Abstract
A wide range of calculators have been developed to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of agricultural products, including biomass for bioenergy production. However, these calculators often fail in their ability to take into account the differences in pedoclimatic conditions, agricultural management practices and characteristics of perennial crops and crop rotations. As a result, the predictions of GHG emissions by these calculators are characterized by a high level of uncertainty, and calculators may fail in their ability to detect mitigation options along the production chain. The aim of this study was to analyze the available calculators for calculating GHG emissions from energy crop cultivation based on Carbon Footprint (CFP) approaches according to the goal and scope of the calculator, the methodology used to account for GHG emissions from energy crop cultivation, energy crop cultivation management practices and the ability to model crop rotation. Out of 44 environmental assessment calculators for agricultural products, we identified 18 calculators which are capable of assessing GHG emissions from energy crop cultivation. These calculators differ in their goal and scope and which farming operations related to crop management are taken into account; this makes it difficult to compare and interpret the results from these CFP assessments. Only seven calculators out of 18 can calculate GHG emissions from energy crop rotations. At the moment, none of these calculators are able to consider actual effects from energy crops in rotation in the context of nutrient shifts, reductions in the use of agricultural operating needs, or the sequence and composition of crop rotations. However, by expanding the system boundaries of the CFP study, by taking the whole energy crop rotation and local agricultural management practices into account, the opportunity to identify more GHG mitigation options increases.
Highlights
Human influence on climate change was again confirmed by the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [1]
The aim of this study was to analyze the available calculators for calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy crop cultivation based on Carbon Footprint (CFP) approaches according to the goal and scope of the calculator, the methodology used to account for GHG emissions from energy crop cultivation, energy crop cultivation management practices and the ability to model crop rotation
Following Buytaert et al [22], who note that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most suitable assessment tool to assess emissions from bioenergy production systems, we focused our review on calculators that are based on the specifications of the LCA approach for GHG emission assessment, the CFP
Summary
Human influence on climate change was again confirmed by the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [1]. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributed about 78% to the total increase of GHGs in the atmosphere over the last 40 years [1]. A growing number of governments have begun introducing renewable energy policies in an effort to reduce GHG emissions by replacing non-renewable fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. In 2008, 12.9% of the total global primary energy supply had already originated from renewable energy sources, of which bioenergy contributed the dominant share (80%) [3]. This implies that the production and use of biomass to generate power, heat and fuel has significantly increased in recent years [4]
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