IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v307y2022ics0306261921014690.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparing biofuels through the lens of sustainability: A data envelopment analysis approach

Author

Listed:
  • Cabrera-Jiménez, Richard
  • Mateo-Sanz, Josep M.
  • Gavaldà, Jordi
  • Jiménez, Laureano
  • Pozo, Carlos

Abstract

Liquid biofuels can facilitate the transition towards a more sustainable transportation sector by curbing carbon emissions while maintaining most of the current vehicle fleet. Today, a myriad of alternatives are available to produce biofuels, where different decisions for the fuel type, blend, conversion process and carbon source will affect the final cost and environmental impact of the product. In this contribution, we analyze the performance of 72 different biofuels routes based on 12 indicators that cover the three sustainability dimensions: economic, environmental and social. The proposed multi-criteria approach combines Data Envelopment Analysis with Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate biofuels from a cradle-to-wheel perspective, that is, considering the production chain spanning from biomass production to the combustion of the biofuel in the engine. Results reveal that there are 35 biofuels routes performing better than the rest, with renewable diesel being a better option than ethanol-based blends or biodiesel, and waste biomass preferred over cellulosic biomass or bio-oils. The selection of the carbon source proofed to be the most important decision, highlighting the need to consider regional aspects related to soil and climate before promoting a certain biofuel. Overall, our results can help to derive effective policies for the adoption of biofuels attaining the best performance at minimum cost and environmental risks.

