title: Life cycle environmental impacts of a prospective palm-based biorefinery in Pará State-Brazil.
abstract: The availability of about 18 million hectares of grassland in Pará 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 ∼110,000 hectares of land can annually produce ∼39,000 tons of bioethanol, ∼340,000 tons of biodiesel, ∼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 ∼188 t CO2/ha from the atmosphere during the plant lifetime. The entire inflows and outflows for the conversion processes are schemed.
authors: Bioenergy and Energy Planning Research Group, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Station 18, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. Electronic address: mkk1384@yahoo.com.
authors: Mitra Kami
authors: MK
authors: Delivand
authors: Edgard
authors: E
authors: Gnansounou
mesh_terms: D028023:Arecaceae / Q000737:chemistry*; D018533:Biomass; D019149:Bioreactors; D001938:Brazil; D004777:Environment; D000431:Ethanol / Q000378:metabolism; D005638:Fruit / Q000737:chemistry; D000073878:Palm Oil; D010938:Plant Oils / Q000737:chemistry; D014866:Waste Products / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D010938:Plant Oils; D014866:Waste Products; D000431:Ethanol; D000073878:Palm Oil
keywords: Direct land-use change; Life cycle assessment; Palm-based biorefinery