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Biofuels from crop residue can reduce soil carbon and increase CO2 emissions

Abstract

Removal of corn residue for biofuels can decrease soil organic carbon (SOC; refs 1, 2) and increase CO2 emissions3 because residue C in biofuels is oxidized to CO2 at a faster rate than when added to soil4,5. Net CO2 emissions from residue removal are not adequately characterized in biofuel life cycle assessment (LCA; refs 6, 7, 8). Here we used a model to estimate CO2 emissions from corn residue removal across the US Corn Belt at 580 million geospatial cells. To test the SOC model9,10,11, we compared estimated daily CO2 emissions from corn residue and soil with CO2 emissions measured using eddy covariance12,13,14, with 12% average error over nine years. The model estimated residue removal of 6 Mg per ha1 yr1 over five to ten years could decrease regional net SOC by an average of 0.47–0.66 Mg C ha1 yr1. These emissions add an average of 50–70 g CO2 per megajoule of biofuel (range 30–90) and are insensitive to the fraction of residue removed. Unless lost C is replaced15,16, life cycle emissions will probably exceed the US legislative mandate of 60% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared with gasoline.

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Figure 1: Modelled soil organic carbon decrease due to removal of 6 Mg corn residue per hectare per year over nine years compared with no removal under irrigated continuous corn.
Figure 2: Modelled soil organic carbon respiration to CO2 in the US Corn Belt from corn residue removal.
Figure 3: Contribution of modelled CO2 emissions from SOC to the life cycle of biofuel from corn residue.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the US Department of Energy (DE-EE0003149) and the Agricultural Research Division of the University of Nebraska and made use of the Holland Computing Center of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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Authors

Contributions

A.J.L., H.Y., M.M. and S.G. designed the research; A.J.L., H.Y., M.M., S.G. H.Z., M.P.P., X.X.F. and A.E.S. performed the research; A.J.L., H.Y., M.M., S.G., H.Z., M.P.P., X.X.F. and A.E.S. analyzed the data; and A.J.L., H.Y., M.M., H.B.-C., and A.E.S. wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adam J. Liska.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Liska, A., Yang, H., Milner, M. et al. Biofuels from crop residue can reduce soil carbon and increase CO2 emissions. Nature Clim Change 4, 398–401 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2187

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