Bioresource Technology, Vol.150, 438-446, 2013
Life cycle environmental impacts of a prospective palm-based biorefinery in Para State-Brazil
The availability of about 18 million hectares of grassland in Para State, Brazil, and the possibility of increasing the livestock density display a good perspective for the oil palm expansion in pasture land. A life cycle assessment is performed for a prospective palm-based biorefinery to view two regional and one global environmental impact and the consequences of the land-use change in terms of GHG emissions. Oil palm cultivation in an area of similar to 110,000 hectares of land can annually produce similar to 39,000 tons of bioethanol, similar to 340,000 tons of biodiesel, similar to 268 GW h net electricity and other co-products. The life cycle GHG emissions reduction for biodiesel and bioethanol as compared to fossil diesel and gasoline would be 76.9-79.3% and 83.7-88.6%. The advantage of grassland rehabilitation by oil palm plantation is the removal of similar to 188 t CO2/ha from the atmosphere during the plant lifetime. The entire inflows and outflows for the conversion processes are schemed. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.