LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF BIODIESEL: ENERGY BALANCE, GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
Keywords:
Biodiesel LCA, Energy balance, NER, GHG emissions, Carbon footprint, LCIA, Sustainable feedstocks, Renewable energy systems, EROI, LUC, Water footprint.Abstract
Biodiesel's generation to consumption cycle must be evaluated from a sustainability perspective, just like all other energy sources, including renewable ones. A potential method for helping decision-makers identify the adverse environmental impacts of current or proposed biodiesel production strategies is life cycle assessment, or LCA. For example, an LCA of biodiesel production cycles may yield recommendations spanning from agricultural practices to production and combustion phases, depending on the feedstocks, production technology, downstream processes used, etc. There are still a lot of difficult problems with doing life cycle assessments (LCAs) on the production and consumption of biodiesel, even though there is an ISO standard for doing so. These difficulties include the selection of system boundaries, the functional unit, the effect categories that need to be evaluated, how land use change is handled.
