Production and use of lignocellulosic bioethanol in Europe: Current situation and perspectives

Contrary to the case of the United States where a systematic management of the RD&D on lignocellulosic ethanol prevails, in Europe the research works remain fragmented despite the efforts made by the European Union and in few member states. In most of the European countries, sustainable lignocellulosic resources may not be widely available in the future for bioethanol production due to the possible competition between several potential usages. Thus the actual deployment of the lignocellulosic bioethanol in Europe will depend on the opportunity costs of biomass on one side and on the prices of ethanol and gasoline on the other side. While the papers on lignocellulosic ethanol often emphasize technology progress, this review paper also addresses policy measures. It is found that, especially in Europe where security of oil supply will be lower in long term, the policy instruments should explicitly reward the higher value of lignocellulosic ethanol compared to first the generation ethanol and gasoline

Life cycle assessment of soybean-based biodiesel in Argentina for export

Background, aim and scope: Regional specificities are a key factor when analyzing the environmental impact of a biofuel pathway through a life cycle assessment (LCA). Due to different energy mixes, transport distances, agricultural practices and land use changes, results can significantly vary from one country to another. The Republic of Argentina is the first exporter of soybean oil and meal and the third largest soybean producer in the world, and therefore, soybean-based biodiesel production is expected to significantly increase in the near future, mostly for exportation. Moreover, Argentinean biodiesel producers will need to evaluate the environmental performances of their product in order to comply with sustainability criteria being developed. However, because of regional specificities, the environmental performances of this biofuel pathway can be expected to be different from those obtained for other countries and feedstocks previously studied. This work aims at analyzing the environmental impact of soybean-based biodiesel production in Argentina for export. The relevant impact categories account for the primary non-renewable energy consumption (CED), the global warming potential (GWP), the eutrophication potential (EP), the acidification potential (AP), the terrestrial ecotoxicity (TE), the aquatic ecotoxicity (AE), the human toxicity (HT) and land use competition (LU). The paper tackles the feedstock and country specificities in biodiesel production by comparing the results of soybean-based biodiesel in Argentina with other reference cases. Emphasis is put on explaining the factors that contribute most to the final results and the regional specificities that lead to different results for each biodiesel pathway. Materials and methods: The Argentinean (AR) biodiesel pathway was modelled through an LCA and was compared with reference cases available in the ecoinvent® 2.01 database, namely, soybean-based biodiesel production in Brazil (BR) and the United States (US), rapeseed-based biodiesel production in the European Union (EU) and Switzerland (CH) and palm-oil-based biodiesel production in Malaysia (MY). In all cases, the systems were modelled from feedstock production to biodiesel use as B100 in a 28t truck in CH. Furthermore, biodiesel pathways were compared with fossil low-sulphur diesel produced and used in CH. The LCA was performed according to the ISO standards. The life cycle inventory and the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) were performed in Excel spreadsheets using the ecoinvent® 2.01 database. The cumulative energy demand (CED) and the GWP were estimated through the CED for fossil and nuclear energy and the IPCC 2001 (climate change) LCIA methods, respectively. Other impact categories were assessed according to CML 2001, as implemented in ecoinvent. As the product is a fuel for transportation (service), the system was defined for one vehicle kilometre (functional unit) and was divided into seven unit processes, namely, agricultural phase, soybean oil extraction and refining, transesterification, transport to port, transport to the destination country border, distribution and utilisation. Results: The Argentinean pathway results in the highest GWP, CED, AE and HT compared with the reference biofuel pathways. Compared with the fossil reference, all impact categories are higher for the AR case, except for the CED. The most significant factor that contributes to the environmental impact in the Argentinean case varies depending on the evaluated category. Land provision through deforestation for soybean cultivation is the most impacting factor of the AR biodiesel pathway for the GWP, the CED and the HT categories. Whilst nitrogen oxide emissions during the fuel use are the main cause of acidification, nitrate leaching during soybean cultivation is the main factor of eutrophication. LU is almost totally affected by arable land occupation for soybean cultivation. Cypermethrin used as pesticide in feedstock production accounts for almost the total impact on TE and AE. Discussion: The sensitivity analysis shows that an increase of 10% in the soybean yield, whilst keeping the same inputs, will reduce the total impact of the system. Avoiding deforestation is the main challenge to improve the environmental performances of soybean-based biodiesel production in AR. If the soybean expansion can be done on marginal and set-aside agricultural land, the negative impact of the system will be significantly reduced. Further implementation of crops' successions, soybean inoculation, reduced tillage and less toxic pesticides will also improve the environmental performances. Using ethanol as alcohol in the transesterification process could significantly improve the energy balance of the Argentinean pathway. Conclusions: The main explaining factors depend on regional specificities of the system that lead to different results from those obtained in the reference cases. Significantly different results can be obtained depending on the level of detail of the input data, the use of punctual or average data and the assumptions made to build up the LCA inventory. Further improvement of the AR biodiesel pathways should be done in order to comply with international sustainability criteria on biofuel production. Recommendations and perspectives: Due to the influence of land use changes in the final results, more efforts should be made to account for land use changes others than deforestation. More data are needed to determine the part of deforestation attributable to soybean cultivation. More efforts should be done to improve modelling of interaction between variables and previous crops in the agricultural phase, future transesterification technologies and market prices evolution. In order to assess more accurately the environmental impact of soybean-based biodiesel production in Argentina, further considerations should be made to account for indirect land use changes, domestic biodiesel consumption and exportation to other regions, production scale and regional georeferenced differentiation of production system

