Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Volume 50, Issue 6, Pages 2846-2858Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b05589
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Funding
- Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making (CEDM) [SES-0949710]
- Steinbrenner Institute U.S. Environmental Sustainability Ph.D. Fellowship
- Colcom Foundation
- Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research at Carnegie Mellon University
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences [1463492] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie [0949710] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Interest in biobased products has been motivated, in part, by the claim that these products have lower life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than their fossil counterparts. This study investigates GHG emissions from U.S. production of three important biobased polymer families: polylactic acid (PLA), as polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and bioethylene-based plastics. The model incorporates uncertainty into the life cycle emission estimates using Monte Carlo simulation. Results present a range of scenarios for feedstock choice (corn or switchgrass), treatment of coproducts, data sources, end of life assumptions, and displaced fossil polymer. Switchgrass pathways generally have lower emissions than corn pathways, and can even generate negative cradle-to-gate emissions if unfermented residues are used to coproduce energy. PHB (from either feedstock) is unlikely to have lower emissions than fossil polymers once end of life emissions are included. PLA generally has the lowest emissions when compared to high emission fossil polymers, such as polystyrene (mean GHG savings up to 1.4 kg CO(2)e/kg corn PLA and 2.9 kg CO(2)e/kg switchgrass PLA). In contrast, bioethylene is likely to achieve the greater emission reduction for ethylene intensive polymers, like polyethylene (mean GHG savings up to 0.60 kg CO(2)e/kg corn polyethylene and 3.4 kg CO(2)e/kg switchgrass polyethylene).
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