Sustainability of rapeseed biodiesel using LCA method

Adele Finco, Deborah Bentivoglio, Michele Rasetti, Monica Padella, Piergiuseppe Polla and Davide Cortesi

No 126447, 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: The Kyoto protocol and the EU Directive 2009/28/EC focus their attention on the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. The use of biofuels in the transport sector is one of the main measures proposed. This paper evaluates the environmental impact, in terms of GHG emissions, of the production and use of rapeseed biodiesel, comparing the results with conventional diesel. The methodology used is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The results of the analysis show that the production of rapeseed biodiesel entails a substantial reduction of the GHG emissions compared to the diesel production system. Furthermore, the agricultural phase is identified as the process which causes the largest amount of GHG emissions in biodiesel life cycle. Therefore it could be possible to improve further the environmental performance of biodiesel intervening properly at that stage.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Environmental Economics and Policy; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18
Date: 2012-06-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/126447/files/S ... g%20LCA%20Method.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae12:126447

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.126447

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil from International Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().