ABSTRACT
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a potential tool to understand the environmental and commercial impact of alternative fuels sector on global biofuels economy. The studies that include LCA are mostly related to the energy efficiency and impact of greenhouse gas emissions of alternate biofuels systems. Complete replacement of fossil fuels by biofuels is challenging and not feasible in present situation. Studies have reported that total substitution of fossil fuels by biofuels will result in negative impacts due to the contamination of water resources by pesticides used for cultivation of crops, which acts as feedstocks to produce alternative fuels. For a successful LCA, understanding the processing system from an integrated and inter-disciplinary perspective covering the social, ecological, economic, legal, and geographic outlook is essential. Production of third-generation biofuels from agricultural and forest-based feedstocks is a complex process and hence, a holistic approach towards LCA is mandatory to analyze their environmental benefits and capital costs. Most of the studies incorporate the quantity of energy invested into analysis. The quality and source of energy are essential and the concept of exergy is proven a powerful technique to assess the sustainability of bioenergy technology.
