Indirect Land Use Change Effects in Consequential Life Cycle Assessment of Bioenergy - LUCAS
Coordinating Institution:
CRP Henri Tudor
Contracting Partner(s):
Ecoinvent Centre, St. Gallen (CH) ,
Ordecsys, Chêne-Bourg (CH)
From: 01/04/2010
To: 31/03/2013
Budget: 455,000.00€
Contact(s):
Benetto Enrico
Summary
The promotion of renewable energies, such as biomass, is at the heart of the European Community’s policy actions since a decade. The use of agricultural crops for energy purposes (e.g. biomethane production) has, however, other non-climate-related environmental impacts such as eutrophication and acidification due to fertilizer runoff. The most consensual methodology to evaluate the overall environmental impact associated with the production of energy from agricultural crops is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA – ISO 14040-44).
In the field of bioenergy, comparative LCAs of bioenergy production are usually of the “attributional” type, i.e. use average data and assume that the bioenergy production lifecycle does not affect other systems. However the consequences of the increased use of bioenergy on other systems can actually affect other economic systems, e.g. the food chain. Thus, there is a need for incorporating the actual affected processes into the scope of the LCA and to evaluate the related consequences.
Such a type of methodological approach is usually referred to as “consequential LCA - CLCA”. The main scientific objective of LUCAS is to provide an operational methodology for the inclusion of indirect effects of land use changes into CLCA of bioenergy and then to apply the methodology to the case of biomethane production from energy maize in Rédange, Luxembourg.
The case of maize has been chosen mainly because of the significant experience, data and information available from the years, which will facilitate the development and application of the CLCA methodology. The project includes the development and application of a partial equilibrium model (PEM) aimed at illustrating the Luxembourg’s economy and quantitatively describing land use change effects related to biomethane production from energy crops.
This objective will provide innovative knowledge on the pertinence and efficiency of the use of such a model in LCA and on how to practically include/combine such a model into a LCA model and software. Furthermore, LUCAS represents an ideal case study and showcase in view of the definition of consequential life cycle inventory data collection procedures, not limited to the agricultural sector.
The combination of conventional and input-output based impact assessment approaches into a common framework will provide innovative scientific knowledge. Beside the scientific objectives, LUCAS is aimed at supporting decision – making process for the future development of bionergy in Luxembourg. The results gathered from the CLCA of biomethane will certainly highlight the main environmental issues related to the large scale implementation of such technology.