Análise de ecoeficiência: avaliação do desempenho econômico-ambiental do biodiesel e petrodiesel. / Eco-efficiency analysis: environmental-economic assessment of biodiesel and petrodiesel.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

Biodiesel is the most likely alternative to petrodiesel. It is composed of methyl or ethyl esters from fatty acids, obtained by a transesterification reaction between any triglycerides and an alcohol with short chain, methanol or ethanol. It has almost the same properties of petrodiesel, but comparing with this, it can eliminate the sulfur oxides emissions and significantly reduce the CO2 emissions. Brazil is being considered as a future leader in biodiesel production due to its excellent climate and soil condition and vast territorial extension conducive to a crop of varied oil plants. Around so many speculations, Brazilian federal government has created the National Biodiesel Production and Use Program (PNPB) aiming to the implementation of a sustainable biodiesel production and use. Focusing this issue, a federal law was promulgated in 2005 in order to establish the addition of 5% biodiesel to the petrodiesel sold to the ultimate consumer. This fact should be implemented within a 5 – year period in which companies should start using the minimum of 2% biodiesel within a 3 – year period. This paper presents an environmental and economic comparison between biodiesel (from palm oil and ethanol) and petrodiesel regarding Brazilian conditions, according to the Eco-Efficiency Analysis developed by BASF. This analysis belongs to a class of techniques of the environmental management, which aims to evaluate the environmental performance of products, processes and services integrated in an economic evaluation. This class of techniques is mainly used for the comparison of similar products and processes, which present the same function, and its aim is to subsidize the decision-making process in several levels. This methodology considers firstly the environmental indicator based in the life cycle inventory associated to a simplified risks of accidents to human health analysis which are classified according to the severity of consequences and the probability of occurrence and secondly an economical indicator calculated from the life cycle costs of the product. As to the information about the biodiesel evaluation, two sources have been considered. Regarding the palm oil, primary data have been used. Such data have been obtained from Grupo Agropalma the largest national oil producer; regarding ethanol, secondary sources have been used, that is, available data from literature. The literature and the experts responsible for biodiesel technology of production have provided other data and information regarding more particularly the biodiesel production. As to the petrodiesel, the data have been obtained from the international database and afterwards adapted to the Brazilian scenario, by means of information, provided by Petrobras. The petrodiesel information was determined to 26 liters of fuel and the one concerning the biodiesel to 30 liters. Such quantities have been calculated considering the amount of the necessary product in order to generate 1,000 MJ of energy in internal combustion engines. Data have been collected to the stages of source extraction and transformation; distribution, use and final disposition have not been considered. The final result of the analysis shows biodiesel as the most ecoefficent option. The large difference between the two alternatives is the best environmental performance of the biodiesel which is justified chiefly due to the reduced consumption of material resources and the low toxicity of the product since the necessary raw material for its formation (the anhydrous ethanol and the palm oil) has renewable nature and during the production of the petrodiesel there is contact with many volatile hydrocarbons unlikely the biodiesel. This paper provides information, which may help the decision-making process of the Brazilian biodiesel use, besides that, it contributes with life cycle inventories, which may help in the development of a Brazilian LCA (Life cycle assessment) database.

ASSUNTO(S)

biodiesel eco-efficiency (analysis) petrodiesel life cicle assessment (lca) biomass biodiesel biomassa ecoeficiência (análise) petrodiesel Óleo de dendê avaliação do ciclo de vida (acv) palm oil

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