title: Health impact assessment of liquid biofuel production.
abstract: Bioethanol and biodiesel as potential substitutes for fossil fuels in the transportation sector have been analyzed for environmental suitability. However, there could be impacts on human health during the production, therefore adverse health effects have to be analyzed. The aim of this study is to analyze to what health risk factors humans are exposed to in the production of biofuels and what the size of the health effects is. A health impact assessment expressed as disability adjusted life years (DALYs) was conducted in SimaPro 7.1 software. The results show a statistically significant lower carcinogenic impact of biofuels (p < 0.05) than fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the impact of organic respirable compounds is smaller for fossil fuels (p < 0.05) than for biofuels. Analysis of inorganic compounds like PM₁₀,₂.₅, SO₂ or NO(x) shows some advantages of sugar beet bioethanol and soybean biodiesel production (p < 0.05), although production of sugarcane bioethanol shows larger impacts of respirable inorganic compounds than for fossil fuels (p < 0.001). Although liquid biofuels are made of renewable energy sources, this does not necessary mean that they do not represent any health hazards.
authors: Department for Sanitary Engineering, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Zdravstvena Pot 5, Ljubljana, Slovenia. rok.fink@zf.uni-lj.si
authors: Rok
authors: R
authors: Fink
authors: Sašo
authors: S
authors: Medved
mesh_terms: D027461:Beta vulgaris / Q000009:adverse effects; D056804:Biofuels / Q000633:toxicity*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity; D005579:Fossil Fuels / Q000633:toxicity*; D062489:Health Impact Assessment; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry; D006109:Poaceae / Q000009:adverse effects; D011839:Radiation, Ionizing; D013025:Glycine max / Q000009:adverse effects; D014466:Ultraviolet Rays / Q000009:adverse effects
chemical_list: D056804:Biofuels; D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D005579:Fossil Fuels