Page 279 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

270 D. Rathore et al.

considerably in the recent years, driven primarily by concerns about fossil fuel
prices and availability. Large-scale biofuel industries are being promoted to
decrease reliance on petroleum in response to an abrupt rise in oil prices and to
develop transportation fuels that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions com-
pared to conventional fuel (IPCC 2007). This growing interest in biofuels is a
means of ‘‘modernizing’’ biomass use and providing greater access to clean liquid
fuels while helping to address energy costs, energy security, and global warming
concerns associated with petroleum fuels. Industrial use of biofuels, particularly in
North America and Latin America, has been expanding over the past century
(Fernandes et al. 2007). However, the energetic use of biomass also causes impacts
on climate change and, furthermore, different environmental issues arise, such as
land-use and agricultural emissions, acidification, and eutrophication (Emmeneg-
ger et al. 2012; Dressler et al. 2012). Therefore, the environmental and climate
benefits of bioenergies must be verified according to life cycle assessment (LCA)
methods (ISO 14040 2006; ISO 14044 2006) to make them a sustainable energy
source.
The environmental performance of products and processes has become a key
issue, which influences some companies to investigate ways to minimize their
effects on the environment. Many companies have found it advantageous to
explore ways of moving beyond compliance using pollution prevention strategies
and environmental management systems to improve their environmental perfor-
mance. One such tool is LCA. This concept considers the entire life cycle of a
product (Curran 1996). Life cycle assessment is a tool for assessing the environ-
mental impacts of a product, process, or service from design to disposal, i.e.,
across its entire lifecycle, a so-called cradle-to-grave approach. The impacts may
be beneficial or adverse depending on a variety of factors most of which has been
discussed in great detail in the previous chapters. These impacts are sometimes
referred to as the ‘‘environmental footprint’’ of a product or service. The results of
an LCA study depend on several factors, e.g., consideration of system boundaries,
functional unit, data sources, impact categories, allocation. This chapter is an effort
to compare different LCA studies of biofuels to highlight the main unresolved
problems in performing an LCA study for biofuel production systems.

2 Role of LCA in Improvement of Biofuels Production
System

Modern bioenergy can be a mechanism for economic development, enabling local
communities to secure the energy they need, with farmers earning additional
income and achieving greater price stability for their production (UNEP/GRID-
Arendal 2011). Cultivation of the energy crops has raised concerns due to their
high consumption of conventional fuels, fertilizers, and pesticides, their impacts
on ecosystems and competition for arable land with food crops. Safeguards are