8. Biodiesel Production and Consumption: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Approach

Like all energy carriers including renewable energies, the production to combustion cycle of biodiesel should also be assessed from the sustainability point of view. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a promising approach capable of assisting decision makers to find the environmental consequences of the existing or future biodiesel production plans. For instance, for different feedstocks, production technologies, downstream processes implemented, etc., an LCA of biodiesel production cycles could result in different recommendations ranging from agricultural practices to production and combustion stages. Despite the fact that an ISO standard is available for conducting LCA studies, there are still many challenging issues faced when performing LCA studies concerning biodiesel production and consumption. These challenges include the functional unit, the choice of system boundaries, the impact categories to be assessed, the treatment of land use change, and biogenic carbon. The present chapter provides a systematic overview of the above-mentioned topics with the aim of shedding light on various aspects of LCA of biodiesel production and consumption cycle.