Environmental sustainability assessment of sugarcane bioenergy
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Publication Details
Author list: Gheewala S.H., Bonnet S., Silalertruksa T.
Publisher: Hindawi
Publication year: 2016
Start page: 363
End page: 378
Number of pages: 16
ISBN: 9781118719862; 9781118719916
ISSN: 0146-9428
eISSN: 1745-4557
Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)
Abstract
In response to energy security concerns resulting from fossil energy supply shortage and climate change issues, the production, conversion, and use of biomass materials for energy has been the subject of much development. Net energy balance (NEB) and life cycle assessment (LCA) are useful tools to evaluate environmental sustainability and identify opportunities for improvement of the environmental efficiency of biofuels. The life cycle environmental impacts associated with molasses ethanol production and five major impact categories: global warming potential, photo-oxidant formation, acidification, human toxicity, and eutrophication, are presented. For assessing the energy efficiency of biofuels, the NEB for the entire production system must be assessed in terms of the difference in energy content of the biofuel produced and fossil fuels and other energy sources required to produce it. The chapter presents the energy analysis based on an existing molasses ethanol plant in Thailand that is associated with a sugar mill. ฉ 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords
Biofuel energy efficiency, Environmental sustainability assessment, Sugarcane bioenergy
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