Cascading Crypthecodinium cohnii Biorefinery: Global Warming Potential and Techno-Economic Assessment (original) (raw)

Brief on the use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate environmental impacts of the bioeconomy

2019

This brie f is based on the JRC Science for Policy report "Biomass production, supply, uses and flows in the European Union. First re sults from an integrated assessment" (Camia e t al. , 2018), unless stated otherwise. Key messages 1. Potential environmental impacts of bioeconomy sectors and the use of bio-based commodities must be monitored, evaluated and forecast in order to ensure that the bioeconomy operates within safe ecological limits (see section 1).

Energy, Bioeconomy, Climate Changes and Environment Nexus

Environmental and Climate Technologies, 2019

Overview of research papers of International conference of Environmental and Climate Technologies (CONECT 2019) illustrates the wide range of topics covered in the issue. All overviewed articles are published in the Special Issue (Part I and Part II) of the Journal of Environmental and Climate Technologies. Scientific articles are divided into 5 thematic clusters: renewable energy resources, energy efficiency, policy and policy tools, waste management and bioeconomy that charts energy, bioeconomy, climate change and environment nexus.

Sustainability Assessment of a Biorefinery Complex in Thailand

Sustainability, 2011

In this paper, a biorefinery complex in Thailand was assessed vis-à-vis sustainability. The complex studied includes plantations of sugarcane and a biorefinery system composed of several units including, a sugar mill, power plant, ethanol factory and fertilizer plant. The assessment aimed at evaluating the environmental and socio-economic implications relating to molasses-based ethanol production and use, and maximized utilization of the biomass materials produced as part of the biorefinery complex. Global warming potential, human development index and total value added are the three indicators that were selected to perform the assessment. The results obtained revealed that the maximization of biomass utilization at the level of the biorefinery complex provide greenhouse gases emissions reduction benefits, enhanced living conditions for sugarcane farmers and employees of the biorefinery, and economic benefits, particularly with regard to profit and income generation. These results could serve as a first step to further improve and design indicators for sustainability assessment of biomass utilization.

Rewarding of extra-avoided GHG emissions in thermochemical biorefineries incorporating Bio-CCS

Applied Energy, 2015

h i g h l i g h t s The incorporation of CCS is not regulated in thermochemical biorefineries. The extra climate benefit is modeled in terms of extra-avoided GHG emissions. Different policy scenarios are proposed for rewarding of extra-avoided GHG emissions. Current prices of CO 2 allowances make unprofitable Bio-CCS incorporation. The sale of all extra-avoided emissions and future regulation of bio-chemicals is analyzed.

Using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach to Estimate the Net Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Bioenergy

2011

IEA Bioenergy This strategic report was prepared by Mr Neil Bird, Joanneum Research, Austria; Professor Annette Cowie, The National Centre for Rural Greenhouse Gas Research, Australia; Dr Francesco Cherubini, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway; and Dr Gerfried Jungmeier; Joanneum Research, Austria. The report addresses the key methodological aspects of life cycle assessment (LCA) with respect to greenhouse gas (GHG) balances of bioenergy systems. It includes results via case studies, for some important bioenergy supply chains in comparison to fossil energy systems. The purpose of the report is to produce an unbiased, authoritative statement aimed especially at practitioners, policy advisors, and policy makers.

Balance and saving of GHG emissions in thermochemical biorefineries

Applied Energy, 2015

h i g h l i g h t s A simplified methodology for the balance and saving of GHG emissions is provided. The GHG balance has a physical meaning and does not depend on the fossil reference. The GHG saving depends on regulation of energy carriers. The impact of Bio-CCS incorporation and multiproduction is analyzed. The co-production of chemicals needs to be included in future regulation.

