Page 55 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

The Application of Life Cycle Assessment on Agricultural 41

3 Why Lignocellulosic Materials Should be Used
as Feedstock for Biofuel Production? A Glimpse

The use of biomethane as a transport fuel has recently started to gain attention in
many European countries (Mathiasson 2008) whereas biogas production from
biomass has been promoted in many developing regions including Asia, Latin
America, and some regions of West Africa (Eisentraut 2010).
Lignocellulosic biomass (i.e., agricultural, industrial and forest residuals) is the
most investigated type of feedstock as one of the most abundant resources with
wide availability in most of the countries worldwide (Kim et al. 2002; Jorgensen
et al. 2007). Pitkanen et al. (2003) reported that lignocellulosic materials could
support the sustainable production of liquid transportation fuels. In support, Kim
6 -1
and Dale (2004) estimated that 49.1 9 10 L year of bioethanol can be pro-
duced by the utilization of the crop’s dry waste material worldwide (approx.
5
73.9 9 10 t), an amount 16 times higher than the current-world ethanol
production.
It has been projected that a major part of the European renewable energy will
originate from farming and forestry (Korres et al. 2013) while at least 25% of all
EU bioenergy in the future can originate from biogas, produced from wet organic
materials such as animal manure, whole-crop silages, wet food, and feed wastes
(Holm-Nielsen and Oleskowicz-Popiel 2008).
Growing demands for CO 2 -neutral transportation fuels and the desire to achieve
a reduced dependence on fossil resources have been the major driving forces for
the substantial increase in the amounts of bioethanol produced by fermentation of
biomass (Rass-Hansen et al. 2007) and the amount of biogas produced by the
anaerobic digestion of various lignocellulosic materials (Korres et al 2013). Fur-
thermore, the utilization of fermentable sugars from lignocellulosic materials for
‘‘green’’ ethanol and/or biogas production (Farrell et al. 2006; Demirbas 2008;Ni
and Sun 2009) given the need for sustainable energy production and use (Prasad
et al. 2007) deserves a closer examination.
In addition, policy incentives can turn the interest of the bioenergy/renewable
energy market in favor of lignocellulosic materials. As reported in the newsletter
of the European Biomass Industry Association (EUBIA 2012), the European
Commission presented recently its policy for biofuels through a proposal which
aims to limit global land conversion for biofuel production and raise the climate
benefits for biofuel used in the EU. Increases in the minimum GHG savings
threshold for new installations to 60%, inclusion of indirect land use change
factors in the reporting of GHG savings, and limitation in the amount of food crop-
based biofuels and bioliquids are suggested. Finally, the importance of market
incentives for biofuels ‘‘with no or low indirect land use change emissions, and in
particular the second- and third-generation biofuels produced from feedstock that
do not create an additional demand for land, including algae, straw, and various
types of waste’’ is highlighted. In the USA, GHG reductions and the establishment
of a sustainable bioenergy industry are aimed to be achieved through the Energy