Journal of Cleaner Production 37 (2012) 162e171

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

A life cycle assessment comparison between centralized and decentralized biodiesel production from raw sunower oil and waste cooking oils
Loreto Iglesias, Adriana Laca, Mnica Herrero, Mario Daz*
Department of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Oviedo, C/ Julin Clavera s/n., 33071 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 17 October 2011 Received in revised form 1 June 2012 Accepted 2 July 2012 Available online 10 July 2012 Keywords: LCA Biodiesel Sunower oil Waste cooking oils Biofuels Scale production Plant distribution

a b s t r a c t
In this study, a comparative Life Cycle Assessment has been performed with the aim of nding out how the environmental impact derived from biodiesel production (using raw sunower oil or waste cooking oils) could be affected by the degree of decentralization of the production (number of production plants in a given territory). The decentralized production of biodiesel has been proposed for several reasons, such as the possibility of small scale production, the fact that there is no need to use high technology or make large investments, and because small plants do not need highly specialized technical staff. Thus, hypothetical territories (considering scenarios in which the production and area were theoretically modied), as well as real territories, have been analyzed to determine which environmental indicators were most affected. Results showed that the optimum degree of centralization was different for each analyzed case. In general, in small territories centralized production was more suitable for the environment, decentralization being more advisable as the territory increased in area. For each of the cases analyzed, an optimum number of plants, which minimized the environmental impacts, was found. This work illustrates the importance of considering the number of industrial plants in the production design, not only from an economic aspect but also from an environmental point of view. 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction The European Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of biofuels (i.e. biodiesel and bioethanol) for transport, established a substitution corresponding to 10% of biofuels in the total consumption by the year 2020 (EC, 2009). The near complete dependence of the transportation sector on oil products generates concerns on supply security and on climate change. Currently, there is an emerging interest in replacing fossil feedstock by biomass-based raw materials. Since the use of biodiesel must be increased, leading to signicant opportunities in the market, it is important to evaluate the environmental loads associated to its production. As reported (Blottnitz von and Curran, 2007), moving towards sustainability requires a re-thinking of our systems of production. Biodiesel is a diesel fuel dened as the mono-alkyl esters of vegetable oils or animal fats. It is recommended as a substitute for petroleum-based diesel mainly because it is a renewable fuel, with an environmentally friendly emission prole and is readily biodegradable. The use of biodiesel as a fuel has been widely investigated

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 34 985 103439; fax: 34 985 103434. E-mail address: mariodiaz@uniovi.es (M. Daz). 0959-6526/$ e see front matter 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.07.002

(Sheehan et al., 1998; Ma and Hanna, 1999; Srivastava and Prasad, 2000; Fukuda et al., 2001; Dorado et al., 2003; Knothe et al., 2003). Compared to petroleum-based diesel, the high cost of biodiesel is the major barrier to its commercialization. Its cost, which is approximately one and a half times that of petroleum-based diesel, depends on feedstock oils (Zhang et al., 2003). It is reported that approximately 70e95% of the total biodiesel production cost arises from the cost of raw material, that is, vegetable oil or animal fats (Connemann and Fischer, 1998; Kulkarni and Dalai, 2006; Helwani et al., 2009). Moreover, it should be considered that arable land is a scarce resource in most of Europe (Ponton, 2009). Waste cooking oil (WCO) is a domestic waste generated as the result of cooking and frying food with edible vegetable oil. WCO has been identied as an alternative source of fatty materials for the production of biofuels (Canakci and Van Gerpen, 2003). WCO and fats produce signicant disposal problems in many parts of the world. The growing problem of wastes affects the daily lives of millions of people (Dovi et al., 2009). This environmental problem could be solved by proper utilization and management of WCO to enable it to be used as a fuel. Many developed countries have set policies that penalize the disposal of WCO in the waste drainage (Kulkarni and Dalai, 2006). The estimated amount of WCO collected in Europe is about 700,000e100,000 tons/year (Supple et al., 2002; Kulkarni and Dalai, 2006). The amount of WCO collected in

