Life cycle environmental sustainability of lignocellulosic ethanol produced in integrated thermo‐chemical biorefineries

Abstract There is a growing interest in producing biofuels and bio‐chemicals from lignocellulosic feedstocks in integrated biorefineries. However, the sustainability implications of integrated biorefineries are still poorly understood. Using a life cycle approach, this paper examines environmental impacts of second‐generation ethanol produced in thermo‐chemical refineries together with chemicals and energy. Four feedstocks are considered: wheat straw, poplar, Miscanthus and forest residue. The results suggest that the production of ethanol from these feedstocks offers significant savings in eight out of 12 environmental impacts when the system is credited for the avoided impacts from producing the co‐products from fossil resources. Ethanol from forest residue is the best and wheat straw the worst option for most impacts. Land use change has a significant effect on the global warming potential ( GWP ) of ethanol. For example, conversion of forest to grow Miscanthus increases the GWP from –234 to 6685 g CO 2 eq./l of ethanol. The effect is opposite when grassland is converted to grow poplar: the GWP is reduced by two times because of carbon sequestration by poplar. The thermo‐chemical route for producing ethanol from poplar and forest residue is more sustainable for most impacts than the bio‐chemical conversion with the same feedstocks. Although ethanol saves up to 83% of GHG emissions per MJ of fuel compared to petrol, the savings are much smaller (~3%) for current ethanol blends of 5%. Therefore, unless a much higher proportion of ethanol was used, the contribution of second‐generation ethanol to climate change mitigation would be small. © 2015 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts, Biorefining published by Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.