Environmental Implications of Biodiesel (Life-Cycle Assessment)

Gärtner, Sven O.; Reinhardt, Guido A.

doi:10.1201/9781439822357.ch8.4

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The question of whether biodiesel is in fact a renewable fuel has been studied by comparing the amount of energy inputs to the energy outputs on the overall life cycle. There exist numerous studies dealing with life cycle analysis (LCA) for the production of biodiesel from bioenergy crops. ,− The stages that are normally considered in these LCAs are crop cultivation, oil extraction and refining, oil conversion, and transportation. ,,,,,,, The reported values of the net energy ratio (NER, unitless ratio of energy outputs to energy inputs) for soybean oil biodiesel have ranged from values lower than 1 (0.79) to 3.21 . The inconsistency of the NER results was recently examined by Pradhan and co-workers .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Life Cycle Assessment for the Production of Biodiesel from Rendered Lipids in the United States

López

Mullins

Bruce

2010

Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.

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The energy life cycle assessment for the production of biodiesel from rendered lipids in the United States is presented in this study. Three different scenarios were found eligible for analysis: (I) conversion to biodiesel, (II) rendering and conversion, and (III) farming, rendering, and conversion. The amounts of energy required in farming, meat processing, and baseline conversion to biodiesel were reviewed from the literature. The thermal energy and electricity used in rendering were surveyed from the U.S. rendering industry. For animal fats, scenario III resulted in a net energy ratio (NER, ratio of energy outputs to energy inputs) much lower than 1. In contrast, the NERs for scenarios I and II were both found to be >1. For scenario I, the NER was found to be >3.6, larger than the value typically reported for soybean oil (SBO) biodiesel. As for the waste SBO grease, the NER was found to be >1 for both applicable scenarios (I and II). To a limited extent, sensitivity analysis was used to evaluate changes in assumptions with respect to the type of fuels employed in the generation of thermal energy as well as the method for biodiesel production.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Life Cycle Assessment for the Production of Biodiesel from Rendered Lipids in the United States

López

Mullins

Bruce

2010

Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.

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“…Production of oilseed involves energy investment and causes emissions. When the whole life cycle of biodiesel from production of the biomass via conversion to use as an energy source is analysed, CO 2 neutrality of biodiesel can be challenged [26]. In fact, converting carbon-rich ecosystems to biofuel production results in large amounts of CO 2 being released for decades following land clearing (so-called 'carbon debts') [27,28].…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Of Biodieselmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Figure 14.5 shows a schematic life cycle comparison of RME and fossil diesel fuel. On the basis of life cycle analyses, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IFEU), Heidelberg, considers that all biodiesel fuels possess positive energy and climate gas balances, i.e., all biodiesel fuels preserve fossil energy sources compared with conventional diesel regardless of the source of the vegetable oils and help to avoid greenhouse gases [26].…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Of Biodieselmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability and use of biodiesel

Bart¹,

Palmeri²,

Cavallaro³

2010

Biodiesel Science and Technology

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“…However, such a superficial analysis can be misleading, especially for transport biofuels [8]: it is necessary to examine the complete life cycle of the bioproduct. When this is done, not all bioproducts show improved environmental performance [9][10][11].…”

Section: Wheatmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Life-Cycle Approach to Characterising Environmental and Economic Impacts of Multifunctional Land-Use Systems: An Integrated Assessment in the UK

et al. 2010

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An integrated environmental and economic assessment of land use for food, energy and timber in the UK has been performed using environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and economic Life Cycle Costing (LCC), to explore complementary sustainability aspects of alternative land uses. The environmental assessment includes impacts on climate change, ecosystem services and biodiversity, all of which include soil carbon emissions. The systems explored include all processes from cradle to farm ‘gate’. The crops assessed were wheat and oilseed rape (under both organic and conventional farming systems), Scots Pine, and willow and Miscanthus. Food crops, particularly conventional food crops, are shown to have the highest climate-changing emissions per ha, whereas energy and forestry crops show negative net emissions. To a lesser extent, the same situation applies to impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity, with carbon storage in biomass playing a larger role than carbon in soils. The energy and forestry crops in this study show an overall beneficial environmental impact, in particular due to soil carbon sequestration, making these land uses the lowest contributors to climate change. Combining this with the non-renewable CO2 emissions displaced will mean that energy crops have an even lower impact. Economically, conventional food crops present the highest costs per ha, followed by organic food crops, energy and forestry crops. Integrating the results from LCA and LCC shows that the climate impacts per monetary unit of all land uses are dominated by soil management and, in the case of food production, also by fertilisation. Taxes or incentives such as “carbon charging” will encourage changes in practice in these areas to improve the sustainability of land management, mainly by building up Soil Organic Carbon (SOC)

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Environmental Implications of Biodiesel (Life-Cycle Assessment)

Cited by 5 publications

References 2 publications

Energy Life Cycle Assessment for the Production of Biodiesel from Rendered Lipids in the United States

Energy Life Cycle Assessment for the Production of Biodiesel from Rendered Lipids in the United States

Sustainability and use of biodiesel

A Life-Cycle Approach to Characterising Environmental and Economic Impacts of Multifunctional Land-Use Systems: An Integrated Assessment in the UK

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