Climate change and health costs of air emissions from biofuels and gasoline
Open accessAbstract
Environmental impacts of energy use can impose large costs on society. We quantify and monetize the life-cycle climate-change and health effects of greenhouse gas (GHG) and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) emissions from gasoline, corn ethanol, and cellulosic ethanol. For each billion ethanol-equivalent gallons of fuel produced and combusted in the US, the combined climate-change and health costs are $469 million for gasoline, $472–952 million for corn ethanol depending on biorefinery heat source (natural gas, corn stover, or coal) and technology, but only $123–208 million for cellulosic ethanol depending on feedstock (prairie biomass, Miscanthus , corn stover, or switchgrass). Moreover, a geographically explicit life-cycle analysis that tracks PM 2.5 emissions and exposure relative to U.S. population shows regional shifts in health costs dependent on fuel production systems. Because cellulosic ethanol can offer health benefits from PM 2.5 reduction that are of comparable importance to its climate-change benefits from GHG reduction, a shift from gasoline to cellulosic ethanol has greater advantages than previously recognized. These advantages are critically dependent on the source of land used to produce biomass for biofuels, on the magnitude of any indirect land use that may result, and on other as yet unmeasured environmental impacts of biofuels.
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Our results for corn ethanol contrast with those of Searchinger et al (2008) and Hill et al (2009), who predicted that corn ethanol would have a greater life-cycle GHG impact than gasoline, mainly due to LUC GHG emissions.
“Our results for corn ethanol, however, contrast with those of Searchinger et al (2008) and Hill et al (2009), who predicted that corn ethanol would have a greater life-cycle GHG impact than gasoline, mainly due to LUC GHG emissions among those studies and ours.”
From Well-to-wheels energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of ethanol from corn, sugarcane and cellulosic biomass for US use (2012) · cites this paper as Hill et al (2009)
The Results (page unavailable) say that land-use-change emissions eliminate the GHG advantage of corn ethanol made with natural-gas process heat, and that coal-powered production has higher GHG emissions than gasoline. But the paper does not predict higher emissions for corn ethanol generally: it reports lower emissions for the stover-powered and advanced-technology scenarios, even with land-use change included in the latter. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSoil organic carbon equilibrium seems to occur after about 100 years for switchgrass and 50 years for miscanthus.
“Equilibrium seems to occur after about 100 years in the case of switchgrass (Andress 2002) and 50 years in the case of miscanthus (Hill et al 2009, Scown et al 2012).”
From Well-to-wheels energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of ethanol from corn, sugarcane and cellulosic biomass for US use (2012) · cites this paper as Hill et al 2009
Hill et al. is cited for the miscanthus portion of the sentence, not the switchgrass estimate attributed to Andress. The Methods discuss miscanthus yields and fertilizer rates, but our copy gives no time to soil organic carbon equilibrium; searches for “50 years,” “soil carbon accumulation,” and “equilibrium” found no supporting passage. (LLM, conf=0.74)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe estimate of LUC GHG emissions for corn ethanol has decreased substantially compared to earlier studies.
“However, the estimate of LUC GHG emissions for this fuel has decreased substantially compared to earlier studies [1,2,11,12,36].”
From Land-use change and greenhouse gas emissions from corn and cellulosic ethanol (2013) · cites this paper as [12]
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“40,65,66 Unlike the present study, which provides the monetary impact considering the direct land use change from the annual crop, Thakrar et al. 40 assessed air quality impact of switchgrass production and found a damage average cost to the human health to be U $33.01 Mg − 1 of biomass.”
Influential
- Authors
- Hill, J., Polasky, S., Nelson, E., Tilman, D., Huo, H., Ludwig, L., Neumann, J., Zheng, H., & Bonta, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Argonne National Laboratory (US)
- Industrial Economics, Cambridge, MA 02140
- Department of Applied Economics,
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2009-02-10
- Volume
- 106
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 2077-2082
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC2634804
- OpenAlex
- W2168129126
- Cited by
- 335
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 34 · 2012: 30
- FWCI
- 32.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Bowdoin - Digital Commons (Bowdoin College) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Minnesota
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Energy, Environment, and Transportation Policies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Air Quality and Health Impacts
- Keywords
- biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, corn ethanol, gasoline, greenhouse gas emissions, PM2.5, health care costs, economic costs of climate change, life cycle assessment, biomass feedstock, corn stover, Miscanthus, switchgrass, energy policy
- MeSH terms
- Air Pollutants, Ethanol, Vehicle Emissions, Energy-Generating Resources, Gasoline, Humans, Health Care Costs, Greenhouse Effect
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