by considerations of maintaining the quality of the
farm lands without causing erosion problems. Further, if high soil
fertility and productivity are targeted, the removal rate of agricul-
tural residues should be even less. According to the study con-
ducted by Blanco-Canqui and Lal (2009), the suggested stover
removal rate is as low as 25% beyond which soil fertility and struc-
tural stability will be negatively affected. On the other hand, under
current technology limits, no more than 75% of the corn stover can
be collected during machine harvest (Montross et al., 2002). There-
fore, in the following calculations, 25% and 75% are presented as
the lower and upper bounds for the removal rate of corn stover
and wheat straw residues.
Based on the information collected, the possible yield of either
ethanol or butanol can be obtained under the assumption that all
the four representative lignocelluloses harvested in the United
States are devoted to ethanol or butanol production. The overall
annual yield of each feedstock shown in Table 3 was calculated
by multiplying the yield per unit area with the corresponding esti-
mated planting areas mentioned above. By sustainable harvest
(25% removal of the agricultural residues), 10.31 billion gallons
of ethanol or 8.27 billion gallons of butanol can be produced, which
could replace 6.97 or 7.55 billion gallons of gasoline, respectively,
based on their energy densities (BTU/Gallon). Compared with the
target of 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels by 20221, a signif-
icant gap still exists if current yields and land use are taken into
account.
3.2.2. The feasibility of biofuel production from a billion-ton annual
biomass supply
According to the Billion-ton biomass report given by DOE and
USDA (Perlack et al., 2005), three scenarios are available to assess
the biomass yield potential from agricultural lands in the United
States before and after the implementation of new technology,
introduction of perennial crops as well as changes in land use.
Based on the data collected in Tables B2–B6 under the assumption
of sustainable residue removal (Perlack et al., 2005), the annual
ethanol or butanol production potential were estimated consider-
ing the assumptions made in Table 3; the results are shown in
Table 4.
1
According to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, 36 billion gallons
of biofuels are projected to be produced annually by the year 2022, of that 21 billion
gallons per year should come from advanced biofuels produced from a wide variety of
new feedstocks and technologies including lignocellulosic based butanol or ethanol.
 J. Swana et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 2112–2117
By comparing the results in Table 3 and Table 4, it is interesting
to note that the current liquid biofuel production potential in Ta-
ble 3 (25% removal of agricultural residues) is more optimistic than
that from Scenario 1. The biofuel yields obtained in Table 3 fall in
the range of those in Scenario 2 and 3 under moderate crop yield
increase. According to Table 4, the challenge of surpassing the
’21 billion gallons advanced biofuel goal’ still exists, but only when
both (1) significant increase in biomass yield and (2) land use
change are applied, as in Scenario 3 (high-yield), can the total bio-
fuel production potential surpass 21 billion gallons.
However, several recent studies on the pattern of land use
change have revealed that converting croplands or grasslands to
produce energy crops may actually lead to an increase in green-
house gas emissions rather than a decrease (Searchinger et al.,
2008; Fargione et al., 2008). Arguably, compared with devoting
great effort to the improvement of biomass yield, minimal land
use change is suggested during the scale-up of biofuel production
without creating new carbon debt.
Besides the representative lignocellulosic biomass, other cellu-
lose-rich feedstocks like rice straw, cotton stalk, and manure can
also be used to produce liquid biofuels through pretreatment,
hydrolysis, and fermentation, and the total biofuel yields will be
greatly enhanced when these materials are included. Further, ge-
netic modification of the microorganism strains to realize co-fer-
mentation (both hexose and pentose fermentation) is another
important pathway that could boost biofuel production in the Uni-
ted States.
4. Conclusions
In summary, our analyses have shown that while biobutanol pro-
duced alone has an advantage over bioethanol, lignocellulosic mate-
rials show far more promise for biofuel production. However, the
production of biofuels from lignocellulose is limited by the amount
of plant matter which can be sustainably produced and harvested.
Our analyses provide a suitable value for the domestic production
of either bioethanol or biobutanol without dramatic land use change
within the United States. Considering the advantages of butanol as a
fuel over ethanol listed previously, investment in biobutanol
production from lignocellulose should be researched further.
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