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Events Collaborations |
SABIOS: Sustainability assessment of bioenergy
systems: a life cycle multi-criteria decision-support approach, including
land use change Reference:
PTDC/AAG-MAA/6234/2014 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016765) Coordinator: Luis
Arroja (CESAM-UA) Coordinator at ADAI-LAETA: Fausto Freire Proponent Institution: CESAM-UA Projects
Partners: UA, CIE- ADAI, INESCC Funding
Entity: FEDER/FCT | PTDC/AAG-MAA/6234/2014
(POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016765) Funding: 199 836 € Project Objectives Bioenergy (energy from
biomass) has been proposed as a solution to several pressing concerns such as
energy security, climate change and rural development. However, accelerating
growth in bioenergy demand has been accompanied by a growing concern about
the environmental, economic and social impacts, such as deforestation,
related food competition, and land conflicts. The assessment of the
environmental performance of bioenergy systems has hence become an important
focus of research and debate within the scientific community. This project addresses the
challenge of developing a methodology to establish a framework for the Life
Cycle Assessment of (LCA) of bioenergy systems sustainability, able to inform
industry actors, policy makers and stakeholders, and to support bioenergy
systems management. The chain modelling of the production of biomass and its
use as an energy carrier will encompass cultivation and harvesting,
transport, conversion to bioenergy products and co-products, not neglecting
disposal/treatment of residues and the production and use of subsidiary
inputs (e.g., agrochemicals and transport fuels). The methodology aims to
innovate and advance the state of the art along three interrelated lines: 1)
The LCA will account for the indirect Land Use
Changes (LUC) effects, occurring when pressure on agriculture due to the
displacement of previous activity or by use of the biomass induces LUC on
other lands. Such indirect effects have been neglected to a great extent in
past studies, which focus on direct effects. This calls for a consequential
modelling of the selected bioenergy systems, which will be also compared with
the type of attributional models prevailing among existing bioenergy life
cycle modelling assessments. The consequential life cycle modelling will
consider market mechanisms and handle co-products by system expansion. The
modelling framework to be developed and the cases to be studied will allow
assessing and discussing differences in the results, contributing to the
ongoing debate on how to model and assess indirect LUC for bioenergy systems.
New insights about modelling options in LCA will also be generated, namely on
the choice between attributional and consequential modelling. 2)
The assessment of bioenergy alternatives will be
based on the complementary use of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and
LCA, following the recent trends of using LCA as a means to obtain a subset
of the criteria to be considered in MCDA. This allows integrating criteria
such as local environmental impacts, besides economic or social ones. MCDA
structuring tools will be used to define a coherent family of criteria
representing the interests of stakeholders and the informed public. Modern
MCDA aggregation tools will be used, namely methods that deal with partial
information on preference parameters. This will improve the current practice
(often formally incorrect) of using equal “weights” or weights obtained by
default and contributes to obtaining robust conclusions. While performing
MCDA to obtain results for the specific cases to be studied, the team aims at
developing also the methodological state of the art in combining LCA and
MCDA. 3)
Uncertainty analysis will be embedded throughout
all models to be developed, an important aspect since there is considerable
uncertainty regarding the type, scale and timing of indirect LUC. Published
bioenergy LC studies seldom consider uncertainty comprehensively. Published
results vary quite widely, not only due to differences in data and scenarios,
but also due to different normative choices in the modelling procedures. In
contrast, this project will model parameter uncertainty and variability, as
well as scenario uncertainty, related to normative choices in the modelling
procedure. Furthermore, uncertainty about MCDA preference related parameters
will also be addressed. Techniques to address these different types of
uncertainties will include robustness analysis and Monte Carlo simulation.
Methodological innovations are expected in
addressing different types of uncertainties and in using uncertainty analysis
to focus the collection and elicitation of information on what is more
relevant to the decision process, based on successive refinements of the
models. Project website: http://sabios.web.ua.pt/ Research Team CIE-ADAI Fausto Miguel Cereja Seixas Freire João Manuel Nogueira Malça
de Matos Ferreira Érica Geraldes Castanheira Koldo
Salinas CESAM-UA Luís Arroja (PI) Ana Cláudia Dias Paula Quinteiro INESCC Carlos Henggeler Antunes Luís Miguel Cândido Dias |
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Projeto
cofinanciado pela União Europeia.
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