Sustainability of crop–based biodiesel for transportation in China: Barrier analysis and life cycle ecological footprint calculations

Abstract

Biodiesel has been viewed as an alternative vehicle fuel for sustainable transportation, and sustainability assessments of various crop-based biodiesel fuels are meaningful for decision makers to select the best option. However, the development of crop-based biodiesel fuels has encountered a number of barriers and challenges. This study identifies and analyses the factors that block the adoption and promotion of biodiesel as alternative vehicle fuels by using fishbone diagram and best-worst methods. It also measures the sustainability of different crop-based biodiesel options by adopting the ecological footprint as a generic index for sustainability assessment from a life cycle perspective. As a result, it summarises a set of factors that hinder crop-based biodiesel development and finds that shortages of feedstock supplies, conflicts with human food supplies, and feedstocks are the greatest barriers to China's biodiesel development. Sustainability measurements of the ecological footprints of five crop-based biodiesel options indicate that palm-based biodiesel is the most sustainable among all options. Finally, the study provides some policy conclusions from the aspects of strategy and policy measures, promotion of non-edible feedstock, investment in foreign palm plantations and introduction of suitable palm species, technological innovation and improvement, knowledge pervasion and social promotion to promote biodiesel development.