Integrating life cycle assessment and input-output analysis for the assessment of ethanol production technologies in Brazil

Abstract

The Virtual Sugarcane Biorefinery (VSB) is a novel framework under construction at the Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology Laboratory (CTBE) which integrates computer simulation platforms with economic, social and environmental evaluation tools to assess technical and sustainability indicators of different sugarcane biorefinery alternatives. Currently, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Input-Output Analysis (I-O) are methods used separately in the VSB; LCA is applied to provide environmental indicators of different sugarcane biorefinery alternatives whereas I-O is important to assess its economic impacts. This project aims at studying the integration of LCA and I-O methods to evaluate different ethanol production technologies according to the Environmental Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) approach, which allows expanding the boundaries of LCA studies to the country's economy without losing important information provided in the life cycle inventory. The host institution is the Green Design Institute (GDI) of Carnegie Mellon University whose researchers operationalized the EIO-LCA approach based on Wassily Leontief's method. Considering that GDI has published several research results on the topics of biofuel and ethanol production, the exchange of information on EIO-LCA will significantly contribute to the improvement of the Virtual Sugarcane Biorefinery. (AU)