CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Renewable energies research is mainly driven by oil reserves depletion in medium-term perspective. As consequence, bioenergy coming from crop-based biofuels has increased sharply in recent years, especially in USA, Europe, Brazil, India and China. However, agricultural resources for energy purposes generate conflicts mainly related to the agricultural frontier expansion due to both larger world biofuels demands and competition with food for land use. In Argentina, a country with fertile soils climatologically favoured for cultivation of a variety of cereals and oleaginous, the legislation has imposed, like in other countries, the use of biofuels in blend with gasoline. This fact and the general world trend become evident such competition for land use in the near future. As such, efficient, environmental benign and sustainable technologies should be evaluated and analyzed to fulfil both food and fuel needs. In this context, this work aims at analyzing the environmental impact of maize-based bioethanol production in Argentina. Life Cycle assessment (LCA) is the methodology chosen through the Eco-indicator LCIA method and SimaPro software. As the most controversial process is the agriculture system, two predominant farming practices are compared: conventional technique and direct seeding. The defined system involves raw materials production (e.g. fertilizers, seeds), agricultural field operations for maize cultivation (fertilizers and pesticides spreading, harrowing, sowing and harvesting), crop residues use, and the transportation to the farm gate. The functional unit considered is 1 kg of maize. Advantages and disadvantages of both farming practices are evaluated to provide insights into the primary processes involved in a typical crop-based ethanol production chain.