Integrated environmental and economic assessments of producing energy crops with cover crops for simultaneous use as biofuel feedstocks and animal fodder

Energy crops grown on marginal lands offer an alternative supply of renewable resources while avoiding competition with food crops and supporting feed crops. To sustainably grow energy crops, the economic and environmental impacts of various crop management practices such as the adoption of cover crops, fertilization rates, harvesting methods and its end use applications for animal feed or biofuels should be investigated. In this study, we investigated the life cycle analysis (LCA) and economic evaluation of growing two energy crops (energy cane, and napier grass) on the marginal lands with three fertilizer treatments (0, 100, and 200 kg N ha⁻¹), and with a cover crop (clover, Trifolium incarnatum L) in the southeastern United States (US). Energy crop was harvested once a year in the late fall for biofuel applications, while the Napier grass was harvested twice a year: first harvested early in spring for animal feed and later harvested in the fall for biofuel application. Experimental field data such as biomass yield, crop management practices, farm inputs, and carbon stored in the soil, were determined to assess the global warming potential and the delivered cost of each energy crop. Napier grass had lower global warming (GW) impacts and biomass delivery costs, 34–153 kg CO₂ eq. per oven-dry metric ton (ODMT) and $51–$57 perODMT, respectively than that of energy cane. However, both the energy crops provided carbon sequestrations (−17 and −232 kg CO₂ eq. ODMT⁻¹) and thus net GW impact varied between 51 and (−14) kg CO₂ eq. ODMT⁻¹ based on the treatments. When the napier grass was harvested for both biofuel and fodder applications, the overall GW impacts and the delivered costs were reduced. Therefore, energy crops can be grown in marginal lands for increased carbon sequestration while reducing the GW impacts of energy crops for biofuel production. The integrated environmental and economic analyzes further demonstrated that the energy crop delivered costs and GW impacts could be further reduced, if the energy crops can be utilized for both biofuel and feed applications.