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a territory is proportional to the number of inhabitants, just as the demand for biodiesel. As endorsed by the scientic community, LCA is one of the best methodologies for assessing the environmental burdens associated with biofuels production, allowing quantication of energy and materials as well as waste and emissions released to the environment (Consoli et al., 1993; Lindfors et al., 1995). Recently, a number of studies have been focussed on LCA approaches related to biodiesel, including general studies, comparisons with conventional diesel, and the use of different production methods or different raw materials, among others (Bernesson et al., 2004; Kim and Bruce, 2005; Harding et al., 2007; Niederl-Schmidinger and Narodoslawsky, 2008). As reported by Gwehenberger et al. (2007), the dominant aspects inuencing their ecological impact are, together with the process, the raw material used and the size of the production facilities. Another relevant point is related to the distribution of the production plants, their capacity and physical location, comparing the environmental burdens associated with small- or large-scale production. Nevertheless, these aspects have hardly been considered for biodiesel production from a LCA perspective. Although biodiesel production has followed the example of the oil industry (by investing in big centralized facilities), this strategy is being questioned owing to the simplicity of the biodiesel production process. Unlike fossil fuels, biodiesel can be obtained from different raw materials on a small scale, locally, since biodiesel production does not require high technology or great economic investment (Bernesson et al., 2004). Another positive aspect is that a small, decentralized facility does not require highly specialized staff and offers greater opportunities for rural development, an important point in many countries economies. Therefore, the utility of small biodiesel plants and their distribution zone is currently being evaluated. The degree of centralization of biodiesel production implies economic but also environmental impacts. The trend with regard to economic factors is that the higher the production capacity of a plant, the lower the production costs. It should be noted, however, that this statement is less clear with regard to environmental concerns (Gwehenberger et al., 2007). Recently, the viability of a small-scale biodiesel plant (10,000 ton/ year) has been analyzed in detail in terms of its design and operation, estimating capital investment and operational costs (Skarlis et al., 2012). As shown, the investment had good nancial results provided that the raw materials were kept in acceptable prices and biodiesel sales were ensured in the local market. A decentralization of the production would lead to transport savings, although it is expected that it would also lead to losses related to the energetic efciency of the production process. By using LCA methodology, this study aims to assess and quantify the environmental impacts of biodiesel produced from raw sunower oil (RSO), and alternatively, from waste cooking oils (WCO), comparing centralized and decentralized distribution and the zone distribution of the plants.

Previous studies, comparing centralization/decentralization alternatives for a production process, have been done for other systems. In the case of sewage treatment plants (Benetto et al., 2009) the study focused on the advantages and disadvantages of the decentralized Ecological Sanitation Systems, in comparison with the traditional centralized systems. Results obtained showed that the decentralized sanitation scenario had a signicant advantage in terms of the reduced contribution to the damage of ecosystem quality. Similarly, a comparative LCA was used to assess the potential reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in small dumping places as opposed to big centralized wastes sites (Shabbir, 2009). The conclusion obtained was that, in terms of transport, small centralized wastes sites would be the best option, whereas big wastes sites would be the best option in terms of economy and total GHG emissions. Thus, LCA methodology has been applied in this study to assess and quantify the environmental impacts of biodiesel production from RSO and from WCO, comparing centralized production with a fragmented distribution of plants closer to the supply and consumption points. 2. Methodology In this study, LCA methodology is used as a tool for the comparative evaluation of centralized production and different degrees of decentralization, in hypothetical and real territories, by using RSO and alternatively, WCO, as raw materials. 2.1. Goal and scope denition 2.1.1. Objectives and functional unit denition The goal of this work is to compare different options for biodiesel production (centralized/decentralized) in specic territories (hypothetical and real territories) from an environmental perspective. Biodiesel is mainly used as transportation biofuel, so the functional unit chosen in this work was the amount of biodiesel needed to cover 1000 km in a standard diesel engine vehicle (i.e. 50 kg of biodiesel). 2.1.2. System description and boundaries The scenarios analyzed in this work were the results of combining dened territories (hypothetical and real territories) with different degrees of centralization of production. 2.1.2.1. Biodiesel production from sunower oil. For biodiesel production based on RSO, the hypothetical territories were considered to have a square geometry and their area and seed production varying between 94,000 and 940,000 km2 and between 21,200 and 1,047,000 tons per year. Both sunower production points and biodiesel consumption points were considered to be homogeneously spread through the considered territory. Both centralized and decentralized production have been analyzed in these territories (Fig. 1). The centralized system consisted of one production plant

Fig. 1. Location of production plants in hypothetical territories (indicated by black dots), when using RSO, according to different levels of decentralization (1, 2, 4 and 9 plants).

