Comparative Economic Analysis of Herbaceous Energy Crop Production in the Southeastern USA
Abstract
The U.S. Department of Energy in the multi-year program plan has set goals focusing on identifying, developing, demonstrating, and validating efficient and economical systems for harvest and collection, storage, handling, transportation, and preprocessing raw biomass from a variety of herbaceous and woody crops. Transformation of renewable and abundant biomass resources into a cost-competitive, high-performance biofuel can reduce dependence on fossil fuels and enhance energy security. The overall goal of the research was to develop data that will allow a comprehensive assessment of where economically and environmentally sustainable biomass sorghum and energy cane production can occur within the southeastern U.S. Management information including site-specific input applications and associated input costs for biomass sorghum were collected from field experiments. Site-specific enterprise budgets were prepared to analyze production costs in biomass sorghum production. Based on the input cost variations, a distribution of costs for the region was performed. Using pert distribution, potential ranges for biomass yield and dry matter were created. The Monte Carlo simulation was performed to analyze the potential distribution of net return for biomass sorghum and energy cane. The expected mean net return from producing biomass sorghum was $200 acre/year with a 90% probability of generating a net return of $78 - $356 acre/year. The mean net return for energycane production in the region was $337 acre/year with a 90% probability of generating a net return of $149 - $546 acre/year. The simulation results show that there is potential for profit from growing both feedstocks in the region.
Subject Area
Agriculture|Agronomy|Agricultural economics|Alternative Energy
Recommended Citation
Kabirat Nasiru,
"Comparative Economic Analysis of Herbaceous Energy Crop Production in the Southeastern USA"
(2022).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI29399854.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI29399854