Abstract
Bioenergy and biofuels are key to meeting renewable energy and carbon reduction targets. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques are being used, with varying success and consistency, to help determine the sustainability of the current fuels and pathways selected. In order to meet our longer term targets and pursue long term sustainability emerging processes and systems need to be examined, as well as existing processes. Designers recognise that a large percentage of impacts and costs are pre-ordained within the design stage; so it makes sense to use LCA at the start of the research process in order to minimise these. Determining impacts at this stage could also help select the most promising options with maximum sustainability/GHG reduction potential. At the same time policy makers are beginning to use LCA as a tool to help inform policy choices for future energy pathways. Never the less, there are various uncertainties involved with its use at early stage research level, and also the expansion of LCA to look at wider consequences of the use of a particular product or system. LCA is changing from a traditional, retrospective tool to a more dynamic, forward thinking tool. Whilst this brings a multitude of benefits in terms of ability to predict impacts and minimise these in advance, this method of LCA use is not without uncertainties and difficulties. This paper explores why LCA is important within the bioenergy context and highlights some of the benefits, disadvantages, and changes that are seen through its use.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
ANL 2014. GREET. The greenhouse gases, regulated emissions, and energy use in transportation (GREET) model. https://greet.es.anl.gov/main
Bento, A.M., Klotz, R.: Climate Policy Decisions Require Policy-based Lifecycle Analysis. Environmental Science and Technology, ACS (2014)
Curran, M.A.: Broad-based environmental life cycle assessment. Environ. Sci. Technol. 27(3), 430–436 (1993)
EU: Renewable Energy Directive. Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April on the Promotion of the Use of Energy from Renewable Sources and Amending and Subsequently Repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC (2009)
GHGenius. http://www.ghgenius.ca/downloads.php (2014). Accessed 12 Dec 2014
Griffiths, O.G., Owen, R.E., OByrne, J.P. Mattia, D., Jones, M.D., McManus M.C.: LCA Using Life Cycle Assessment to Measure the Environmental Performance of Catalysts and Directing Research in the Conversion of CO2 into Commodity Chemicals: a look at the potential for fuels from thin-air RSC Advances, vol. 30 (2013)
Hetherington, A., Borrion, A.L., Griffiths, O.G., McManus, M.C.: The use and implications of LCA in early stage research. J. Life Cycle Assess. 19(1), 130–143 (2014)
Hunt, R.G., Franklin, W.: LCAHow it came about. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 1(1), 4–7 (1996)
ISO. Environmental management life cycle assessment principles and framework. International Standards Organization, Second Edition, EN ISO 14040 (2006)
ISO. Environmental management life cycle assessment requirements and guidelines, International Standards Organization, EN ISO 14044 (2006)
McManus and Taylor (submitted) The Changing Nature of Life Cycle Assessment. Submitted to Biomass and Bioenergy
Plevin, R.J., Delucchi, M.A., Creutzig, F.: Using attributional life cycle assessment to estimate climate change mitigation benefits misleads policy makers. J. Ind. Ecol. 18(1), 73–83 (2014)
Royal Society Sustainable Biofuels Prospects and Challenges. Policy Document 01/08. ISBN 9780854036622. http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2008/7980.pdf (2008)
Sanchez, S.,Woods, J., Akhurst, M., Brander, M., O’Hare, M., Dawson, T.P., Edwards, R., Liska, A.J., Malpas, R.: Accounting for indirect land-use change in the life cycle assessment of biofuel supply chains J. R. Soc. Interface 7 June 2012 vol. 9 no. 71 1105-1119. http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/9/71/1105.short (2012)
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Guidelines for Life-Cycle Assessment: A code of practice. Based on a workshop at Sesimbra, Portugal, March 31 April 3. Brussels and Pensacola, Florida, USA (1993)
Spatari, S., Bagley, D.M., MacLean, H.L.: Life cycle evaluation of emerging lignocellulosic ethanol conversion technologies. Bioresour. Technol. 101, 654–667 (2010)
Suh, S., Yang, Y.: On the uncanny capabilities of consequential LCA. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 19, 1179–1184 (2014). doi:10.1007/s11367-014-0739-9
Taylor, C.M., McManus, M.C.: The Evolving Role of LCA in Bioenergy Policy, Bioenergy Connection 2013 VOL. 2.3 MAGAZINE. Energy BioSciences Institute (2013). http://energybiosciencesinstitute.org/publications/2013-vol-23-magazine#overlay-context=
Tischner, U., Schmincke, E., Rubik, F., Prosler, M.: How to Do Ecodesign?: A Guide for Environmentally and Economically Sound Design, Edited by the German Federal Environmental Agency, Verlag form (Praxis) ISBN: 3898020258/9783898020251 (2000)
Whittaker, C., McManus, M.C., Smith, P.: A comparison of carbon accounting tools for bioenergy and for whole farms. Environ. Model. Softw. (2013)
Whittaker, C., McManus, M.C., Hammond, G.P.: Greenhouse gas reporting for biofuels: a comparison between the RED, RTFO and PAS2050 methodologies. Energy Policy (2011). doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2011.06.054
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank her funders; the BBSRC UK/US partnership grant BB/J020184/1, the EPSRC Supergen Bioenergy Hub (EP/J017302/1), BBSRC LACE programme (BB/G01616X/1), and the University of Bath. This work was originally presented at the Berkeley Bioeconomy Conference in March 2014 and has been augmented and updated for this publication.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
McManus, M.C. (2017). The Use of LCA for the Development of Bioenergy Pathways. In: Pinto, A., Zilberman, D. (eds) Modeling, Dynamics, Optimization and Bioeconomics II. DGS 2014. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics, vol 195. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55236-1_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55236-1_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55235-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55236-1
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)