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which obtained the raw material (sunowers seeds) from the whole territory and distributed the produced biodiesel to biodiesel stations spread homogenously throughout the same territory. The number of biodiesel stations has been calculated by taking into consideration the total production of biodiesel and the volume of biofuel usually served per year by stations of average size. Decentralized systems consisted of a number of biodiesel plants spread through a territory, which was divided in different areas. Each plant obtained the raw material (sunower seeds) and distributed the produced biodiesel throughout its corresponding area. When the analyzed scenarios corresponded to real cases, two real territories were chosen. Firstly, the Castilla-La Mancha region (located in the centre of Spain), with 79,000 km2 and a seed production of 137,000 tons per year; and secondly, Spain (considering only the peninsular territory) with an area corresponding to 493,518 km2 and a total seed production of 703,000 tons per year (source: Spanish Ministry of Environment, Rural and Marine Environs, data from the 2007e2008 season). Biodiesel production was calculated considering that 2.4 kg of sunower seeds produces 1 kg of RSO, yielding 0.96 kg of biodiesel (52.0 kg of RSO and 125.0 kg of sunower seeds are needed per FU). The location of the different plants according to the level of decentralization in the Castilla-La Mancha region is shown in Fig. 2a. The location of the plants according to the different levels of centralization in the territory of Spain (peninsular territory) is shown in Fig. 2b (the plants were located taking into account the areas with greater sunower crops, with the objective of saving costs in seed transport). In the case of the Castilla-La Mancha territory, biodiesel stations have been homogenously distributed throughout this region; in the case of Spain, stations have been distributed heterogeneously throughout the peninsular territory taking into account the population of each province (more inhabitants demand more fuel). 2.1.2.2. Biodiesel production from waste cooking oils. Similarly, for biodiesel production based on WCO, hypothetical territories were considered with a square geometry and homogeneous oil collection and biodiesel distribution. The area and hypothetical scenarios for the collection of waste oil varied between 94,000 and 506,000 km2 and between 2365 and 430,000 tons per year. On the other hand, in the case of real scenarios, the geometry was irregular and oil collection and biodiesel distribution were heterogeneous, since oil collection and biodiesel distribution will depend on the number of inhabitants of each zone. The territory chosen was Spain, where oil consumption was 895,000 tons/year in 2004 (source: Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) of which 71% was domestic use, 26% hotel use and 3% use by institutions. Of the oil consumed in Spain, 16% is cooked, of which, once used, 30% is collected for recycling. The amount of raw material which could be provided to produce biodiesel can be estimated as being 43,000 tons/year. Based on this data and considering that in order to produce 1 kg of biodiesel about 1.09 kg of waste oil is needed (54.5 kf of WCO are needed per FU), the total biodiesel production in Spain from WCO would be 40,000 tons/year. To determine the amount of WCO collected in each region, the number of inhabitants in each province was taken into account (Table 1). In this case, the insular territories (Canary Islands and Balearic Islands) were also considered for the study. Centralized and decentralized production have been considered in these territories. The centralized system consisted of one production plant which obtained the raw material (WCO) from all territories and distributed the produced biodiesel to biodiesel stations through the considered territory. Decentralized systems consisted of a number of biodiesel plants spread through the considered territory, which is divided in different areas. The degree

