Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University ›› 2014, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (06): 750-755.

• Energy and Power Engineering • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Life Cycle Analysis of Microalgal Biodiesel in China

ZHANG Tingting,XIE Xiaomin,HUANG Zhen
  

  1. (Key Laboratory for Power Machinery and Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, China)
  • Received:2013-07-08 Online:2014-06-30 Published:2014-06-30

Abstract:

This paper presents the impact of energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of microalgal biodiesel compared with the conventional petroleum based diesel via life cycle assessment (LCA). The results indicated that the fossil energy consumption of upstream stage for microalgal biodiesel was higher than that of petroleum based diesel, except for petroleum consumption and GHG emissions. The growth of microalgae was the most energyintensive stage during its life cycle, followed by oil extraction stage. From the perspective of the full life cycle, microalgal biodiesel (BD100) can reduce the life cycle petroleum consumption and GHG emissions. At present, the use of BD20 can decrease the life cycle fossil energy consumption and GHG emissions.
 

Key words: biodiesel, microalgae, life cycle assessment, energy consumption, GHG emissions

CLC Number: