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SUMMARY:Uncertainty of life cycle assessment for algal biofuel production
DTSTART:20130116T131500
DTSTAMP:20260924T210152Z
UID:973bdeca174fe2e8d3a08cdd7b210e2a42903cb461ca7d04366097c4
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Deborah Sills\, Cornell Energy Institute  (Ithaca\, NY)\n
 As a result of algae’s promise as a renewable energy feedstock\, numerou
 s studies have used Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to quantify the energetic 
 viability and environmental performance of algal biofuels\, yet there is n
 o consensus of results among them. Our work\, motivated by the lack of com
 prehensive uncertainty analysis in previous studies\, uses a Monte Carlo a
 pproach to estimate ranges of expected values of LCA metrics by incorporat
 ing parameter variability with empirically specified distribution function
 s.  Results show that large uncertainties exist at virtually all steps of
  the biofuel production process. Although our findings agree with a number
  of earlier studies on matters such as the need for nutrients recovered fr
 om waste streams\, wet lipid extraction\, and high-energy co-products\, th
 e ranges of reported LCA metrics show that uncertainty analysis is crucial
  for developing technologies\, such as algal biofuels. In addition\, the r
 anges of energy return on (energy) invested (EROI) values resulting from o
 ur analysis help explain the high variability in EROI values from earlier 
 studies.  Reporting results from LCA models as ranges\, and not single va
 lues\, will more reliably inform industry and policy makers on expected en
 ergetic and environmental performance of biofuels produced from microalgae
 .
LOCATION:MEC2405
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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