of decentralization has been analyzed in different scenarios, both hypothetical and also in the real territory. The decentralization scheme of plants in Spain was carried out as follows. Firstly, a centralized system with a sole biodiesel production plant located in Madrid was analyzed, so raw material (oils) and biodiesel were considered to be transported to, or from this place to the other provinces. Then, a decentralized system with ve plants was considered, dividing the peninsular territory into four zones and placing a plant in the Canary Islands. The next system that was analyzed examined a degree of decentralization of 11 zones (10 in the mainland and one in the Canary Islands), and then, a further system of 20 zones (19 in the mainland and one in the Canary Islands). Finally, the case in which each province had its own biodiesel processing plant (50) was analyzed, plus the option of splitting the production between two biodiesel plants in those provinces where the amount of collected oil was over 1000 tons per year (Fig. 3). 2.1.2.3. Production stages. The biodiesel production system from RSO could be divided in different stages (Fig. 4a). The initial stage, the agricultural phase, includes the entire life cycle of the plant, comprising: planting, fertilizing, treatment with different pesticides and plant collection. It has been reported that bio-based systems have possible ecological drawbacks since agricultural production of biomass is relatively land intensive, and there is a risk of pollutants entering water sources from fertilisers and pesticides that are applied to the land to enhance plant growth (Blottnitz von and Curran, 2007). This phase, which according to various LCA studies is responsible for the greatest environmental impact, was not included in this work since this was a common step to all the centralized and decentralized systems analyzed here. For this reason, effects of growing sunower either on soil or on emissions released were not considered. Thus, the rst stage taken into account in this study is the transportation of seeds to the production plant, where the second phase of the process is carried out, that is, oil extraction. The seeds are subjected to a process of washing, peeling, drying by air blown at base pressure and bleaching using calcium bentonite. The prepared seeds pass through a series of rotating screws, where they are crushed and pressed. This milling process does not extract all the oil in the seed, so the resulting paste is treated with the solvent hexane, which is mixed into the paste. Once all the oil has been obtained, the hexane is condensed and separated from the water to be reused in the process, while the oil obtained is decanted and centrifuged to remove impurities and to continue to the next production stage. Crude oils are subjected to a rening process where neutralization and degumming, bleaching and dewaxing are performed. At this stage, fatty acids, phosphatides and waxes contained in the oil are removed in order to obtain the rened oil. The next stage is the transesterication reaction converting the oil into biofuel by reaction of the triglyceride with an alcohol (methanol) in the presence of a catalyst, producing a mixture of fatty acid alkyl esters (biodiesel) and glycerin. The crude methyl ester is washed to remove traces of methanol, glycerin, catalyst, etc. (not considered in the inventory) and then dried to obtain biodiesel. Finally, biofuel is distributed to the different stations for sale. For biofuel distribution in real territories, in order to calculate the transportation distances to the biodiesel stations, it was considered that the number of stations in each territory depended on its population and on the usual amount of biodiesel served per year in a biodiesel station (150e400 m3 year1). In this study, the environmental loads associated with the use of biodiesel have not been taken into account, since they do not have any inuence on the comparative study of different degrees of centralization in the production system.

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Fig. 2. Location of production plants in real territories (indicated by black dots), when using RSO, according to different levels of decentralization: a) Castilla- La Mancha region (1, 5 and 10 plants) b) Spain (peninsular territory) (1, 4, 6, 11 and 20 plants).

The phases described are common to all systems, the differences depending mainly on the size of the extraction, rening and transesterication plants, and the transportation distances of seeds and biodiesel.

When using WCO as raw material, the rst stage in the life cycle is collecting the used cooking oil (Fig. 4b). The used oil is transported to the treatment plant where it is unloaded and passed through a mesh to remove any solid residue. The solid-free oil is

166 Table 1 Estimated oil collected in Spain in 2004 per provinces. Provinces La Corua Lugo Orense Pontevedra Madrid Oviedo Santander Vizcaya Guipzcoa lava Pamplona Logroo Huesca Zaragoza Teruel Barcelona Tarragona Lrida Gerona Castelln Valencia Alicante Len Palencia Burgos Inhabitants Oil collected Provinces (tons/year) 1,121,842 346,759 328,086 941,411 6,245,883 1,059,089 573,758 1,139,079 692,171 307,203 610,384 313,772 221,396 939,706 145,529 5,346,715 781,065 423,813 718,875 584,455 2,499,834 1,866,277 483,781 170,965 365,015 1058 327 309 888 5890 999 541 1074 653 290 576 296 209 886 137 5042 737 400 678 551 2358 1760 456 161 344

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I2 I1 q2 =q1 M
Inhabitants Oil collected (tons/year)

(1)

