Life cycle assessment of application of biomass for co-firing

The development of alternative energy became an important issue due to increasing fossil fuel shortages in some locales globally, environmental pollution and concerns over the greenhouse effect. A principal form of renewable alternative energy is bioenergy. Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) in Taiwan is a potential biofuel source because it is not a native species and has low economic value. The environmental impact and benefit on human health, ecosystem quality, climate change, and resources for applying Japanese cedar as bioenergy in Taiwan were investigated. Japanese cedar was produced in the form of a bio-wood pellet. The coal supply system caused higher impacts on the categories of respiratory organics of human health, aquatic ecotoxicity and aquatic eutrophication of ecosystem quality, and non-renewable energy of resources than Japanese cedar bio-wood pellet system. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AWMA's 107th Annual Conference & Exhibition (Long Beach, CA 6/24-27/2014).