Life Cycle Assesment Study on a Soybean Complex Transformation Chain over Three Years of Production of Biodiesel As a Coproduct

The objective of the study was to use a develop tool that enable the calculation follow up and evaluation of improvement in the different stages of production of biodiesel and other products in an integrated plant placed in Frias in the province of Santiago del Estero during three years. This case had special interest since it is not placed in the core of soybean and industrial process area in Santa Fe over the Parana River. Santiago del Estero is a lower income province and needs to increase its industrialization and generation of products that can enlarge the end value of products being produced and exported.

The areas ofproduction in the north west region of the country are exposed to grater climate variations that reflects in higher difference in yields between years. Since yield values can alter the final GHG savings of the different products a three year period was chosen.

For the calculations the 2006  IPCC directives for national GHG inventories, DIRECTIVE 2009/28/CE  European Union Parliament  and council April  23  2009, EB 50 – Executive MDL board “Guidelines on apportioning emissions from production processes  between main product and co-and by-products ” and ACM0017 Methodology  “Approved consolidated baseline and monitoring methodology Production of biodiesel for use as fuel” were used. The system covered the farm production of crops, short and long transport to the crushing facilities, all the industrial stages and the end transport to port and overseas.

The data entered in the tool was provided by the company electronic database that runs under a SAP system were every step in the company is entered and can be verified and audited. The source of the raw material came primarily by own farms placed in the provinces of Salta, Tucuman and Santiago del Estero. The analysis and presentation of the results were devided into the different stages included in the overall process (farm production, freights of raw material, production of biodiesel and co products and final freight. The final results were calculated in three different ways according to how the final allocation of emissions was considered: energy content, mass balance and price of the different products and co products. The differences in numbers between the three alternatives reached a maximum of 20 %. The overall emission reduction of the integrated process reached a value of 73 % in Grs.CO2eq/Mj well above the default value included in the European Union Directive. This results were heavily affected during the last years of poor field yields producing an important decrease in GHG savings. If the whole soybean biodiesel chain of Viluco is considered the total emissions reach 88.860 Tons de CO2eq per year (including the industrial stage). Of the total emissions 69% belong to the industrial phase, 14% to the production in own farms, 13% from soybean purchased to other farmers and 4 % to transport and freights.

At the industrial stage the emissions associated with energy use were responsible of 65 % and key input materials as methanol has a weight of 32 % in the overall analysis. s per year.

Although there are still several uncertainties in the methodologies there is strong work in progress in order to improve the estimation factors of the agricultural phase of production mainly looking at nitrogen oxide emissions and organic matter balance.

Final numbers are very important since they have relations to present regulations in the international markets. The study showed that single studies don’t cover one of the main important factors in agricultural production as the variation between each year crop yield. In order to obtain more realistic figures a certain amount of statistical information on crop behavior in each region must be taken into account.