Comparison life cycle analysis of conventional versus modified integrated ethanol plants

在传统的玉米发酵中，每一吨玉米转化为三分之一的乙醇、三分之一的干酒糟和三分之一的二氧化碳。在格林菲尔德乙醇公司(Greenfield)的生产设施中，每天有数千吨二氧化碳排放到大气中，这意味着潜在收入的损失。为了增加利润，格林菲尔德开发了一种新的可再生“插入式”液体燃料生产概念。这一新颖的概念利用了三项正在进行小规模开发的加拿大创新技术，当这些技术结合在一起时，将提供100%可再生的喷气燃料、柴油、石脑油和乙醇燃料，这些燃料来自玉米和各种非食品级原料。此外，除了由于所使用的原料类型，拟议工艺的燃料产品具有明显的可再生性质外，该工艺还依赖二氧化碳作为气液转化过程的主要原料之一(乙醇生产和厌氧消化的主要副产品)，大大改善了燃料产品的碳足迹和经济性。由于这一概念的目标是清洁能源生产，同时减轻环境污染，并减少许多工艺的碳足迹，如果这项技术按照设想在全球范围内获得许可，加拿大将获得数十亿美元的经济效益。鉴于其废气转化为可再生液体燃料项目的独特性和新颖性，研究其生态效率，评估其生命周期影响，分析其可持续性，并将其与现有的常规乙醇工厂技术进行比较，具有非常重要的意义。因此，这一具体项目的目标是对Greenfield的新的综合乙醇工厂技术进行概念性的生命周期评估(LCA)，以确定与现有传统乙醇工厂技术相比，其拟议的环境影响。

In conventional corn-to-ethanol fermentation, every one ton of corn gets converted in to one-third of ethanol, one-third of dried distillers' grains, and one-third into carbon dioxide. At the production facilities at Greenfield Ethanol Inc. (Greenfield), thousands of tons of carbon dioxide are being released daily to the atmosphere representing loss of potential revenue. To increase profits, Greenfield has developed a novel concept for renewable "drop-in" liquid fuels production. The novel concept utilizes three innovative Canadian technologies under bench-scale development that, when combined together in one process, will provide 100% renewable jet, diesel, naphtha, and ethanol fuels, from corn and a variety of non-food-grade feedstocks. In addition, besides the obvious renewable nature of the fuel products from the proposed process due to the type of feedstocks to be utilized, the process relies on carbon dioxide as one of the main feedstocks for the gas-to-liquid conversion process (the major by-product from ethanol manufacturing and anaerobic digestion), significantly improving the carbon foot-print and economics of the fuel products. As this concept targets clean energy production while at the same time mitigating environmental pollution, and reducing the carbon footprint of many processes, the economic benefits to Canada are in the billions if this technology was licensed worldwide as envisioned. Given the uniqueness and novelty of its waste-to-gas-to-renewable liquid fuels proposed project, it is very important to study the eco-efficiency, assess the life cycle impact, and analyze the sustainability of the new integrated ethanol plant and compare it side by side to currently existing conventional ethanol plant technology. The goal of this specific project is, therefore, to conduct a conceptual level life cycle assessment (LCA) of Greenfield's new integrated ethanol plant technology to ascertain its proposed environmental effects, compared to currently existing conventional ethanol plant technology.