INCIHUSA   20883
INSTITUTO DE CIENCIAS HUMANAS, SOCIALES Y AMBIENTALES
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Taking into account water use impacts in the LCA of biofuels: an Argentinean case study.
Autor/es:
MIREILLE FAIST EMMENEGGER; STEPHAN PFISTER &; ANNETTE KOEHLER; LUCA DE GIOVANETTI; ALEJANDRO PABLO ARENA; RAINER ZAH
Revista:
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
Editorial:
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
Referencias:
Año: 2011 vol. 16 p. 869 - 877
ISSN:
0948-3349
Resumen:
Purpose The assessment of biofuels has until now mainlyfocused on energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions.Only little attention has been given to other impacts,although the general importance of water use for the lifecycle assessment (LCA) of agricultural products has beenrecognized in recent publications. The aim of this work is toassess in detail the water consumption along a biofuelproduction chain taking into account irrigation efficiencies,levels of water scarcity, and type of feedstock, and tointegrate those results in a full LCA. Furthermore, wecompare the results for biofuels from various feedstocksand regions with conventional petrol.Methods We calculate the water consumption and overalllife cycle assessment results in a case study for theproduction of methyl ester from irrigated and nonirrigatedrapeseed. The results are compared with otherirrigated and non-irrigated biofuels based on differentfeedstocks.Results and discussion Water consumption in biofuelproduction chains based on non-irrigated crops does notvary greatly and is in the same range as for fossil fuel. Incontrast, as a consequence of irrigation, agricultural waterconsumption dominates the overall results of all irrigatedcrops. Consequently, the level of water scarcity plays a keyrole for the LCA results. In our case study, the environmentalimpacts of methyl ester from irrigated rapeseed in awater-scarce region, measured in aggregated Eco-Indicator99 scores, are almost doubled by water consumption.Variations in irrigation efficiency, however, are of littleinfluence on the results, as the assessment method usedhere is based on consumptive water, which depends mainlyon the evapotranspiration of the crop.Conclusions The focus on greenhouse gas emissions of themain regulatory schemes neglects other relevant environmentalimpacts and may provide the wrong incentives.Water consumption may thus become a major concern,offsetting the benefits of biofuel use with respect to climatechange.