IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v116y2014icp1-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forest biomass supply chains in Ireland: A life cycle assessment of GHG emissions and primary energy balances

Author

Listed:
  • Murphy, Fionnuala
  • Devlin, Ger
  • McDonnell, Kevin

Abstract

The demand for wood for energy production in Ireland is predicted to double from 1.5 millionm3 over bark (OB) in 2011 to 3 millionm3 OB by 2020. There is a large potential for additional biomass recovery for energetic purposes from both thinning forest stands and by harvesting of tops and branches, and stumps. This study builds on research within the wood-for-energy concept in Ireland by analysing the energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions associated with thinning, residue bundling and stump removal for energy purposes. To date there have been no studies on harvesting of residues and stumps in terms of energy balances and greenhouse gas emissions across the life cycle in Ireland. The results of the analysis on wood energy supply chains highlights transport as the most energy and greenhouse gas emissions intensive step in the life cycle. This finding illustrates importance of localised production and use of forest biomass. Production of wood chip, and shredded bundles and stumps, compares favourably with both other sources of biomass in Ireland and fossil fuels.

Suggested Citation

  • Murphy, Fionnuala & Devlin, Ger & McDonnell, Kevin, 2014. "Forest biomass supply chains in Ireland: A life cycle assessment of GHG emissions and primary energy balances," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 1-8.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:116:y:2014:i:c:p:1-8
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.11.041
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261913009458
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.11.041?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tonini, Davide & Astrup, Thomas, 2012. "LCA of biomass-based energy systems: A case study for Denmark," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 234-246.
    2. Nemecek, Thomas & Dubois, David & Huguenin-Elie, Olivier & Gaillard, Gérard, 2011. "Life cycle assessment of Swiss farming systems: I. Integrated and organic farming," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 217-232, March.
    3. Huang, Y. & McIlveen-Wright, D.R. & Rezvani, S. & Huang, M.J. & Wang, Y.D. & Roskilly, A.P. & Hewitt, N.J., 2013. "Comparative techno-economic analysis of biomass fuelled combined heat and power for commercial buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 518-525.
    4. Muench, Stefan & Guenther, Edeltraud, 2013. "A systematic review of bioenergy life cycle assessments," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 257-273.
    5. Murphy, Fionnuala & Devlin, Ger & McDonnell, Kevin, 2013. "Miscanthus production and processing in Ireland: An analysis of energy requirements and environmental impacts," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 412-420.
    6. Devlin, Ger & Klvac, Radomir & McDonnell, Kevin, 2013. "Fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions of biomass based haulage in Ireland – A case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 55-62.
    7. Dodoo, Ambrose & Gustavsson, Leif, 2013. "Life cycle primary energy use and carbon footprint of wood-frame conventional and passive houses with biomass-based energy supply," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 834-842.
    8. Nemecek, Thomas & Huguenin-Elie, Olivier & Dubois, David & Gaillard, Gérard & Schaller, Britta & Chervet, Andreas, 2011. "Life cycle assessment of Swiss farming systems: II. Extensive and intensive production," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 233-245, March.
    9. Gustavsson, Leif & Eriksson, Lisa & Sathre, Roger, 2011. "Costs and CO2 benefits of recovering, refining and transporting logging residues for fossil fuel replacement," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 192-197, January.
    10. Devlin, Ger & Talbot, Bruce, 2014. "Deriving cooperative biomass resource transport supply strategies in meeting co-firing energy regulations: A case for peat and wood fibre in Ireland," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1700-1709.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ali, Babkir & Hedayati-Dezfooli, M. & Gamil, Ahmed, 2023. "Sustainability assessment of alternative energy power generation pathways through the development of impact indicators for water, land, GHG emissions, and cost," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Maneesh Kumar Mediboyina & Fionnuala Murphy, 2024. "Environmental Assessment of a Waste-to-Energy Cascading System Integrating Forestry Residue Pyrolysis and Poultry Litter Anaerobic Digestion," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Li, J.S. & Chen, G.Q. & Hayat, T. & Alsaedi, A., 2015. "Mercury emissions by Beijing׳s fossil energy consumption: Based on environmentally extended input–output analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1167-1175.
