Conclusions
As a byproduct of corn production, corn stover is a widely
available resource. Harvesting, storing, and transporting the
material, however, has significant cost. Monetary incentives
needed to induce farmer supply will increase the costs of
delivered stover supply above the 82.19 $ Mg1 to
100.56 $ Mg1 cost range estimated in Section 3.1. As stover
price increased, farms allocated more land toward continuous
corn production. These results suggest the ability to supply
corn stover for bioenergy production may have a significant
impact on crop production and land use. Table 5 summarizes
the results from the five scenarios presented, using a stover
price of 88.19 $Mg1. Itmust be noted that these estimates are
based on the costs of harvesting, replacing nutrients, and
storing stover. Loading, unloading, and transportation costs
were excluded from the linear programming model, but were
estimated in Section 3.1 and sum to 33.26 $Mg1. Based on this
estimate and assuming a stover price of 88.19 $ Mg1, the
delivered cost of stover to a biorefinery would be
121.45 $ Mg1.