Soria 93,064 88 Zamora 194,412 184 Valladolid 521,279 492 Segovia 161,013 152 Salamanca 347,651 328 vila 169,274 160 Guadalajara 231,681 218 Toledo 646,104 609 Cuenca 213,830 202 Ciudad Real 514,945 486 Albacete 395,083 373 Cceres 406,315 383 Badajoz 673,410 635 Murcia 1,430,986 1349 Huelva 500,043 471 Sevilla 1,840,055 1735 Crdoba 784,797 740 Jan 655,045 618 Cdiz 1,205,692 1137 Mlaga 1,548,424 1460 Almera 672,619 634 Granada 898,933 848 Mallorca 1,058,668 998 S.C. Tenerife 997,348 941 Las Palmas 1,064,151 1004 Total (Spain) 45,593,835 43,000

pumped into settling tanks where oil temperature is increased to 60  C. The oil is separated from water by decanting and transferred to the nal storage tank to be used as feedstock in biodiesel production. WCO, before being collected and conditioned, is considered as a waste so its collection has no impact and its recycling prevents carbon emission (2.8 kg CO2/kg oil). The quality of the oil received from the pre-treatment plant is dened by its acidity, expressed in grams of free acid per 100 g of oil. When acidity exceeds 4%, esterication is the selected process; otherwise transesterication is the next step. After these processes, wash water (with free fatty acids and methanol) and glycerine are obtained. The fatty acids obtained are fed back into the transesterication stage for increased production of biodiesel. Methanol is directed into a rectication column where it separates from water, to be recovered and reused in the transesterication stage. Finally, the produced biodiesel is distributed to biodiesel stations to be used by consumers. In both cases it is considered that glycerin is sold as a co-product and the main wastes generated during the production process are sent to landll. 2.2. Life cycle inventory (LCI) and impact assessment (LCIA) In the inventory phase, information is gathered as inputs and outputs (emissions) for all the processes involved in the system under study. The inputs and outputs for each of the stages have been obtained from different sources: bibliographic sources in the case of data related to the production process stages (Lechn et al., 2006; Sanz Requena et al., 2010) and software resources to evaluate the transport distances. In order to obtain the water and energy consumption for each considered plant, data corresponding to real plants of a specic size have been extrapolated to plants of different sizes using the Williams method (Williams, 1960), which makes it possible to calculate the cost of a set of equipment taking into account the cost of equipment with similar characteristics but different production capacity.

Where M is the correlation coefcient (0.68), q is the production capacity and I is the value of the equipment. Considering that equipment cost is directly proportional to its water and energy consumption, this formula, which uses the available information related to a real plant of a specic size, has been used to calculate the water and energy consumption of a plant of the same nature but with different capacity. The consumption of raw materials and products generation were assumed to be directly proportional to the capacity of the plant. Comparison of the different distribution of biodiesel production was performed with the LCA software package SimaPro v7, using the Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.05/Europe EI 99 H/A methodology which belongs to the LCIA damage-oriented methodologies or endpoint methodologies in ISO terminology. These methodologies include the impact categories in three types of damage: damage to human health (including the following categories of impacts: carcinogenesis, organic respiratory effects, inorganic respiratory effects, climate change, ionizing radiation, and reduction of the ozone layer), damage to ecosystem quality (ecotoxicity, acidication/eutrophication, and land use) and resources damage (including minerals and fossil fuels) (Blottnitz von and Curran, 2007; Sanz Requena et al., 2010). Briey, the outcome of the Ecoindicator 99 damage modelling for environmental impacts is a human health damage score expressed as Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) and an ecosystem quality damage score expressed as Potentially Disappeared Fraction (PDF). The weighing method used means that the result obtained with this method is expressed as a single ecoindicator score (as ecopoints), where one ecopoint can be interpreted as one thousandth of the annual environmental load of one average European inhabitant (Dreyer et al., 2003). Databases employed in this work are indicated in Table 2. After the inventory, characterization is the next step in an impact assessment. This step associates the magnitude of the potential impacts of each inventory ow with its corresponding environmental impact. Characterization factors translate different inventory inputs and outputs into directly comparable impact indicators. Characterization is completed with a weighting, which represents the magnitude of the impact of different processes that compose the LCA of biofuel production and shows how this impact is distributed in each category. The units in which values are expressed are points (Bare et al., 2003; Sanz Requena et al., 2010). 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Biodiesel production from sunower oil as raw material The total environmental effect of the production process of biodiesel from RSO was assessed, taking into account each impact category considered in the method. It has been highlighted that most current publications regarding the environmental performance analyses of agricultural-based biofuels published focus on GHG emissions but exclude other important impact factors (Reinhard and Zah, 2009). In addition, it should be noted that they often present contradictory results related to greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, energy efciency, impact on biodiversity, water pollution and water depletion (Borjesson and Tufvesson, 2011). As an example, the explanations for these contradictory results regarding the sustainability of biofuels in the GHG performance have been considered as due to differences in local conditions and in the design of the specic production systems, and/or different calculation methods and systems boundaries (Borjesson and Tufvesson, 2011). In this work, upon considering the whole production process (except for the agricultural phase), the most heavily affected impact

