Session: Biofuels

LCA as a decision-supporting tool in production of biodiesel from Waste Cooking Oils (WCO): an industrial perspective
Cécile Querleu,^*  Veolia Environnement

The perspective of climate change, the high energy prices and the oil supplies have driven a strong interest in alternative transportation fuels. Biofuels have become a hot topic and a large number of environmental studies have been published on the subject. A lot of these studies follow the methodology of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), probably the most appropriate method to evaluate the global impact of a biofuel on the environment from well-to-wheel.

But if biofuels present advantages in terms of energy use and emissions of greenhouse gases compared to fossil fuels, one can wonder if additional pressure won’t be created on agriculture, biodiversity, water and soil resources with a strong development of the biomass.

In order to optimize the management of waste together with the production of energy, waste cooking oils (WCO) can be used for the production of biodiesel. This biodiesel could then be used in transportation services, like the buses for passengers. Such a project is being carried out by VEOLIA Environnement. The Group offers environmental services like management of waste and public transportation so the biodiesel from WCO could be used in the captive fleet of buses.

LCA is being used to back up the project, in the aim of supporting the stakeholder discussion and decision making during the planning phase of the new technology installation. The goal of the study is also to do a comparative LCA between biodiesel made from WCO with fossil diesel and biodiesel from dedicated energy crops.

This study is internal and still in progress. The system boundaries consider the collection of oils (WCO are collected all over France), the transformation of the WCO in biodiesel and the use of this fuel in the buses of the Group. Results will be available at the end of the year.

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