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BIOENERGY FOR EUROPE: WHICH ONES FIT BEST?

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6 Conclusions and recommendations<br />

As explained in Chapter 2, in this project ten different biofuels were assessed and compared to equivalent<br />

fossil fuels with regard to their environmental impacts and nine of these were investigated for the<br />

whole European Union. Eight European countries participated in this study for which also different<br />

biofuels out of these ten were investigated.<br />

This chapter provides a brief summary of the main findings presented in this report and subsequently<br />

conclusions and recommendations will be given. In accordance with the goals of this study and<br />

the chosen methodology, the following issues will be addressed:<br />

• Results of the comparisons ”biofuels versus fossil fuels”<br />

• Results of the comparisons ”biofuels versus biofuels”<br />

• Results of the comparisons between the countries for each biofuel<br />

• Results of the socio-economic and political analyses<br />

• Conclusions and recommendations<br />

I Results of the comparisons "biofuels versus fossil fuels”<br />

The purpose of the comparisons between the various biofuels and their fossil counterparts investigated<br />

in this project was to show the environmental advantages and disadvantages of the different fuels in the<br />

various countries involved as well as the European Union. This was done by means of life cycle analyses<br />

(LCA). Several environmental impact categories were investigated for this purpose. It was found<br />

that for some of these no quantitative results could be obtained within this project that were reliable<br />

enough for a sound scientific assessment. This was partly due to the lack of sufficiently developed<br />

methodology and partly to the lack of available data, given the scope of this study.<br />

The following categories were assessed quantitatively and yielded results that can be regarded as very<br />

reliable:<br />

• Use of fossil fuels<br />

• Greenhouse effect<br />

• Acidification<br />

• Eutrophication<br />

• Summer smog<br />

In addition, the categories/parameters below were also assessed quantitatively but yielded much less<br />

reliable results.<br />

• Ozone depletion by nitrous oxide<br />

• Human toxicity<br />

• Ecotoxicity<br />

• Persistent toxicity<br />

• Ecosystem occupation<br />

• Harmful rainfall<br />

The net effect of nitrous oxide regarding ozone depletion is not ascertained as yet, as explained in<br />

Chapter 3.4.2. The results are included in the graphs but should be regarded with caution. The category<br />

human toxicity was also included in the result diagrams, but should be taken into consideration with<br />

care, as the data are of a lesser reliability than those for the categories in the first list above. The categories<br />

ecotoxicity and persistent toxicity were found to yield results too unreliable for further assessment.<br />

Finally, the category biodiversity and soil quality was investigated regarding four parameters, for two of<br />

which quantitative results were obtained which again however did not possess a satisfactory level of<br />

scientific reliability. It must be concluded that for the toxicity the lack of data concerning fossil fuels<br />

made the systems incomparable. For the biodiversity and soil quality categories further methodological<br />

developments are required before these can form a reliable part of a life cycle assessment.

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