Life Cycle Assessment of Forest-Derived Solid Biofuels: a Systematic Review of the Literature

Autor: Ricardo Musule, Rosa M. Gallardo-Alvarez, Carmen García, Omar Masera, Joel Bonales-Revuelta, Tuyeni H. Mwampamba
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: BioEnergy Research. 15:1711-1732
ISSN: 1939-1242
1939-1234
Popis: Life cycle assessments conducted in the last decade on forest-derived solid biofuels contain key insights to assess the environmental impact of such fuels under different contexts. This paper reports on the results of a systematic review of 87 studies that applied life cycles assessment on five types of solid biofuels: firewood, charcoal, wood chips, briquettes, and pellets. By considering the particularities of the countries in which the studies were conducted, biomass sources, end-uses and life cycle methodological choices, and key insights were derived about the global distribution of studies and what existing works can contribute to general understanding of the sustainability of wood-based fuels. First, most life cycles assessment focus on modern solid biofuels in developed countries, only 13% were on traditional solid biofuels such as firewood and charcoal in developing countries. Secondly, there are remarkable inconsistencies across studies in how they report and define their system boundaries. Thirdly, global warming potential is the most widely applied impact category. A meta-analysis of a subset of the studies (N = 26) revealed that, in general, forest-derived solid biofuels have lower global warming potential than fossil-based alternatives. Given the global imbalance of life cycle assessment efforts on forest-derived solid biofuels, there is need to mobilize capacities in order to increase applications in developing nations. However, persistent low uptake of standardized application and reporting in life cycle assessment studies perpetuates oft-mentioned limitations for cross-study comparisons. An approach to standardize system boundaries is proposed to partially address these limitations.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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