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Fig. 3. Location of production plants in Spain (indicated by black dots), when using WCO, according to the different levels of decentralization (1, 5, 11, 20, 50 and 60 production plants).

categories in the system turned out to be fossil fuels and respiratory inorganics. The components responsible for these environmental burdens were the extraction of rened oil, methanol used as raw material, transportation and energy consumption. 3.1.1. Hypothetical territories Firstly, to assess the environmental impacts of the different biodiesel systems (considering 1, 2, 4 and 9 production plants), hypothetical territories were taken into account (modifying production capacity and area). Fig. 5a shows the single score graph when different levels of centralization were compared, in a square geometry territory with a biodiesel production of 84,000 tons per year, an area of 94,000 km2 and homogeneous distribution. As shown, the environmental impact increased with decentralization. 3.1.1.1. Effect of variation in production. Hypothetically, for a given area, increased or decreased levels of production were considered. Fig. 5b represents the single score graph obtained when different levels of centralization were compared for a production of 419,000 tons of biodiesel per year in a territory of 94,000 km2. Fig. 5c shows the results when different levels of centralization were compared for a production of 8400 tons of biodiesel per year in a territory of 94,000 km2. As shown, for territories with the same

area but different production capacities, the environmental impact related to the produced fuel would be smaller as the production capacities increase and decentralization decreases. These results agree with previously reported results, indicating that increased efciency of larger plants usually reduces not only the operational costs but also the ecological impacts (Gwehenberger et al., 2007). 3.1.1.2. Effect of variation in area. In this case, for a given production capacity, a hypothetically increased area was considered. Fig. 5d shows the single score graph obtained when different levels of centralization were compared for a production of 84,800 tons of biodiesel per year in a territory of 940,000 km2. If Fig. 5a and d are compared, it can be observed that when the surface area of the territory considered increased, the environmental impact increased, especially in the case of centralized production, due to the increase in fuel consumption for transportation of raw materials and biodiesel. For the bigger territory, the impact was independent of the degree of decentralization, although it was observed that there was a minimum impact when the production was divided into 4 plants. 3.1.2. Application to real cases Fig. 6a is the single score graph obtained when different levels of centralization were compared for a production of 54,800 tons of

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a SUNFLOWER CROPS

1) SeedsTransport 2) Extraction of crude oil 3) Refining of oil 4) Transesterification 5) Biodiesel purification

PRODUCTION PLANT

6) Biodiesel Transport
BIODIESEL STATIONS

b OIL CONSUMERS

1) Oil collection and transport 2) Pre-treatment 3) Transesterification 4) Biodiesel purification

RECYCLING PLANT

5) Biodiesel Transport
BIODIESEL STATIONS
Fig. 4. Stages of the biodiesel production process a) from RSO and b) from WCO.

biodiesel per year in Castilla-La Mancha (surface area of 79,000 km2). Fig. 6b is the single score graph obtained when different levels of centralization were compared for a production of 281,200 tons of biodiesel per year in Spain (area 493,518 km2). In the case of Castilla-La Mancha, based on the single score graph it can be seen that a decentralized system for biodiesel production would have a greater environmental impact than a centralized system. On the contrary, in the case of the whole Spanish peninsular territory, the environmental impact decreased as decentralization increased, until a point of inection was reached where the impact began to increase again, and an optimum level of decentralization appeared. At this point, the number of production plants was approximately 6.
Table 2 Data based used in LCIA. Energy Electricity Natural gas Water Transport Chemical products NaOH HCl H3PO4 CH4O Bentonite

Fig. 5. Single score graphs showing the environmental impact of hypothetical systems (using RSO) with 1, 2, 4 and 9 production plants: a) for a biodiesel production of 84,000 tons per year and a territory area of 94,000 km2, b) for a biodiesel production of 419,000 tons per year and a territory surface of 94,000 km2, c) for a biodiesel production of 8400 tons per year and a territory surface of 94,000 km2 and d) for a biodiesel production of 84,000 tons per year and a territory surface of 940,000 km2. Units correspond to points (Pt).

