Impacts of Thai bio-ethanol policy target on land use and greenhouse gas emissions

Published Date
Applied Energy
November 2009, Vol.86:S170–S177, doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.05.010
Bio-fuels in Asia

Author 

• Thapat Silalertruksa ^a,b
• Shabbir H. Gheewala ^a,,
• Masayuki Sagisaka ^b

• aThe Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, 126 Prachauthit Road, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
• bMaterial and Energy Sustainability Assessment Group, Institute of Science for Safety and Sustainability, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Onogawa 16-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8569, Japan

Received 15 January 2009. Revised 29 April 2009. Accepted 6 May 2009. Available online 31 May 2009. This article is sponsored by the Asian Development Bank as part of the Supplement ‘‘Biofuels in Asia”.

Abstract

The growing demand for biofuels has led to an increased demand for feedstocks which in turn is anticipated to induce changes in the cropping systems or land requirement for agriculture use. This study used consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental consequences of possible (future) changes in agricultural production systems and determine their effects on land use change (LUC) and greenhouse gas (GHG) implications when cassava demand in Thailand increases. Six different cropping systems to increase cassava production including converting unoccupied land to cropland, yield improvement, displacement of area currently under sugarcane cultivation and the other potential changes in cropping systems in Viet Nam and Australia are modeled and assessed. The comparative results show that LUC is an important factor in overall GHG emissions of the first generation biofuels especially change in soil carbon stock contributing about 58–60% of the net GHG emissions. Increased cassava production by expanding cultivation area has a significantly larger effect on GHG emissions than increased productivity. The analysis shows that increasing productivity of both sugarcane and cassava are important ways to maximize benefits in using of certain area of Thailand to serve both the food and fuel industries.

Keywords

Consequential LCA

Bio-ethanol

Cassava

Land use

Greenhouse gas

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  Corresponding author.

Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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