Sustainable energy development of crop straw in five southern provinces of China: Bioenergy production, land, and water saving potential

Yan Ru Fang, MD Shouquat Hossain, Shuan Peng, Ling Han and Pingjian Yang

Renewable Energy, 2024, vol. 224, issue C

Abstract: Crop straw, a renewable resource, holds a crucial position in transition towards alternative, clean bioenergy. However, there is a dearth of analysis on the land- and water-saving potential associated with producing bioenergy from crop straw instead of clean energy. To comprehensively address these deficiencies, we conducted a face-to-face field survey for deep analysis. Our results revealed that most crop straw in the five southern provinces of China is retained in the field or openly burned, less for energy utilization. However, we also found that promoting bioenergy production potential from crop straw is significant and could meet the current energy demand for transportation or households in the five southern provinces. The production of briquette fuel and bioethanol from crop straw can significantly reduce GHG emissions of 23.3 Mton and 23.2 Mton, respectively, compared with coal and gasoline consumption. Furthermore, our study illustrated that replacing energy crops like Jerusalem artichoke with crop straw to produce bioethanol could reduce 11% of the total sown area occupied and save 3% of the irrigation water used in the five provinces. In conclusion, this study offers a more sustainable and efficient approach to producing bioethanol and other bioenergy while minimizing environmental impact and reducing resource consumption.

Keywords: Bioenergy; GHG emission reduction; Land occupation; Renewable energy; Water consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014812400199X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:224:y:2024:i:c:s096014812400199x

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2024.120134

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().