Green house gas (GHG) emissions from Danish bioethanol production and choice of biomass raw materials

Summary

It is very much debated whether bioethanol is a sustainable energy resource that can offer environmental and long-term economic advantages over fossil fuels, like gasoline or die-sel. From the present first generation bioethanol technology focusing on starch (from grain) fermentation GHG savings are only modest. The Danish Integrated Biomass Utili-sation System (IBUS) has developed both first generation and second generation princi-pal bioethanol technologies characterised by integration with an existing coal-fired Com-bined Heat and Power (CBH) plant.
To secure that bioenergy is produced from local adapted raw materials with limited use of non-renewable fossil fuels there is a need for integrating the biomass starting point into the energy manufacturing steps. Substitution of fossil fuels by crop biomass requires the right selection of plant species according not only to chemical quality for efficient con-version but also to secure the development of ecologically benign farming system includ-ing biomass for energy.
The aim of the present study was to question how to optimise GHG savings for bioetha-nol production using the IBUS technology.