Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

/pdf/climate-change-2007-the-physical-science-basis-1x93ttz9jt.pdf

Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.

In 2008, the world produced approximately 87 gigaliters of liquid biofuels, which is roughly equal to the volume of liquid fuel consumed by Germany that year. Essentially, all of this biofuel was produced from crops developed for food production, raising concerns about the net energy and greenhouse gas effects and potential competition between use of land for production of fuels, food, animal feed, fiber, and ecosystem services. The pending implementation of improved technologies to more effectively convert the nonedible parts of plants (lignocellulose) to liquid fuels opens diverse options to use biofuel feedstocks that reach beyond current crops and the land currently used for food and feed. However, there has been relatively little discussion of what types of plants may be useful as bioenergy crops.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/329/5993/790.full.pdf

Feedstocks for Lignocellulosic Biofuels

Cellulosic crops are projected to provide a large fraction of transportation energy needs by mid-century. However, the anticipated land requirements are substantial, which creates a potential for environmental harm if trade-offs are not sufficiently well understood to create appropriately prescriptive policy. Recent empirical findings show that cellulosic bioenergy concerns related to climate mitigation, biodiversity, reactive nitrogen loss, and crop water use can be addressed with appropriate crop, placement, and management choices. In particular, growing native perennial species on marginal lands not currently farmed provides substantial potential for climate mitigation and other benefits.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/356/6345/eaal2324.full.pdf

Cellulosic biofuel contributions to a sustainable energy future: Choices and outcomes

Plant production systems globally must be optimized to produce stable high yields from limited land under changing and variable climates. Demands for food, animal feed, and feedstocks for bioenergy and biorefining applications, are increasing with population growth, urbanization and affluence. Low-input, sustainable, alternatives to petrochemical-derived fertilizers and pesticides are required to reduce input costs and maintain or increase yields, with potential biological solutions having an important role to play. In contrast to crops that have been bred for food, many bioenergy crops are largely undomesticated, and so there is an opportunity to harness beneficial plant-microbe relationships which may have been inadvertently lost through intensive crop breeding. Plant-microbe interactions span a wide range of relationships in which one or both of the organisms may have a beneficial, neutral or negative effect on the other partner. A relatively small number of beneficial plant-microbe interactions are well understood and already exploited; however, others remain understudied and represent an untapped reservoir for optimizing plant production. There may be near-term applications for bacterial strains as microbial biopesticides and biofertilizers to increase biomass yield from energy crops grown on land unsuitable for food production. Longer term aims involve the design of synthetic genetic circuits within and between the host and microbes to optimize plant production. A highly exciting prospect is that endosymbionts comprise a unique resource of reduced complexity microbial genomes with adaptive traits of great interest for a wide variety of applications.

/pdf/understanding-and-engineering-beneficial-plant-microbe-58ujn8wyd5.pdf

Understanding and engineering beneficial plant–microbe interactions: plant growth promotion in energy crops

Phytoremediation is a holistic approach and can be used in large scale to remediate the contaminated land resources. Although the concept of phytoremediation is few decades old and has been applied on a wide range of pollutants, but their sustainability is still questioned at various scientific forums. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to remediate our valuable resources with due considerations for future generations. Such a synergistic bonding by using potential energy crops in phytoremediation programs would be useful to generate new bioenergy resources along with the remediation of contaminated soil. There are several energy crops in the world, but four promising and dedicated energy crops i.e. Miscanthus, Ricinus, Jatropha, Populus have primarily considered in this review to accomplish energy demands with their phytoremediation potential. These four energy crops also act as potential carbon sink and offer an additional profit as carbon tax credits. In recent time we have been able to improve our understanding in phytoremediation, but use of energy plants were not considered so far to make this venture socio-economically acceptable to the society. The present review provides a strategy for linking energy crops in phytoremediation to resolve the sustainability issues and effectively solve the challenges of ever increasing contaminated sites and biofuel demands now and for future.

Energy crops in sustainable phytoremediation

Current biofuel feedstock crops such as corn lead to large environmental losses of N through nitrate leaching and N₂O emissions; second-generation cellulosic crops have the potential to reduce these N losses We measured N losses and cycling in establishing miscanthus (Miscanthus × giganteus), switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L fertilized with 56 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹), and mixed prairie, along with a corn (Zea mays L)–corn–soybean [Glycine max (L) Merr] rotation (corn fertilized at 168–202 kg N ha⁻¹) Nitrous oxide emissions, soil N mineralization, mid-profile nitrate leaching, and tile flow and nitrate concentrations were measured Perennial crops quickly reduced nitrate leaching at a 50-cm soil depth as well as concentrations and loads from the tile systems (year 1 tile nitrate concentrations of 10–15 mg N L⁻¹ declined significantly by year 4 in all perennial crops to <06 mg N L⁻¹, with losses of <08 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) Nitrous oxide emissions were 22 to 77 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ in the corn–corn–soybean rotation but were <10 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ by year 4 in the perennial crops Overall N balances (atmospheric deposition + fertilization + soybean N₂ fixation – harvest, leaching losses, and N₂O emissions) were positive for corn and soybean (22 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) as well as switchgrass (97 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) but were −18 and −29 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ for prairie and miscanthus, respectively Our results demonstrate rapid tightening of the N cycle as perennial biofuel crops established on a rich Mollisol soil

/pdf/reduced-nitrogen-losses-after-conversion-of-row-crop-1tpij3gw74.pdf

Reduced nitrogen losses after conversion of row crop agriculture to perennial biofuel crops.

Assessing the nitrous oxide mole fraction of soils from perennial biofuel and corn-soybean fields

We evaluated the biogeochemical cycling and relative greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential of proposed biofuel feedstock crops by modeling growth dynamics of Miscanthus × giganteus Greef et Deuter (miscanthus), Panicum virgatum L. (switchgrass), Zea mays L. (corn), and a mixed prairie community under identical field conditions. DAYCENT model simulations for miscanthus were parameterized with data from trial plots in Europe and Illinois, USA. Switchgrass, corn, and prairie ecosystems were simulated using parameters published in the literature. A previously unknown source of nitrogen (N) was necessary to balance the plant nutrient budget in miscanthus crops, leading us to hypothesize that miscanthus growth depends on N-fixation. We tested for nitrogenase activity by acetylene reduction of whole rhizomes and bacteria isolated from the rhizosphere and miscanthus tissue. Our results supported the hypothesis that biological N-fixation contributed to the N demand of miscanthus, a highly productive perennial grass. Corn agro-ecosystems emit 956 to 1899 g CO2eq m−2y−1 greater GHGs (including CO2, N2O, CH4) to the atmosphere than the other biofuel crop alternatives because of greater N2O emissions from fertilizer additions. Of the feedstock crops evaluated in this study, miscanthus would result in the greatest GHG reduction.

https://www.life.illinois.edu/delucia/Feb%202010%20Davis%20et%20al%20Ecosystems.pdf

Comparative Biogeochemical Cycles of Bioenergy Crops Reveal Nitrogen-Fixation and Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions in a Miscanthus × giganteus Agro-Ecosystem

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Reduced nitrogen losses after conversion of row crop agriculture to perennial biofuel crops.

Assessing the nitrous oxide mole fraction of soils from perennial biofuel and corn-soybean fields

Comparative Biogeochemical Cycles of Bioenergy Crops Reveal Nitrogen-Fixation and Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions in a Miscanthus × giganteus Agro-Ecosystem