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The refereed literature contains few studies that analyze life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) methodologies together for lignocellulosic bioenergy systems, using a stochastic modeling approach. This study seeks to address this gap by developing an integrated framework to quantify the environmental and financial impacts of producing and delivering shrub willow in the Northeastern United States. This study analyses four different scenarios from a combination of two different initial land cover types (grassland, cropland) prior to willow establishment, and two harvesting conditions (leaf-on, leaf-off). Monte Carlo simulations were performed to quantify the uncertainty of the results based on a range of financial, logistical, and biophysical variable input parameters (e.g., land rental rates, transportation distance, biomass yield, etc.). Growing willow biomass on croplands resulted in net negative GHG emissions for both leaf on and leaf off scenarios for the baseline. The GHG emissions were lowest for the leaf-off harvest on cropland (−172.50 kg CO2eq Mg−1); this scenario also had the lowest MSP ($76.41 Mg−1). The baseline grassland scenario with leaf-on harvest, results in the highest net GHG emissions (44.83 kg CO2eq Mg−1) and greatest MSP ($92.97 Mg−1). The results of this analysis provide the bioenergy field and other interested stakeholders with both environmental and financial trade-offs of willow biomass to permit informed decisions about the future expansion of willow fields in the landscape, which have the potential to contribute to GHG reduction targets and conversion into fuels, energy, or bioproducts for carbon sequestration and financial benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: To increase the understanding of poplar and willow perennial woody crops and facilitate their deployment for the production of biofuels, bioproducts, and bioenergy, there is a need for broadscale yield maps. For national analysis of woody and herbaceous crops production potential, biomass feedstock yield maps should be developed using a common framework. This study developed willow and poplar potential yield maps by combining data from a network of willow and poplar field trials and the modeling power of PRISM‐ELM. Yields of the top three willow cultivars across 17 sites ranged from 3.60 to 14.6 Mg ha−1 yr−1 dry weight, while the yields from 17 poplar trials ranged from 7.5 to 15.2 Mg ha−1 yr−1. Relationships between the environmental suitability estimates from the PRISM‐ELM model and results from field trials had an R2 of 0.60 for poplar and 0.81 for willow. The resulting potential yield maps reflected the range of poplar and willow yields that have been reported in the literature. Poplar covered a larger geographic range than willow, which likely reflects the poplar breeding efforts that have occurred for many more decades using genotypes from a broader range of environments than willow. While the field trial data sets used to develop these models represent the most complete information at the time, there is a need to expand and improve the model by monitoring trials over multiple cutting cycles and across a broader range of environmental gradients. Despite some limitations, the results of these models represent a dramatic improvement in projections of potential yield of poplar and willow crops across the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: EcoWillow 3.0S is a techno‐economic analysis (TEA) tool that calculates realistic willow biomass production costs using data from field trials of willow production in New York State. The model represents the input parameters for diesel fuel price, wood price, and willow yield as data‐derived probability distributions rather than as single values. This study uses EcoWillow 3.0S with Oracle Crystal Ball to perform a stochastic TEA of shrub willow production in the northeastern USA. Two outputs obtained from this model are a 24‐year net present value (NPV) and minimum selling price (MSP) of shrub willow production under price and yield uncertainty. The MSP for dry willow ranges within a 95% confidence interval from $59–$102/Mg. The NPV, also within a 95% confidence interval, ranges from −$153 819 to $207 129 for 40 ha of willow harvested seven times over 24 years. The relevance of this study is to use the TEA methodology to assess the financial feasibility of shrub willow production as a bioenergy feedstock. The results of this analysis provide the bioenergy field with NPV and MSP probability distributions on shrub willow production that have previously been absent from the refereed literature. Using data collected from field operations over a number of years, EcoWillow 3.0S captures some of the key inputs that influence the variation in the delivered cost of willow biomass crops. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landscape design has been embraced as a promising approach to holistically balance multiple goals related to environmental and resource management processes to meet future provisioning and regulating ecosystem services needs. In the agricultural context, growing bioenergy crops in specific landscape positions instead of dedicated fields has the potential to improve their sustainability, provide ecosystem services, and minimize competition with other land uses. However, growing bioenergy crops in sub-productive or environmentally vulnerable parts of a field implies more complex logistics as small amounts of biomass are generated in a distributed way across the landscape. We present a novel assessment of the differences in production and logistic costs between business as usual (BAU, dedicated fields), and distributed landscape production of shrub, or short-rotation willow for bioenergy within a US Midwestern landscape. Our findings show that regardless of the mode of cropping, BAU or landscape design, growing shrub willows is unlikely to provide positive revenues (−$67 to -$303 ha−1 yr−1 at a biomass price of $46.30 Mgwet−1) because of high land rental costs in this agricultural region. However, when translated into a practice cost per unit of N removed at the watershed scale (range: $1.8-37.0 kg N−1 yr−1), the net costs are comparable to other conservation practices. The projected opportunity cost of growing willows instead of corn on underproductive areas varied between -$14 and $49 Mgwet−1. This highlights the potential for willows to be a cost effective choice depending on the intra-field grain productivity, biomass price and desirable concurrent ecosystem services. © 2016 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining published by Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-rotation coppice systems like shrub willow are projected to be an important source of biomass in the United States for the production of bioenergy, biofuels, and renewable bio-based products, with the potential for auxiliary environmental benefits and multifunctional systems. Almost three decades of research has focused on the development of shrub willow crops for biomass and ecosystem services. The current expansion of willow in New York State (about 500 ha) for the production of renewable power and heat has been possible because of incentive programs offered by the federal government, commitments by end users, the development of reliable harvesting systems, and extension services offered to growers. Improvements in the economics of the system are expected as willow production expands further, which should help lower establishment costs, enhance crop management options and increase efficiencies in harvesting and logistics. Deploying willow in multifunctional value-added systems provides opportunities for both potential producers and end users to learn about the system and the quality of the biomass feedstock, which in turn will help overcome barriers to expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cover image, by Maria Cristina Negri et al., is based on the Modeling and Analysis The economics of growing shrub willow as a bioenergy buffer on agricultural fields: A case study in the Midwest Corn Belt, DOI: . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]