A Global Comparison of National Biodiesel Production Potentials

Johnston, Matthew L.; Holloway, Tracey

doi:10.1021/es062459k

Cited by 111 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…However, economic incentives for carbon sequestration should increase permanent sequestration. That is, wherever and whenever there are incentives (payments) for carbon-sequestration services, one would expect more sequestration to occur than if no payments were made (Johnston & Holloway, 2007;Tollefson, 2008). Carbon sequestration in living forests can be performed on lands with low productivity that are not suitable for agriculture or for intensive forestry and that are compatible with goals of biodiversity conservation over large areas.…”

Section: Greenhouse Gases and Their Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenge of Bioenergies: An Overview

Carels¹

2011

Biofuel's Engineering Process Technology

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Section: Greenhouse Gases and Their Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenge of Bioenergies: An Overview

Carels¹

2011

Biofuel's Engineering Process Technology

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“…Lower production costs and fewer environmental regulations have helped forest-rich tropical countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Malaysia respond quickly to increased demand for crops such as sugarcane, soybeans, and oil palm (12)(13)(14). Indeed, the expansion of the global agricultural land area during the 1980s and 1990s occurred primarily in developing countries where total agricultural land (croplands, pastures, and temporary agriculture) increased by 629 million ha while developed countries lost 335 million ha (4,14).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s

Gibbs

Ruesch

Achard

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

1,445

891

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Global demand for agricultural products such as food, feed, and fuel is now a major driver of cropland and pasture expansion across much of the developing world. Whether these new agricultural lands replace forests, degraded forests, or grasslands greatly influences the environmental consequences of expansion. Although the general pattern is known, there still is no definitive quantification of these land-cover changes. Here we analyze the rich, pan-tropical database of classified Landsat scenes created by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations to examine pathways of agricultural expansion across the major tropical forest regions in the 1980s and 1990s and use this information to highlight the future land conversions that probably will be needed to meet mounting demand for agricultural products. Across the tropics, we find that between 1980 and 2000 more than 55% of new agricultural land came at the expense of intact forests, and another 28% came from disturbed forests. This study underscores the potential consequences of unabated agricultural expansion for forest conservation and carbon emissions.

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“…Argentina has been ranked as the third country in the world with the highest potential for biodiesel production (Johnston and Holloway 2007). This statement relies on the availability of soybean oil for export, the low production costs and the good socioeconomic conditions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment of soybean-based biodiesel in Argentina for export

Panichelli

Dauriat²,

Gnansounou

2008

Int J Life Cycle Assess

152

112

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Background, aim and scope Regional specificities are a key factor when analyzing the environmental impact of a biofuel pathway through a life cycle assessment (LCA). Due to different energy mixes, transport distances, agricultural practices and land use changes, results can significantly vary from one country to another. The Republic of Argentina is the first exporter of soybean oil and meal and the third largest soybean producer in the world, and therefore, soybean-based biodiesel production is expected to significantly increase in the near future, mostly for exportation. Moreover, Argentinean biodiesel producers will need to evaluate the environmental performances of their product in order to comply with sustainability criteria being developed. However, because of regional specificities, the environmental performances of this biofuel pathway can be expected to be different from those obtained for other countries and feedstocks previously studied. This work aims at analyzing the environmental impact of soybean-based biodiesel production in Argentina for export. The relevant impact categories account for the primary non-renewable energy consumption (CED), the global warming potential (GWP), the eutrophication potential (EP), the acidification potential (AP), the terrestrial ecotoxicity (TE), the aquatic ecotoxicity (AE), the human toxicity (HT) and land use competition (LU). The paper tackles the feedstock and country specificities in biodiesel production by comparing the results of soybean-based biodiesel in Argentina with other reference cases. Emphasis is put on explaining the factors that contribute most to the final results and the regional specificities that lead to different results for each biodiesel pathway. Materials and methods The Argentinean (AR) biodiesel pathway was modelled through an LCA and was compared with reference cases available in the ecoinvent® 2.01 database, namely, soybean-based biodiesel production in Brazil (BR) and the United States (US), rapeseed-based biodiesel production in the European Union (EU) and Switzerland (CH) and palm-oil-based biodiesel production in Malaysia (MY). In all cases, the systems were modelled from feedstock production to biodiesel use as B100 in a 28 t truck in CH. Furthermore, biodiesel pathways were compared with fossil low-sulphur diesel produced and used in CH. The LCA was performed according to the ISO standards. The life cycle inventory and the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) were performed in Excel spreadsheets using the ecoinvent® 2.01 database. The cumulative energy demand (CED) and the GWP were estimated through the CED for fossil and nuclear energy and the IPCC 2001 (climate change) LCIA methods, respectively. Other impact categories were assessed according to CML 2001, as implemented in ecoinvent. As the product is a fuel for transportation (service), the system was defined for one vehicle kilometre (functional unit) and was divided into seven unit processes, namely, agricultural phase, soybean oil extraction and refining, transesteri...

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A Global Comparison of National Biodiesel Production Potentials

Cited by 111 publications

References 13 publications

The Challenge of Bioenergies: An Overview

The Challenge of Bioenergies: An Overview

Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s

Life cycle assessment of soybean-based biodiesel in Argentina for export

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