The DOI matches its Crossref record; 20 of the 20 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn‐Ethanol
Open accessAbstract
Summary: Corn‐ethanol production is expanding rapidly with the adoption of improved technologies to increase energy efficiency and profitability in crop production, ethanol conversion, and coproduct use. Life cycle assessment can evaluate the impact of these changes on environmental performance metrics. To this end, we analyzed the life cycles of corn‐ethanol systems accounting for the majority of U.S. capacity to estimate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy efficiencies on the basis of updated values for crop management and yields, biorefinery operation, and coproduct utilization. Direct‐effect GHG emissions were estimated to be equivalent to a 48% to 59% reduction compared to gasoline, a twofold to threefold greater reduction than reported in previous studies. Ethanol‐to‐petroleum output/input ratios ranged from 10:1 to 13:1 but could be increased to 19:1 if farmers adopted high‐yield progressive crop and soil management practices. An advanced closed‐loop biorefinery with anaerobic digestion reduced GHG emissions by 67% and increased the net energy ratio to 2.2, from 1.5 to 1.8 for the most common systems. Such improved technologies have the potential to move corn‐ethanol closer to the hypothetical performance of cellulosic biofuels. Likewise, the larger GHG reductions estimated in this study allow a greater buffer for inclusion of indirect‐effect land‐use change emissions while still meeting regulatory GHG reduction targets. These results suggest that corn‐ethanol systems have substantially greater potential to mitigate GHG emissions and reduce dependence on imported petroleum for transportation fuels than reported previously.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change
Searchinger, T., Heimlich, R., Houghton, R. A., Dong, F., Elobeid, A., Fabiosa, J., Tokgoz, S., Hayes, D., & Yu, T.-H. (2008) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1151861 · Cited by 4,888 · cited 3×
“…however, several recent reports estimate a relatively small net energy ratio (NER) and GHG emissions reduction compared to gasoline (Farrell et al. 2006; Wang et al. 2007) or a net increase in GHG emissions when both direct and indirect emissions are considered (Searchinger et al. 2008).”
Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals
Farrell, A. E., Plevin, R. J., Turner, B. T., Jones, A. D., O'Hare, M., & Kammen, D. M. (2006) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1121416 · Cited by 2,823
Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks
Hockstad, L., & Hanel, L. (2018) · University of North Texas Digital Library (University of North Texas) · doi:10.15485/1464240 · Cited by 2,821
(2006) · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · Cited by 1,982
Agroecosystems, Nitrogen-use Efficiency, and Nitrogen Management
Cassman, K. G., Dobermann, A., & Walters, D. T. (2002) · AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment · doi:10.1579/0044-7447-31.2.132 · Cited by 1,777
Self-citationTillage and soil carbon sequestration—What do we really know?
Baker, J. M., Ochsner, T. E., Venterea, R. T., & Griffis, T. J. (2007) · Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment · doi:10.1016/j.agee.2006.05.014 · Cited by 1,252
Duvick, D. N., & Cassman, K. G. (1999) · Crop Science · doi:10.2135/cropsci1999.3961622x · Cited by 706
Self-citationThe European Union Emissions Trading Scheme: Origins, Allocation, and Early Results
Ellerman, A. D., & Buchner, B. K. (2007) · Review of Environmental Economics and Policy · doi:10.1093/reep/rem003 · Cited by 656
No‐Tillage and Soil‐Profile Carbon Sequestration: An On‐Farm Assessment
Blanco-Canqui, H., & Lal, R. (2008) · Soil Science Society of America Journal · doi:10.2136/sssaj2007.0233 · Cited by 595
Annual carbon dioxide exchange in irrigated and rainfed maize-based agroecosystems
Verma, S. B., Dobermann, A., Cassman, K. G., Walters, D. T., Knops, J. M., Arkebauer, T. J., Suyker, A. E., Burba, G. G., Amos, B., Yang, H., et al. (2005) · Agricultural and Forest Meteorology · doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2005.05.003 · Cited by 516
Self-citation
Research works printed but not linked: 10
- Bordetsky A., 2007, Driving it home: Choosing the right path for fueling North America's transportation future
- CTIC (Conservation Technology Information Center), 2004, Crop residue management survey
- EPA‐EEA, 2006, Baseline energy consumption estimates for natural gas and coal‐based ethanol plants—the potential impact of combined heat and power (CHP)
- IPCC, 2006, Prepared by the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme
- 10.1126/science.318.5857.1708a · doi:10.1126/science.318.5857.1708a
- McBride W, 2007, Agricultural Economist
- McElroy A. K., 2007, Capturing carbon opportunities, Ethanol Producer Magazine, 13, 142
- RFA, 2008, Changing the climate: Ethanol industry outlook 2008
- USDA‐ERS, 2001, Energy use on major field crops in surveyed states
- USDA‐ERS, 2005, Agricultural resource management survey
Cited by
Wang, M., Han, J., Dunn, J. B., Cai, H., & Elgowainy, A. (2012) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/045905 · Cited by 536
Year in review-EROI or energy return on (energy) invested
Murphy, D. J., & Hall, C. A. S. (2010) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05282.x · Cited by 491
Biomass resources and biofuels potential for the production of transportation fuels in Nigeria
Ben-Iwo, J., Manovic, V., & Longhurst, P. (2016) · Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.rser.2016.05.050 · Cited by 369
Biofuels from crop residue can reduce soil carbon and increase CO2 emissions
Liska, A. J., Yang, H., Milner, M., Goddard, S., Blanco-Canqui, H., Pelton, M. P., Fang, X. X., Zhu, H., & Suyker, A. E. (2014) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate2187 · Cited by 207
Self-citationLife cycle assessment of gasoline and diesel produced via fast pyrolysis and hydroprocessing
Hsu, D. D. (2012) · Biomass and Bioenergy · doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2012.05.019 · Cited by 179
Metadata
- Authors
- Liska, A. J., Yang, H. S., Bremer, V. R., Klopfenstein, T. J., Walters, D. T., Erickson, G. E., & Cassman, K. G.
- Venue
- Journal of Industrial Ecology
- Published
- 2009-02
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 58-74
- ISSN
- 1088-1980 (ISSN-L)
- 1530-9290
- OpenAlex
- W2152132141
- Cited by
- 293
- References
- 20
- FWCI
- 36.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn‐Ethanol. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2008.00105.x
- The paper
- Liska, A. J., Yang, H. S., Bremer, V. R., Klopfenstein, T. J., Walters, D. T., Erickson, G. E., & Cassman, K. G. (2009). Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn‐Ethanol. Journal of Industrial Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2008.00105.x
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
