A review of LCA greenhouse gas emissions results for advanced biofuels: The use of meta-regression analysis

Menten, Fabio; Chèze, Benoît; Patouillard, Laure; Bouvart, Frédérique

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2013.04.021

Cited by 109 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…The potential impacts of using biomass for vehicle fuel production on the environment and human health are subject of ongoing research; a large number of LCA studies for a lot of different feedstocks and fuels used in passenger vehicles has recently been published, e.g. in [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], showing large variations in terms of LCA results. Due to the intrinsic complexity in the LCA of biofuel chains with issues ranging from location specific aspects such as specific crop yields and water scarcity to controversial topics such as indirect land use as well as interaction with food markets, we consider a selection of ''representative'' biofuel chains for comparative use as impractical and therefore these fuels as being out of scope of our current assessment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework

et al. 2015

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework

et al. 2015

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“…A long-term cost-effective greenhouse gas abatement through the deployment of biofuels requires a thorough analysis of both the highly uncertain future potential costs [3,5], as well as of the uncertain biofuel pathway emissions [6][7][8], both of which depend on numerous factors, with land use as one combining factor. Particularly for biofuels from dedicated crops, the GHG abatement on a land use basis is an important indicator [7], and the discussion around land use has led Germany to set a limit for conventional biofuels [9], albeit on an energetic basis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although both life-cycle emissions of different biofuels (see the reviews by [6,7,10,11]), as well as cost assessments of advanced biofuels [12,13], comparison with fossil fuel costs [14,15] and cost development modeling [3,5] of different biofuels have been well covered in the literature, a combined detailed assessment of GHG abatement cost relations and developments to date has not. Studies on GHG abatement costs for singular fuels and time-points, such as ethanol [16,17] and biogas [18], have been published.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Competitiveness of Biofuels in Germany

et al. 2018

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Transport biofuels derived from biogenic material are used for substituting fossil fuels, thereby abating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Numerous competing conversion options exist to produce biofuels, with differing GHG emissions and costs. In this paper, the analysis and modeling of the long-term development of GHG abatement and relative GHG abatement cost competitiveness between crop-based biofuels in Germany are carried out. Presently dominant conventional biofuels and advanced liquid biofuels were found not to be competitive compared to the substantially higher yielding options available: sugar beet-based ethanol for the short-to medium-term least-cost option and substitute natural gas (SNG) for the medium to long term. The competitiveness of SNG was found to depend highly on the emissions development of the power mix. Silage maize-based biomethane was found competitive on a land area basis, but not on an energetic basis. Due to land limitations, as well as cost and GHG uncertainty, a stronger focus on the land use of crop-based biofuels should be laid out in policy.

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“…Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is widely used in literature to asses fossil CO2 abatement potential of bioenergy when substituting fossil fuels (McKechnie et al, 2011;Steubing et al, 2012;Gerber et al, 2013;Menten et al, 2013Menten et al, , 2015Martin et al, 2015). There are two approaches to calculate the potential of biomass to abate fossil CO2 through LCA: attributional and consequential.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example 1 MJ of biodiesel can replace 1 MJ of conventional fossil diesel. The abatement potential is calculated as the avoided fossil CO2 emissions due to the displacement of the conventional fossil diesel minus the fossil CO2 emitted in the generation of the biofuel (McKechnie et al, 2011;Menten et al, 2013). This approach focuses on the mass, energy, and CO2 balance of the biomass conversion process, assuming that it does not affect the outside world (the energy system as a whole) (Martin et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Assessment of the CO2 Mitigation Potential of Woody Biomass

et al. 2018

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Woody biomass, a renewable energy resource, accumulates solar energy in form of carbon hydrates produced from atmospheric CO2 and H2O. It is, therefore, a means of CO2 mitigation for society as long as the biogenic carbon released to the atmosphere when delivering its energy content by oxidation can be accumulated again during growth of new woody biomass. Even when considering the complete life cycle, usually, only a small amount of fossil CO2 is emitted. However, woody biomass availability is limited by land requirement and, therefore, it is important to maximize its CO2 mitigation potential in the energy system. In this study, we consider woody biomass not only as a source of renewable energy but also as a source of carbon for seasonal storage of solar electricity. A first analysis is carried out based on the mitigation effect of woody biomass usage pathways, which is the avoided fossil CO2 emissions obtained by using one unit of woody biomass to provide energy services, as alternative to fossil fuels. Results show that woody biomass usage pathways can achieve up to 9.55 times the mitigation effect obtained through combustion of woody biomass, which is taken as a reference. Applying energy system modeling and multi-objective optimization techniques, the role of woody biomass technological choices in the energy transition is then analyzed at a country scale. The analysis is applied to Switzerland, demonstrating that the use of woody biomass in gasification-methanation systems, coupled with electrolysers and combined with an intensive deployment of PV panels and efficient technologies, could reduce the natural gas imports to zero. Electrolysers are used to boost synthetic natural gas production by hydrogen injection into the methanation reaction. The hydrogen used is produced when there is excess of solar electricity. The efficient technologies, such as heat pumps and battery electric vehicles, allow increasing the overall efficiency of the energy system while generating demand for the solar electricity.

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A review of LCA greenhouse gas emissions results for advanced biofuels: The use of meta-regression analysis

Cited by 109 publications

References 78 publications

The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework

The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework

Relative Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Competitiveness of Biofuels in Germany

On the Assessment of the CO2 Mitigation Potential of Woody Biomass

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