Page 24 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Importance of Life Cycle Assessment 9

policies is as relevant as the sustainability assessment of production pathways and
regulatory impact assessment.
Sustainability evaluation of biofuels is a multicriterial problem; Silva Lora et al.
(2011) suggests the following main indicators for a sustainable energy production:
• To be carbon neutral.
• Not to affect the quality, quantity, and rational use of available natural resources.
• Not to affect the biodiversity.
• Not to have undesirable social consequences.
• To contribute to the societal economic development and equity.
The major factors that will determine the impacts of renewable energy pro-
duction system include their contribution to land use change, the feedstock/input
used, technology adopted, scale of production, use of by-products (if any),
wholesale trade and retail of energy product and by-product, and emissions after
end use of produced energy. Yan and Lin (2009) revealed that the interactions
among various sustainability issues make the assessment of biofuel development
difficult and complicated. The complexity during the whole renewable energy
production chain generates significantly different results due to the differences in
input data, methodologies applied, and local geographical conditions.
In order to ensure net societal benefits of biofuels production, governments,
researchers, and companies will need to work together to carry out comprehensive
assessments, map suitable and unsuitable areas, and define and apply standards
relevant to the different circumstances of each country (Phalan 2009). The length
and complexity of the supply chains make the sustainability issue very challeng-
ing. The main aim is to improve the performance of the strategies by enhancing
positive effects, mitigating negative ones, and avoiding the transfer of negative
impacts to future generations (Gnansounou 2011). The science of LCA is being
stretched to its limits as policy makers consider direct and indirect effects of
biofuels on global land and water resources, global ecosystems, air quality, public
health, and social justice (Sheehan 2009). The sustainable renewable energy
production is directed by environmental impacts (direct and indirect), economic
viability including societal and political acceptance.

6 Conclusions

The increasing demand for renewable energy challenges societies to find out sus-
tainable and renewable energy source. LCA is a tool which can be used effectively
in assessing the sustainability of renewable energy sources. The collection of actual
data for such study is a quite challenging task, as these data sets have very high
variations with the temporal and spatial variation. The sustainability basically
depends on three pillars of social, economical, and environmental performance of
the renewable energy source. The social, economical, and environmental con-
straints reduce the potential of sustainable renewable energy sources.