Restoring Pre-Industrial CO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e Levels While Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

2020

© 2020 by the authors. Unless humanity achieves United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and restores the relatively stable climate of pre-industrial CO2 levels (as early as 2140), species extinctions, starvation, drought/floods, and violence will exacerbate mass migrations. This paper presents conceptual designs and techno-economic analyses to calculate sustainable limits for growing high-protein seafood and macroalgae-for-biofuel. We review the availability of wet solid waste and outline the mass balance of carbon and plant nutrients passing through a hydrothermal liquefaction process. The paper reviews the availability of dry solid waste and dry biomass for bioenergy with CO2 capture and storage (BECCS) while generating Allam Cycle electricity. Sufficient wet-waste biomass supports quickly building hydrothermal liquefaction facilities. Macroalgae-for-biofuel technology can be developed and straightforwardly implemented on SDG-achieving high protein seafood infr...

Key issues in estimating energy and greenhouse gas savings of biofuels: challenges and perspectives.pdf

The increasing demand for biofuels has encouraged the researchers and policy makers worldwide to find sustainable biofuel production systems in accordance with the regional conditions and needs. The sustainability of a biofuel production system includes energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) saving along with environmental and social acceptability. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an internationally recognized tool for determining the sustainability of biofuels. LCA includes goal and scope, life cycle inventory, life cycle impact assessment, and interpretation as major steps. LCA results vary significantly, if there are any variations in performing these steps. For instance, biofuel producing feedstocks have different environmental values that lead to different GHG emission savings and energy balances. Similarly, land-use and land-use changes may overestimate biofuel sustainability. This study aims to examine various biofuel production systems for their GHG savings and energy balances, relative to conventional fossil fuels with an ambition to address the challenges and to offer future directions for LCA based biofuel studies. Environmental and social acceptability of biofuel production is the key factor in developing biofuel support policies. Higher GHG emission saving and energy balance of biofuel can be achieved, if biomass yield is high, and ecologically sustainable biomass or non-food biomass is converted into biofuel and used efficiently.

Analysis of Bioeconomy Affecting Factors – Climate Change and Production

Environmental and Climate Technologies

Implementation of bioeconomy has become an important topic on the national and global scale. Bioeconomy and its development is considered to be affected by many factors, for example, climate change, production, technology, waste and so on. Even more, there are linkages between these factors which, when discovered, could help to achieve one of the bioeconomy’s goals – sustainable use of bioresources. This paper analysis the interlinkage between two bioeconomy affecting factors – climate change and production. It was discovered that between two chosen factors there are seven common indicators: greenhouse gas emissions, investments in energy efficiency, energy consumption, waste generated, resource productivity, created wastewater, and use of freshwater. Regression method was used to conduct the strongest links between these common indicators. Results showed that the strongest links are between the indicators: resource productivity and GHG emissions, energy consumption and waste genera...

Life cycle assessment: Blazing a trail for bioresources management

Energy Conversion and Management: X, 2021

The life cycle assessment (LCA) is a well-established tool that has been used to provide data-driven analysis of environmental performances. LCA offers insights via selecting appropriate feedstocks, suitable technology, energy and environmental trade-off to be considered during the policy designing phase. In the present review, LCA analysis of each biomass based biorefinery and its impact assessment has been elaborated. The LCA literature clearly shows that transportation and manufacturing contributes majorly (up to 92.19%) to energy consumption. Further, the major global warming potential (GWP) was contributed by the electricity (86%) consumed in biorefinery industry. Thus, utilizing greener energy sources such as hydroelectricity or bioelectricity for energy and transportation needs can help in minimizing the environmental impacts. Further, development of integrated biorefineries can significantly decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 83% as compared to petroleum fuels and can fulfill the requirements for renewable fuel standards (RFS). The generation of multiple products at a single unit can help in adjusting the potential trade-offs and promoting environmentally beneficial processes during the designing phase for future refinery and energy systems. LCA is also a rational tool towards designing process blueprint for bioresources management through multi-products integrated biorefineries. It can be expanded further to cover the techno-economic, social, and health impacts in addition to environmental impacts (integrated sustainability assessment) for future integrated biorefineries and policy decisions.