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Corn stover for ethanol production: potential and pitfalls

This study uses a national agro-environmental production model to evaluate the environmental and economic impacts of introducing a market for corn stover to support a stoverbased ethanol industry. It explore the relationship between stover supply, aggregate environmental impacts, and different production practices or policies that can influence supply or mitigate environmental impact. In measuring the aggregate environmental impacts of stover harvest it look specifically at rates of soil erosion, which have been the focus of most existing and pilot agricultural conservation programs, and at agricultural GHG emissions, which are often under-represented in domestic and global dialogues about GHG emissions and mitigation potential.