BIOENERGY FOR EUROPE: WHICH ONES FIT BEST?

3.5 Interpretation 43
of the individual ecological parameters can be expressed in terms of the “equivalent value per capita”,
as has been done in certain cases in this project: of the 8 participating partner countries, some chose to
present their results as LCIA parameters without normalisation, and others chose to use normalisation,
which led to two distinct forms of data presentation. The choice of each country is indicated in Table
3-3. It also shows that the results for all of Europe were decided to be presented in the normalised form.
They are included in the main body of the text, while all country specific results can be found in the
Annex. 2010 was chosen as the reference year.
Table 3-3 Country specific choice regarding presentation of results
LCIA results
without normalisation
Normalised LCIA
results
France Austria
Greece Denmark
The Netherlands Germany
Switzerland Italy
Europe (EU)
Those countries using normalisation chose a reference unit that appears fairly complicated, but the underlying
principle is relatively simple and allows an appropriate way of assessing the relative impact of
the respective biofuel with regard to the different parameters: what is being expressed is the specific
environmental impact of the respective fuel relative to the environmental impact of an average inhabitant
of the country concerned. The derived unit is therefore “inhabitant equivalent per functional unit”.
For example, the parameter “Use of fossil fuels” would be expressed in the following way for normalised
results:
If biofuel B replaces an equivalent amount of fossil fuel F, then the amount of fossil
fuel saved would be equivalent to the average consumption of X inhabitants per year.
This way, it is possible to compare the relative effect of using a certain fuel with regard to different
parameters.
In order to express the results most meaningfully, it may be desirable to chose a unit generally used
with regard to the utility of the fuel – thus for example a fuel used for transportation might best be expressed
in terms of inhabitant equivalents per km of distance covered by a car. Furthermore, it might be
necessary to chose a different order of magnitude than the functional unit is expressed in, so that the
results are given in figures that are easy to comprehend (e. g. 300 inhabitant equivalents per GJ rather
than 0.3 inhabitant equivalents per MJ). Thus the results would be expressed in derived functional units.
This has been done with regard to the normalised results presented in this project, in order to further
facilitate their interpretation.
3.5 Interpretation
3.5.1 General procedure
The assessment of the environmental impacts of biofuels within this study involves two distinct parts:
firstly, to compare the biofuels against those fossil fuels which fulfil equivalent purposes, e. g. conventional
diesel versus biodiesel for transport. These comparisons are based on complete life cycle analyses
according to the ISO 14040 – 14043 standards. The procedure for this is explained in Chapter 3.5.2.
Secondly, the biofuels were compared against each other, based on the results of their comparisons
against the respective fossil fuels. This is a complex task because the environmental performance of any
biofuel depends partly on the objective of its use. Thus for example one biofuel might be most efficient
when the goal is to produce heat, but another might be better suited for producing electricity. Therefore,
the comparison between the various biofuels was carried out in the light of four different questions (see
Chapter 4.3).