LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

GROUP 4, SESSION B: CROP PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
98. Preliminary research on the analysis of life cycle assessment in the
production of rapeseed and biodiesel in Poland
Magdalena Borzecka-Walker * , Antoni Faber, Rafał Pudełko, Katarzyna Mizak
1 Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation-State Research Institute, Corresponding author. E-mail:
mwalker@iung.pulawy.pl
The aim of the project is to gather necessary information to perform LCA analysis on rapeseed production
and its conversion to biodiesel, the execution of these studies according to ISO standards adopted by LCA
software as well as a professional presentation of the survey results at different levels of administration and
biodiesel production plants.
Poland, like every other country in the EU is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The main
road leading to this is to be the increased use of RES. In this situation, particularly important research, studies,
analysis and technical-organisational measures are aimed at securing the implementation of its obligations
for Directive 2009/28/EC of 23 April 2009. From the moment when the Directive comes into force in
order to promote RES, bioethanol or biodesiel must ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by
35% and from 2017 by 50%, moving up to 60% in 2018 compared to conventional fuels. Reducing emissions
is to be determined by life cycle analysis (LCA).
The developed database contains the information on energy costs over the cycle of cultivation, harvesting
and storage and processing of biomass under Polish conditions. Survey (200) was conducted on farms producing
rapeseeds for biofuel production.
The average GHG emission was 24.5 g eq. CO2 MJ -1 . The LCA analysis for the production and processing of
biomass to biodiesel were performed with SimaPro. The greenhouse gas emissions were incorporated into an
assessment of environmental impacts such as acidification, eutrophication, loading with organic compounds,
inorganic, toxicity to humans and ecosystems, and carcinogenic impact. The results from the research will be
adjusted to a scale of administrative regions in accordance with the requirements from the European Commission,
where member states are obliged to present the results of LCA for liquid biofuels for administrative
units NUTS-2.
References
Directive 2009/28/EC. The European Parliament and of the Council on the promotion of the use of energy
from renewable sources amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC.
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