biodiesel life cycel assessment (lca)
DESCRIPTION
Biodiesel is an environmentally friendly fuel as compared to petroleum-derived diesel. This work aims to evaluate how much we are compromising with environment, society and investment returns by biodiesel production. Biodiesel is a long-chain alkyl ester, produced by the Chemical reaction of oil/fat with alcohol. The industrial production of biodiesel has various roots. The current study proposes to perform Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on base-catalysed production method. The study has three steps 1) performing LCA on base catalysed production system. The LCA is performed using three pillars of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental prospects 2) analyze the results of LCA and assess the most sensitive components in the production 3) resource optimization: In this step, those critical components would be optimized to get the best utilization of resources. Concerning the economical LCA, this would be the best and attainable ways to lower the biodiesel production cost, concerning the social aspects, it would be the ways through which human health could be made less effective while producing biodiesel and concerning the environment, it would be the ways through which environmental impacts of biodiesel production could be minimized. The resource optimization study on those susceptible components would also yield how much possibly cost could be minimized, adverse social and environmental impacts could be reduced. These three steps would also be studied for petroleum-derived diesel and the results comparison would yield which fuel is really an environmentally friendly fuel, based on life cycle study rather than merely its combustion properties.TRANSCRIPT
This presentation is on biodiesel Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA)
This presentation is presented at Aldrich Interdisciplinary conference at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
The presentation slides are made and presented by Zaman Sajid. For any research idea about biodiesel LCA please contact author at [email protected]
Resource Optimization of Biodiesel Production using Economical, Social,
and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and its comparison
with Petroleum-derived Diesel
“Break Down the Research Barriers”
- A theme of this conference
Biodiesel combustion reduces emissions of CO2 by 15.66% compared to petroleum diesel. (Sheehan et. al, 1998)
This is just one side of picture! We should look deep into their production systems
BUT
Cultivation
Seeds’ Pressing
Seed Oil Transportation
Industrial Production of Biodiesel
Biodiesel One kind of end-use
CO2
Vegetable Garbage
Roots Breathing Fossil Fuels:
Coal, Natural Gas, Oil Oceans, lakes
CO2
Refinery
End-Use
We should look deep into their production systems-
Means - we should look how much emissions is there at each stage of production
Cultivation
Seeds’ Pressing
Seed Oil Transportation
Industrial Production of Biodiesel
Biodiesel One kind of end-use
CO2
A B
CO2
CO2 CO2
CO2
Vegetable Garbage
Roots Breathing Fossil Fuels:
Coal, Natural Gas, Oil Oceans, lakes
CO2
A
B
CO2
CO2
CO2
Net CO2 released Net CO2 released
Now we can decide which fuel is environmentally friendly!
CO2
CO2
CO2
CO2
CO2
CO2
CO2
Transportation
Life-cycle assessment is a technique to assess the environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from-cradle-to-grave (i.e., from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling).
Source: US Environmental Protection Agency
Cultivation
Seeds’ Pressing
Seed Oil Transportation
Industrial Production of Biodiesel
Biodiesel One kind of end-use
CO2
Carbon Dioxide at Atmosphere
Oceans, lakes
Roots Breathing
Fossil Fuels: Coal, Natural Gas, Oil
Vegetable Garbage So
il an
d O
rgan
ism
s Br
eath
ing
Anim
al B
reat
hing
Plan
ts B
reat
hing
Plan
ts
Phot
osyn
thes
is
Phot
osyn
thes
is o
f Alg
as
Aqua
tic L
ife B
reat
hing
CO2
Which production STAGE has the most emissions of CO2 and that stage need attention.
1. Environmental
2. Economical
3. Social
Sustainability
As an example:
Use of land to grow crops since we will use fertilizer to grow crops
Cultivation
Seeds’ Pressing
Seed Oil Transportation
Industrial Production of Biodiesel
Biodiesel One kind of end-use
CO2 CO2
CO2 CO2
CO2 This stage is Causing Highest Emissions
Performing Economic LCA on biodiesel life cycle would let us know which components are incurring more cost
Cultivation
Seeds’ Pressing
Seed Oil Transportation
Industrial Production of Biodiesel
Biodiesel One kind of end-use
CO2
Which stage is incurring the higest cost As an example: Buying of land has the highest cost
Cultivation
Seeds’ Pressing
Seed Oil Transportation
Industrial Production of Biodiesel
Biodiesel One kind of end-use
CO2
This stage has Highest Cost
Performing Social LCA on biodiesel life cycle would let us know how biodiesel cycle effects standard of living and community
Cultivation
Seeds
Seed Oil
Industrial Production of Biodiesel
Biodiesel One kind of end-use
CO2
Which stage is effecting society the most.
As an example: Use of land effects human health the
most
Cultivation
Seeds
Seed Oil
Industrial Production of Biodiesel
Biodiesel One kind of end-use
CO2
This stage is most effecting the Human being
Use of land to
grow crops -- ---
Land Buying
-- ---
Use of land effects human health the most
-- ---
Optimization To make as perfect, effective, or
functional as possible Or The process of making our resources
more efficient or optimal.
Environmental LCA How to reduce emissions from the highest
emission stage Economical LCA How to reduce cost from the most cost incurring
stage Social LCA How to minimize the impact of highest effecting
stage
We analyse what are the curial components and try to optimize those resources in all three pillars of sustainability.
STOP GLOBAL WARMING!
Hey earth! Who made you sad
It’s you!
If you have a car, instead of driving that, please walk to Bitters Restaurant for your lovely launch
THANK YOU!