    4. Vance, C. & Sweeney, J. & Murphy, F., 2022. "Space, time, and sustainability: The status and future of life cycle assessment frameworks for novel biorefinery systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    5. Sosa, Amanda & Acuna, Mauricio & McDonnell, Kevin & Devlin, Ger, 2015. "Controlling moisture content and truck configurations to model and optimise biomass supply chain logistics in Ireland," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 338-351.
    6. Kristina J. Kaske & Silvestre García de Jalón & Adrian G. Williams & Anil R. Graves, 2021. "Assessing the Impact of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Economic Profitability of Arable, Forestry, and Silvoarable Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-17, March.
    7. Murphy, Fionnuala & Sosa, Amanda & McDonnell, Kevin & Devlin, Ger, 2016. "Life cycle assessment of biomass-to-energy systems in Ireland modelled with biomass supply chain optimisation based on greenhouse gas emission reduction," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 1040-1055.
    8. Eksi, Guner & Karaosmanoglu, Filiz, 2017. "Combined bioheat and biopower: A technology review and an assessment for Turkey," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1313-1332.
    9. Maria Pergola & Angelo Rita & Alfonso Tortora & Maria Castellaneta & Marco Borghetti & Antonio Sergio De Franchi & Antonio Lapolla & Nicola Moretti & Giovanni Pecora & Domenico Pierangeli & Luigi Toda, 2020. "Identification of Suitable Areas for Biomass Power Plant Construction through Environmental Impact Assessment of Forest Harvesting Residues Transportation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-16, May.
    10. Kanematsu, Yuichiro & Oosawa, Kazutake & Okubo, Tatsuya & Kikuchi, Yasunori, 2017. "Designing the scale of a woody biomass CHP considering local forestry reformation: A case study of Tanegashima, Japan," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 160-172.
    11. András Polgár, 2024. "Carbon footprint and sustainability assessment of wood utilisation in Hungary," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(9), pages 24495-24519, September.
    12. Flavio Scrucca & Grazia Barberio & Laura Cutaia & Caterina Rinaldi, 2023. "Woodchips from Forest Residues as a Sustainable and Circular Biofuel for Electricity Production: Evidence from an Environmental Life Cycle Assessment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-16, December.
    13. Amanda Sosa & Kevin McDonnell & Ger Devlin, 2015. "Analysing Performance Characteristics of Biomass Haulage in Ireland for Bioenergy Markets with GPS, GIS and Fuel Diagnostic Tools," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-16, October.
    14. Marek Wieruszewski & Aleksandra Górna & Zygmunt Stanula & Krzysztof Adamowicz, 2022. "Energy Use of Woody Biomass in Poland: Its Resources and Harvesting Form," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-21, September.
    15. Manzone, Marco & Calvo, Angela, 2017. "Woodchip transportation: Climatic and congestion influence on productivity, energy and CO2 emission of agricultural and industrial convoys," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 250-259.
    16. Chen, Shang-Yu, 2016. "Using the sustainable modified TAM and TPB to analyze the effects of perceived green value on loyalty to a public bike system," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 58-72.
    17. Singlitico, Alessandro & Goggins, Jamie & Monaghan, Rory F.D., 2018. "Evaluation of the potential and geospatial distribution of waste and residues for bio-SNG production: A case study for the Republic of Ireland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 288-301.
    18. Pierobon, Francesca & Zanetti, Michela & Grigolato, Stefano & Sgarbossa, Andrea & Anfodillo, Tommaso & Cavalli, Raffaele, 2015. "Life cycle environmental impact of firewood production – A case study in Italy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 185-195.
    19. Xiaozhou Ye, 2022. "Bike-Sharing Adoption in Cross-National Contexts: An Empirical Research on the Factors Affecting Users’ Intentions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-19, March.
    20. Fionnuala Murphy & Ger Devlin & Kevin McDonnell, 2015. "Benchmarking Environmental Impacts of Peat Use for Electricity Generation in Ireland—A Life Cycle Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-18, May.
    21. Cambero, Claudia & Sowlati, Taraneh, 2014. "Assessment and optimization of forest biomass supply chains from economic, social and environmental perspectives – A review of literature," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 62-73.
    22. Michela Zanetti & Corrado Costa & Rosa Greco & Stefano Grigolato & Giovanna Ottaviani Aalmo & Raffaele Cavalli, 2017. "How Wood Fuels’ Quality Relates to the Standards: A Class-Modelling Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-14, September.
    23. Murphy, Fionnuala & McDonnell, Kevin, 2017. "Investigation of the potential impact of the Paris Agreement on national mitigation policies and the risk of carbon leakage; an analysis of the Irish bioenergy industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 80-88.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yang, Jin & Chen, Bin, 2014. "Global warming impact assessment of a crop residue gasification project—A dynamic LCA perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 269-279.
