Economic Analysis of Utilization of Corn Stover for Bioenergy Production: Towards Diversifying Income Opportunities for Small Farmers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Bioenergy production from plant wastes such as corn stover has the potential to improve energy security and mitigate climate change in the United States. However, there is a limited understanding of its utilization and economic potentials for bioenergy production. The overall objective of the study was to estimate the economic profitability of utilizing corn stover for different ventures after harvesting corn, which includes: 1) corn stover production, 2) ethanol production, and 3) electricity generation through on-farm gasifiers. The data for this study was based on secondary data from various sources. The benefit-cost model was applied for the analysis. Investment evaluation criteria include annualized net return from corn stover, ethanol, and electricity generation. Results show that under current conversion rate, the net return from marketing corn stover ranges from $80.61/kg to $394.11/kg, while the net return from ethanol production ranges from $-104.91/ha to $848.96/ha of corn stover under varying price and yield scenarios. Also, under the government subsidy scheme that covers 25% of equipment costs, there is an investment opportunity for on-farm gasifier with an NPV of $4,329.29. The findings of the study show the potential for using corn stover for bioenergy production since it showed a positive net return. Also, the production of ethanol from corn stover is not only economically feasible but also socially acceptable since it does not compete with food production, and serves as a means of income diversification for corn farmers. Keywords: Corn stover, plant waste, biofuel, ethanol, benefit-cost, gasifier.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".