Suggested Citation

  • Cabrera-Jiménez, Richard & Mateo-Sanz, Josep M. & Gavaldà, Jordi & Jiménez, Laureano & Pozo, Carlos, 2022. "Comparing biofuels through the lens of sustainability: A data envelopment analysis approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:307:y:2022:i:c:s0306261921014690
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.118201
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921014690
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.118201?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. Li, Lan-Bing & Hu, Jin-Li, 2012. "Ecological total-factor energy efficiency of regions in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 216-224.
    2. Fernández, David & Pozo, Carlos & Folgado, Rubén & Jiménez, Laureano & Guillén-Gosálbez, Gonzalo, 2018. "Productivity and energy efficiency assessment of existing industrial gases facilities via data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist index," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 1563-1577.
    3. Song, Ma-Lin & Zhang, Lin-Ling & Liu, Wei & Fisher, Ron, 2013. "Bootstrap-DEA analysis of BRICS’ energy efficiency based on small sample data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 1049-1055.
    4. Cobuloglu, Halil I. & Büyüktahtakın, İ. Esra, 2015. "Food vs. biofuel: An optimization approach to the spatio-temporal analysis of land-use competition and environmental impacts," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 418-434.
    5. Per Andersen & Niels Christian Petersen, 1993. "A Procedure for Ranking Efficient Units in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(10), pages 1261-1264, October.
    6. Costa, A.O. & Oliveira, L.B. & Lins, M.P.E. & Silva, A.C.M. & Araujo, M.S.M. & Pereira Jr., A.O. & Rosa, L.P., 2013. "Sustainability analysis of biodiesel production: A review on different resources in Brazil," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 407-412.
    7. Gilani, H. & Sahebi, H. & Oliveira, Fabricio, 2020. "Sustainable sugarcane-to-bioethanol supply chain network design: A robust possibilistic programming model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    8. Tone, Kaoru, 2002. "A slacks-based measure of super-efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 32-41, November.
    9. Choi, Yongrok & Zhang, Ning & Zhou, P., 2012. "Efficiency and abatement costs of energy-related CO2 emissions in China: A slacks-based efficiency measure," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 198-208.
    10. Hamisu Adamu Dandajeh & Midhat Talibi & Nicos Ladommatos & Paul Hellier, 2019. "Influence of Combustion Characteristics and Fuel Composition on Exhaust PAHs in a Compression Ignition Engine," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-19, July.
    11. Chang, Young-Tae & Zhang, Ning & Danao, Denise & Zhang, Nan, 2013. "Environmental efficiency analysis of transportation system in China: A non-radial DEA approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 277-283.
    12. Johan Rockström & Will Steffen & Kevin Noone & Åsa Persson & F. Stuart Chapin & Eric F. Lambin & Timothy M. Lenton & Marten Scheffer & Carl Folke & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber & Björn Nykvist & Cynthia , 2009. "A safe operating space for humanity," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7263), pages 472-475, September.
    13. Babazadeh, Reza & Razmi, Jafar & Pishvaee, Mir Saman & Rabbani, Masoud, 2017. "A sustainable second-generation biodiesel supply chain network design problem under risk," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 66(PB), pages 258-277.
    14. Zhijuan Zhang & Marcin Lis, 2020. "Modeling Green Energy Development Based on Sustainable Economic Growth in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-18, February.
    15. Hong, Jae-Dong & Mwakalonge, Judith L., 2020. "Biofuel logistics network scheme design with combined data envelopment analysis approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    16. Yung-Ho Chiu & Yu-Chuan Chen & Xue-Jie Bai, 2011. "Efficiency and risk in Taiwan banking: SBM super-DEA estimation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(5), pages 587-602.
    17. Murrant, Daniel & Radcliffe, Jonathan, 2018. "Assessing energy storage technology options using a multi-criteria decision analysis-based framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 788-802.
    18. Das, Ridoy & Wang, Yue & Putrus, Ghanim & Kotter, Richard & Marzband, Mousa & Herteleer, Bert & Warmerdam, Jos, 2020. "Multi-objective techno-economic-environmental optimisation of electric vehicle for energy services," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    19. Dyson, R. G. & Allen, R. & Camanho, A. S. & Podinovski, V. V. & Sarrico, C. S. & Shale, E. A., 2001. "Pitfalls and protocols in DEA," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 245-259, July.
    20. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    21. Seiford, Lawrence M. & Zhu, Joe, 2002. "Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 16-20, October.
    22. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2006. "Slacks-based efficiency measures for modeling environmental performance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 111-118, November.
    23. Juan E. Tibaquirá & José I. Huertas & Sebastián Ospina & Luis F. Quirama & José E. Niño, 2018. "The Effect of Using Ethanol-Gasoline Blends on the Mechanical, Energy and Environmental Performance of In-Use Vehicles," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, January.
    24. Pirjola, Liisa & Kuuluvainen, Heino & Timonen, Hilkka & Saarikoski, Sanna & Teinilä, Kimmo & Salo, Laura & Datta, Arindam & Simonen, Pauli & Karjalainen, Panu & Kulmala, Kari & Rönkkö, Topi, 2019. "Potential of renewable fuel to reduce diesel exhaust particle emissions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    25. Tone, Kaoru, 2001. "A slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 498-509, May.
    26. Kumar, Abhishek & Sah, Bikash & Singh, Arvind R. & Deng, Yan & He, Xiangning & Kumar, Praveen & Bansal, R.C., 2017. "A review of multi criteria decision making (MCDM) towards sustainable renewable energy development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 596-609.
    27. Venturini, Giada & Pizarro-Alonso, Amalia & Münster, Marie, 2019. "How to maximise the value of residual biomass resources: The case of straw in Denmark," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 369-388.
    28. Chen, Shiyi, 2015. "Environmental pollution emissions, regional productivity growth and ecological economic development in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 171-182.
    29. Seiford, Lawrence M. & Zhu, Joe, 1999. "An investigation of returns to scale in data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-11, February.
    30. Necmi Avkiran & Kaoru Tone & Miki Tsutsui, 2008. "Bridging radial and non-radial measures of efficiency in DEA," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 127-138, November.
    31. Wu, Xuesong & Daniel, Ritchie & Tian, Guohong & Xu, Hongming & Huang, Zuohua & Richardson, Dave, 2011. "Dual-injection: The flexible, bi-fuel concept for spark-ignition engines fuelled with various gasoline and biofuel blends," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(7), pages 2305-2314, July.
    32. Zurano-Cervelló, Patricia & Pozo, Carlos & Mateo-Sanz, Josep María & Jiménez, Laureano & Guillén-Gosálbez, Gonzalo, 2019. "Sustainability efficiency assessment of the electricity mix of the 28 EU member countries combining data envelopment analysis and optimized projections," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    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. Li, Junjie & Zhang, Yueling & Yang, Yanli & Zhang, Xiaomei & Wang, Nana & Zheng, Yonghong & Tian, Yajun & Xie, Kechang, 2022. "Life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of ethanol production via coal and its competitors: A comparative study," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    2. Yang, Zaoli & Ahmad, Salman & Bernardi, Andrea & Shang, Wen-long & Xuan, Jin & Xu, Bing, 2023. "Evaluating alternative low carbon fuel technologies using a stakeholder participation-based q-rung orthopair linguistic multi-criteria framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 332(C).
    3. Guannan Cui & Xinyu Bai & Pengfei Wang & Haitao Wang & Shiyu Wang & Liming Dong, 2022. "Agricultural Structures Management Based on Nonpoint Source Pollution Control in Typical Fuel Ethanol Raw Material Planting Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-15, June.
    4. Paparao, Jami & Soundarya, N. & Murugan, S., 2023. "Advancing green technology: Experimental study on low heat rejection engine utilizing bio-based antioxidant-doped biodiesel-diesel blends and oxy-hydrogen gas," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    5. Olawale Ogunrinde & Ekundayo Shittu, 2023. "Benchmarking performance of photovoltaic power plants in multiple periods," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 489-503, September.
    6. Liu Junsong & Ridwan Lanre Ibrahim & Abubakar Mohammed & Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Faryan, 2024. "Exploring the heterogeneous effects of technological innovations on environmental sustainability: Do structural change, environmental policy, and biofuel energy matter for G7 economies?," Energy & Environment, , vol. 35(4), pages 1818-1849, June.
    7. Rahimi, Mohammad & Mashhadimoslem, Hossein & Vo Thanh, Hung & Ranjbar, Benyamin & Safarzadeh Khosrowshahi, Mobin & Rohani, Abbas & Elkamel, Ali, 2023. "Yield prediction and optimization of biomass-based products by multi-machine learning schemes: Neural, regression and function-based techniques," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).