    2. Behroozeh, Samira & Hayati, Dariush & Karami, Ezatollah, 2022. "Determining and validating criteria to measure energy consumption sustainability in agricultural greenhouses," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    3. Zhen, Wei & Qin, Quande & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2017. "Spatio-temporal patterns of energy consumption-related GHG emissions in China's crop production systems," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 274-284.
    4. Vogel, Everton & Martinelli, Gabrielli & Artuzo, Felipe Dalzotto, 2021. "Environmental and economic performance of paddy field-based crop-livestock systems in Southern Brazil," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    5. Amanda Sosa & Kevin McDonnell & Ger Devlin, 2015. "Analysing Performance Characteristics of Biomass Haulage in Ireland for Bioenergy Markets with GPS, GIS and Fuel Diagnostic Tools," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-16, October.
    6. Toka, Agorasti & Iakovou, Eleftherios & Vlachos, Dimitrios & Tsolakis, Naoum & Grigoriadou, Anastasia-Loukia, 2014. "Managing the diffusion of biomass in the residential energy sector: An illustrative real-world case study," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 56-69.
    7. Khoshnevisan, Benyamin & Rafiee, Shahin & Omid, Mahmoud & Yousefi, Marziye & Movahedi, Mehran, 2013. "Modeling of energy consumption and GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions in wheat production in Esfahan province of Iran using artificial neural networks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 333-338.
    8. Pradeleix, L. & Roux, P. & Bouarfa, S. & Bellon-Maurel, V., 2023. "Multilevel life cycle assessment to evaluate prospective agricultural development scenarios in a semi-arid irrigated region of Tunisia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    9. Fionnuala Murphy & Ger Devlin & Kevin McDonnell, 2015. "Benchmarking Environmental Impacts of Peat Use for Electricity Generation in Ireland—A Life Cycle Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-18, May.
    10. Joselin Herbert, G.M. & Unni Krishnan, A., 2016. "Quantifying environmental performance of biomass energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 292-308.
    11. Pradeleix, L. & Roux, P. & Bouarfa, S. & Bellon-Maurel, V., 2022. "Multilevel environmental assessment of regional farming activities with Life Cycle Assessment: Tackling data scarcity and farm diversity with Life Cycle Inventories based on Agrarian System Diagnosis," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    12. Houshyar, Ehsan & Grundmann, Philipp, 2017. "Environmental impacts of energy use in wheat tillage systems: A comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) study in Iran," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 11-24.
    13. Liang, Long & Lal, Rattan & Ridoutt, Bradley G. & Zhao, Guishen & Du, Zhangliu & Li, Li & Feng, Dangyang & Wang, Liyuan & Peng, Peng & Hang, Sheng & Wu, Wenliang, 2018. "Multi-indicator assessment of a water-saving agricultural engineering project in North Beijing, China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 34-46.
    14. Berti, Marisol & Johnson, Burton & Ripplinger, David & Gesch, Russ & Aponte, Alfredo, 2017. "Environmental impact assessment of double- and relay-cropping with winter camelina in the northern Great Plains, USA," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 1-12.
    15. Shemfe, Mobolaji B. & Whittaker, Carly & Gu, Sai & Fidalgo, Beatriz, 2016. "Comparative evaluation of GHG emissions from the use of Miscanthus for bio-hydrocarbon production via fast pyrolysis and bio-oil upgrading," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 22-33.
    16. Liu, Chia-Yi & Hsieh & Chen-Yu, 2023. "How does Organic Agriculture Contribute to Sustainable Development? Organic Agriculture in Taiwan," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 14(03), September.
    17. El Chami, D. & Daccache, A., 2015. "Assessing sustainability of winter wheat production under climate change scenarios in a humid climate — An integrated modelling framework," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 19-25.
    18. Maria Pergola & Angelo Rita & Alfonso Tortora & Maria Castellaneta & Marco Borghetti & Antonio Sergio De Franchi & Antonio Lapolla & Nicola Moretti & Giovanni Pecora & Domenico Pierangeli & Luigi Toda, 2020. "Identification of Suitable Areas for Biomass Power Plant Construction through Environmental Impact Assessment of Forest Harvesting Residues Transportation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-16, May.
    19. Chen, Xuqi & Gao, Zhifeng & Swisher, Marilyn & House, Lisa & Zhao, Xin, 2018. "Eco-labeling in the Fresh Produce Market: Not All Environmentally Friendly Labels Are Equally Valued," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 201-210.
    20. Forte, Annachiara & Zucaro, Amalia & De Vico, Gionata & Fierro, Angelo, 2016. "Carbon footprint of heliciculture: A case study from an Italian experimental farm," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 99-111.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:116:y:2014:i:c:p:1-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.