Richard J. Plevin

TL;DR: It is already clear that large-scale use of ethanol for fuel will almost certainly require cellulosic technology and new metrics that measure specific resource inputs are developed, but further research into environmental metrics is needed.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors bring together perspectives of various communities involved in the research and regulation of bioenergy deployment in the context of climate change mitigation: Land-use and energy experts, land use and integrated assessment modelers, human geographers, ecosystem researchers, climate scientists and two different strands of life-cycle assessment experts.

TL;DR: Factoring market-mediated responses and by-product use into this analysis reduces cropland conversion by 72% from the land used for the ethanol feedstock, thereby limiting its potential contribution in the context of California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

TL;DR: Fuel policies that require narrow bounds around point estimates of life cycle GHG emissions are incompatible with current and anticipated modeling capabilities and alternative policies that address the risks associated with uncertainty are more likely to achieve GHG reductions.

TL;DR: In this paper, a conceptually superior approach, consequential LCA (CLCA), avoids many of the limitations of ALCA, but because it is meant to model actual changes in the real world, CLCA results are scenario dependent and uncertain.