    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. Mushtaq Taleb & Ruzelan Khalid & Ali Emrouznejad & Razamin Ramli, 2023. "Environmental efficiency under weak disposability: an improved super efficiency data envelopment analysis model with application for assessment of port operations considering NetZero," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 6627-6656, July.
    2. Gómez-Calvet, Roberto & Conesa, David & Gómez-Calvet, Ana Rosa & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2014. "Energy efficiency in the European Union: What can be learned from the joint application of directional distance functions and slacks-based measures?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 137-154.
    3. Zhou, Haibo & Yang, Yi & Chen, Yao & Zhu, Joe, 2018. "Data envelopment analysis application in sustainability: The origins, development and future directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(1), pages 1-16.
    4. Long, Xingle & Wu, Chao & Zhang, Jijian & Zhang, Jing, 2018. "Environmental efficiency for 192 thermal power plants in the Yangtze River Delta considering heterogeneity: A metafrontier directional slacks-based measure approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 3962-3971.
    5. Li, Tao & Yang, Wenyue & Zhang, Haoran & Cao, Xiaoshu, 2016. "Evaluating the impact of transport investment on the efficiency of regional integrated transport systems in China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 66-76.
    6. Fang, Tao & Fang, Debin & Yu, Bolin, 2022. "Carbon emission efficiency of thermal power generation in China: Empirical evidence from the micro-perspective of power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    7. Xiaowei Song & Yongpei Hao & Xiaodong Zhu, 2015. "Analysis of the Environmental Efficiency of the Chinese Transportation Sector Using an Undesirable Output Slacks-Based Measure Data Envelopment Analysis Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-20, July.
    8. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    9. Satoshi Honma, 2015. "Does international trade improve environmental efficiency? An application of a super slacks-based measure of efficiency," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 4(1), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Soushi Suzuki & Karima Kourtit & Peter Nijkamp, 2017. "The robustness of performance rankings of Asia-Pacific super cities," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 219-242, April.
    11. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2008. "A survey of data envelopment analysis in energy and environmental studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 1-18, August.
    12. Nelson Amowine & Zhiqiang Ma & Mingxing Li & Zhixiang Zhou & Benjamin Azembila Asunka & James Amowine, 2019. "Energy Efficiency Improvement Assessment in Africa: An Integrated Dynamic DEA Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-17, October.
    13. Noor Ramli & Susila Munisamy & Behrouz Arabi, 2013. "Scale directional distance function and its application to the measurement of eco-efficiency in the manufacturing sector," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 211(1), pages 381-398, December.
    14. Jun-Fei Chu & Jie Wu & Ma-Lin Song, 2018. "An SBM-DEA model with parallel computing design for environmental efficiency evaluation in the big data context: a transportation system application," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 270(1), pages 105-124, November.
    15. Victoria Wojcik & Harald Dyckhoff & Marcel Clermont, 2019. "Is data envelopment analysis a suitable tool for performance measurement and benchmarking in non-production contexts?," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 12(2), pages 559-595, December.
    16. Liu, John S. & Lu, Louis Y.Y. & Lu, Wen-Min, 2016. "Research fronts in data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 33-45.
    17. Rashidi, Kamran & Cullinane, Kevin, 2019. "Evaluating the sustainability of national logistics performance using Data Envelopment Analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 35-46.
    18. Meng, Fanyi & Su, Bin & Thomson, Elspeth & Zhou, Dequn & Zhou, P., 2016. "Measuring China’s regional energy and carbon emission efficiency with DEA models: A survey," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1-21.
    19. Cook, Wade D. & Seiford, Larry M., 2009. "Data envelopment analysis (DEA) - Thirty years on," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 192(1), pages 1-17, January.
    20. Demiral, Elif E. & Sağlam, Ümit, 2021. "Eco-efficiency and Eco-productivity assessments of the states in the United States: A two-stage Non-parametric analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).

    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:307:y:2022:i:c:s0306261921014690. 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.