ETH-ESU 96 Ecoinvent Ecoinvent Ecoinvent BUWAL 250 BUWAL 250 IDEMA 2001 Ecoinvent ETH-ESU 96

In this work, availability of arable land has been considered. It has been reported (Reinhard and Zah, 2009) that an increase in agro-biofuel consumption would have consequences such as competition with food production, fostering intensication and endangering natural areas. The increased production of biofuels could merely shift or even increase the environmental impacts currently related to the production and use of fossil fuels, unless biofuels production is decoupled from the global food and feed markets (by using biogenic waste or non-edible energy crops that grow specically on degraded land) (Reinhard and Zah, 2009). It has been also reported (Upham et al., 2009) that the problem of land-use change lends weight for slowing the incentivisation of rst-generation biofuel production, redirecting support to second-generation research and development, maximising the

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a 1.5
1

Hypothetical systems (WCO); 2,200 tons; 94,000 km 2

Numberof production plants:

0.5

Pt
0

Resp. inorganics

Resp. organics

Carcinogens

Climate change

Acidification/ Eutrophication

Ozone layer

-0.5

1.5

-1

Hypothetical systems (WCO); 40,000tons; 506,000km 2

Numberof production plants:

18

36

0.5

Pt

Resp. inorganics

Resp. organics

Carcinogens

Climate change

Acidification/ Eutrophication

Ozone layer

-0.5

c
Fig. 6. Single score graphs showing the environmental impact of real systems (using RSO) with different numbers of production plants: a) Castilla-La Mancha region (1, 5 and 10 plants) and b) Spain (1, 4, 6, 11 and 20 plants). Units correspond to points (Pt).

-1 1.5

Spain (WCO)

Numberof production plants:

11

20

50

60

0.5

Resp. inorganics

Resp. organics

Carcinogens

Climate change

Acidification/ Eutrophication

Ozone layer

-0.5

3.2. Biodiesel production from WCO as raw material The impact categories most affected during the production process turned out to be fossil fuels, inorganic pollutant emissions and climate change (see Fig. 7). It should be noted that when used frying oil is disposed of as a waste, carbon dioxide emissions should be considered, so in the WCO production process the impact on the climate change category is negative (i.e. benecial to the environment). Obviously, this means that total impacts associated with biodiesel production from WCO are much lower than those associated with biodiesel production from RSO. As reported (Upham et al., 2009), although it is far from clear that biofuel production at the large scale demanded would be environmentally or socially benign, only used cooking oil has guaranteed sustainability benets among the feedstocks examined (for which the UK Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation supplies default carbon intensity values). In the case of bioethanol, it has been reported (Blottnitz von and Curran, 2007) that when it is made from a waste product, results will differ depending on how efciently wastes are used and how the industrial systems are congured, on a case-by-case basis. 3.2.1. Hypothetical territories A production of 2200 tons of biodiesel per year in a hypothetical territory of 94,000 km2 has been considered, and results are shown in Fig. 7a. This weighting graph compares different levels of decentralization (1, 2, 4 and 6 plants), and, as can be observed, in this case, centralized production tuned out to be the best option. 3.2.1.1. Effect of increased production and area. A production of 40,000 tons of biodiesel per year in a hypothetical territory of

Fig. 7. Weighting graph that shows the environmental impact of systems (using WCO) with different numbers of production plants: a) for a hypothetical territory of 94,000 km2 and a biodiesel production of 2200 tons per year (1, 2, 4 and 6 plants), b) for a hypothetical territory of 506,000 km2 and a biodiesel production of 40,000 tons per year (1, 6, 9, 18 and 36 plants) and c) for Spain (1, 5, 11, 20 and 50 plants). Units correspond to points (Pt).