Impact of agricultural-based biofuel production on greenhouse gas emission from land-use change: Key modelling choices

Recent regulations on biofuels require reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions related to feedstock-specific biofuels. However, the inclusion of GHG emissions from land-use change (LUC) into law and policy remains a subject of active discussion, with LUC–GHG emissions an issue of intense research. This article identifies key modelling choices for assessing the impact of biofuel production on LUC–GHG emissions. The identification of these modelling choices derives from evaluation and critical comparison of models from commonly accepted biofuels–LUC–GHG modelling approaches. The selection and comparison of models were intended to cover factors related to production of agricultural-based biofuel, provision of land for feedstock, and GHG emissions from land-use conversion. However, some fundamental modelling issues are common to all stages of assessment and require resolution, including choice of scale and spatial coverage, approach to accounting for time, and level of aggregation. It is argued here that significant improvements have been made to address LUC–GHG emissions from biofuels. Several models have been created, adapted, coupled, and integrated, but room for improvement remains in representing LUC–GHG emissions from specific biofuel production pathways, as follows: more detailed and integrated modelling of biofuel supply chains; more complete modelling of policy frameworks, accounting for forest dynamics and other drivers of LUC; more heterogeneous modelling of spatial patterns of LUC and associated GHG emissions; and clearer procedures for accounting for the time-dependency of variables. It is concluded that coupling the results of different models is a convenient strategy for addressing effects with different time and space scales. In contrast, model integration requires unified scales and time approaches to provide generalised representations of the system. Guidelines for estimating and reporting LUC–GHG emissions are required to help modellers to define the most suitable approaches and policy makers to better understand the complex impacts of agricultural-based biofuel production

Techno-economic analysis of lignocellulosic ethanol: A review

Lignocellulosic ethanol is expected to be commercialised during the next decade as renewable energy for transport. Competiveness with first generation bioethanol and with gasoline is commonly considered in techno-economic analyses for commercial stage. Several existing reviews conclude about the high spread of current and projected production costs of lignocellulosic ethanol due to the significant differences in assumptions concerning the following factors: composition and cost of feedstock, process design, conversion efficiency, valorisation of co-products, and energy conservation. Focusing on the studies in the United States of America and in Europe, the present review investigates the different natures of the techno-economic evaluations during the development process of the supply chain i.e., standard costing with respect to Value Engineering, and Target Costing based on the projected market price. The paper highlights the significant contribution of feedstock to the lignocellulosic ethanol production cost and the need to consider competition between different uses for resources. It is recommended the use of a value-based approach that considers sustainability characteristics and potential competition for resources complementarily to Target Costing and Value Engineering

Comparative techno-economic assessment and LCA of selected integrated sugarcane-based biorefineries

This work addresses the economic and environmental performance of integrated biorefineries based on sugarcane juice and residues. Four multiproduct scenarios were considered; two from sugar mills and the others from ethanol distilleries. They are integrated biorefineries producing first (1G) and second (2G) generation ethanol, sugar, molasses (for animal feed) and electricity in the context of Brazil. The scenarios were analysed and compared using techno-economic value-based approach and LCA methodology. The results show that the best economic configuration is provided by a scenario with largest ethanol production while the best environmental performance is presented by a scenario with full integration sugar – 1G2G ethanol production

Contemporary approaches towards augmentation of distinctive heterogeneous catalyst for sustainable biodiesel production

In recent times, demand for energy has significantly increased due to the depletion of fossil fuels and the fast-industrial revolution. This has created a wide space for the development of sustainable and renewable energy sources. Biodiesel has attained exceptional contemplation among other biofuels due to the use of renewable and low-cost resources. Selection of suitable catalyst plays a vital role in biodiesel production by a catalytic transesterification reaction. Compared to homogeneous catalysts, heterogeneous catalysts are most preferred as they have high selectivity and stability with increased biodiesel yield. Heterogeneous catalyst has made incredible development in biodiesel production under mild operating conditions and has less impact on the environment. Nanocatalysts are the effective heterogeneous catalyst, which has brought a tremendous revolution in biodiesel production in recent years. Thus, present review provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of heterogeneous catalyst, importance and challenges associated in biodiesel production

Methods and tools to evaluate the availability of renewable energy sources

The recent statements of both the European Union and the US Presidency pushed in the direction of using renewable forms of energy, in order to act against climate changes induced by the growing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In this paper, a survey regarding methods and tools presently available to determine potential and exploitable energy in the most important renewable sectors (i.e., solar, wind, wave, biomass and geothermal energy) is presented. Moreover, challenges for each renewable resource are highlighted as well as the available tools that can help in evaluating the use of a mix of different sources

Energy Transition and Security of Supply: OECD Countries

For many decades, the production of industrial goods was concentrated in the Northern hemisphere, while energy resources were abundantly available in a limited number of developing countries and those with centrally planned economies. In this context, the security of energy supply was mainly understood as a secure procurement of cheap energy resources to the industrialised world. Military forces have been constantly upgraded and deployed to ensure geopolitical interests, including the control of energy resources. Nowadays, the depletion of oil and gas reserves, the growing concerns about global climate change along with the emergence of new energy demand centres in South and East Asia and the continuing political tensions in several major energy-exporting and -transit countries raise the question of possible alternative strategies to safeguard global energy security. It is vital to change the old paradigm. But what could be the new paradigm? This paper attempts to contribute to this debate