Sustainability Assessment of Biodiesel Supply Chain from Various Biomasses and Conversion Technologies

• Published in: BioPhysical Economics and Resource Quality 2018-06, Vol.3 (2), Article 6
• Main Authors: Safarian, Sahar, Sattari, Sorena, Hamidzadeh, Zeinab
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural economics; Algae; Animal fat; Biodiesel fuels; Biofuels; Cooking; Cooking oils; Cotton; Data-driven Science; Diesel; Economics; Economics and Management; Edible oils; Emission; Emissions; Energy; Energy Policy; Greenhouse gases; Hazelnuts; Land use; Modeling and Theory Building; Natural Resource and Energy Economics; Natural Resources; Olive oil; Original Paper; Peanuts; Production costs; Seeds; Social factors; Soybeans; Sunflowers; Supply chains; Sustainability; Walnuts; Water consumption
• ISSN: 2366-0112; 2366-0120
• DOI: 10.1007/s41247-018-0039-2

This paper develops a comprehensive sustainability assessment of producing biodiesel from five different types of feedstocks and totally 15 biomasses in Iran: (i) edible oil seeds (canola, soybean, olive, walnut, hazelnut, almond, sunflower, corn, and peanut), (ii) nonedible oil seeds (cotton and jatropha), (iii) waste cooking oil (WCO), (iv) animal fat (tallow and poultry), and (v) microalgae ( Chlorella vulgaris ). This assessment integrates the most significant economic, energy, environmental, and social aspects to compare and rank 15 biodiesel systems. The results show that WCO with production cost of 600$/ton bd , EUE of 2.8 and GHG emission of 0.35 ton CO 2 eq/ton bd is the top rank system from economic, energy and environmental perspectives, followed by tallow by having 876$/ton bd , 1.76 and 0.45 ton CO 2 eq/ton bd for production cost, EUE and GHG emission, respectively. Jatropha has also dominant statues socially and economic by having 7910 h/ton bd and 755$/ton bd for labor required and production cost, respectively but not suggested for Iran due to high water consumption (1053 m 3 /ton bd ) and land use (10.9 ha/ton bd ). Although algae takes up the top rank environmentally, it is not proposed because it has the highest production cost (5800$/ton bd ) and very low job opportunity (65 h/ton bd ). Finally, under different assessments, walnut and hazelnut have the higher ranks over the first-generation systems; however, in social aspect, cotton is in the high position.