506,000 km2 has been considered in the results shown in Fig. 7b. When the production and area increased, the best option turned out to be decentralized production (in this case, into 18 plants). In a similar way to this case, previous research (Gwehenberger et al., 2007) highlighted that logistical factors may become increasingly important, leading to situations where the expected economy of scale and the environmental impact of scale are in contradiction. 3.2.2. Real territory Fig. 7c represents the weighting graph where different levels of centralization were compared for a production of 40,000 tons of biodiesel per year in Spain (506,000 km2). As shown, the production of biodiesel from WCO collected throughout the Spanish territory is less harmful to the environment when some degree of decentralization is undertaken. A signicant reduction in impact was observed when moving from a centralized to a decentralized system, which is mainly due to the fact that for decentralization, the location of a plant in the Canary

Fossil fuels

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use of bio-wastes, as this does not prejudice soil quality. In relation to biofuels of second generation, energy efciency have been reported as a precondition for diverting cellulosic residues (Rethabile and von Blottnitz, 2011).

Pt

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L. Iglesias et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 37 (2012) 162e171 Benetto, E., Nguyen, D., Lohmann, T., Schmitt, B., Schosseler, P., 2009. Life cycle assessment of ecological sanitation system for small-scale wastewater treatment. Sci. Total Environ. 407, 1506e1516. Bernesson, S., Nilsson, D., Hansson, P., 2004. A limited LCA comparing large- and small-scale production of rape methyl ester (RME) under Swedish conditions. Biomass Bioenerg. 26, 545e559. Blottnitz von, H., Curran, M.A., 2007. A review of assessments conducted on bioethanol as a transportation fuel from a net energy, greenhouse gas, and environmental life cycle perspective. J. Clean. Prod. 15, 607e619. Borjesson, P., Tufvesson, L.M., 2011. Agricultural crop-based biofuels e resource efciency and environmental performance including direct land use changes. J. Clean. Prod. 19, 108e120. Canakci, M., Van Gerpen, J., 2003. A pilot plant to produce biodiesel from high free fatty acid feedstocks. Trans. Am. Soc. Agric. 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Islands has been considered, saving transportation by ship (oil to the peninsula, and biodiesel to the islands). For more than 5 plants, it can be observed that the differences between different types of decentralized distributions considered (11, 20, 50 and 60 plants) were very low, indicating that the improvements achieved by transportation savings were offset by increased energy expenditure (lower efciency for smaller plants). Considering the total environmental loads, the less damaging option in this real case would be to decentralize the production into 11 production plants (one of them located in the Canary Islands, see Fig. 3). Furthermore, although it is out of the scope of this study, it has been reported (Skarlis et al., 2012) that the regional development and the social benets derived should always be taken into account when a decision of such small-scale investment needs to be taken. 4. Conclusions The impact categories most affected by the production of biodiesel from sunower oils (ignoring the agricultural phase) were fossil fuels and respiratory inorganics. The system components responsible for the highest environmental burdens were energy consumption (electricity, natural gas, diesel oil), transportation and the methanol used as a raw material. It was observed that the degree of centralization of biodiesel plants inuenced the impacts during the stages of transportation of the raw material, biodiesel processing and distribution of the product to the biodiesel stations. In this case, differences regarding the impact between centralized and a decentralized distribution will depend on various factors, like the area of the studied territory, the total production capacity or the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the distribution of crops and biodiesel stations. In general, in small territories centralized production was more suitable for the environment, decentralization being more advisable as the territory increased in area. For each of the cases analyzed, an optimum number of plants, which minimized the environmental impacts, was found. Being an alternative to waste management, processing of WCO into biodiesel has a positive contribution to the environment in the category of climate change. Again, the degree of centralization is a key point in order to determine the best environmental option, which is different for each case analyzed. The production of biodiesel from WCO collected throughout the Spanish territory (including the islands) is less harmful to the environment if it is performed with some degree of decentralization, particularly if the situation of plants and biodiesel stations is such that it avoids transportation by ship between the Canary Islands and the mainland. This study illustrates the importance of considering the number of industrial plants in the production design, not only from an economic aspect but also from an environmental point of view. Acknowledgement This work has been funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain, as part of the subproject Logistics and environmental sustainability included in the project Promotion of the competitivity in the Spanish business network employing logistics as a strategic factor in a global context (GLOBALOG: MEC-09-PSE370000-2008-8). References
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