Fuel ethanol from cane molasses in Thailand: Environmental and cost performance

In the context of the world's energy crisis and environmental concerns, crop-based ethanol has emerged as an energy alternative, the use of which can help reduce oil imports as well as emissions of CO 2 and other air pollutants. However, a clear disadvantage of ethanol is its high cost over gas...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Energy policy 2008-05, Vol.36 (5), p.1589-1599
Hauptverfasser: Nguyen, Thu Lan T., Gheewala, Shabbir H.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:In the context of the world's energy crisis and environmental concerns, crop-based ethanol has emerged as an energy alternative, the use of which can help reduce oil imports as well as emissions of CO 2 and other air pollutants. However, a clear disadvantage of ethanol is its high cost over gasoline under the current pricing scheme that does not include externalities. The intent of this study is to perform a life cycle analysis comparing environmental and cost performance of molasses-based E10 with those of CG. The results show that although E10 provides reduction in fossil energy use, petroleum use, CO 2 and NO x emissions, its total social costs are higher than those of gasoline due to higher direct production costs and external costs for other air emissions, e.g. CH 4, N 2O, CO, SO 2, VOC and PM 10. An analysis of projection scenarios shows that technological innovations towards cleaner production help maximize ethanol's benefits whilst minimizing its limitations.
ISSN:0301-4215
1873-6777
DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2008.01.008