{"id":144,"date":"2012-10-12T17:34:29","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T15:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.besustainablemagazine.com\/cms2\/?p=144"},"modified":"2018-05-02T16:46:53","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T14:46:53","slug":"harmonizing-biofuels-greenhouse-gas-calculations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.besustainablemagazine.com\/cms2\/harmonizing-biofuels-greenhouse-gas-calculations\/","title":{"rendered":"Harmonizing biofuels greenhouse gas calculations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/a>The EU funded project BioGrace<\/a> aims at unambiguously defining key parameters of biofuel greenhouse gas emissions and thus enhancing the level playing field on the European biofuels market. The BioGrace calculation tools enable economic operators to perform biofuel greenhouse gas calculations according to the methodology determined in the Renewable Energy Directive as well as auditors to easily verify calculations.<\/p>\n

In 2009 the European Union set sustainability criteria for biofuels with the legislation of the Renewable Energy Directive(2009\/28\/EC, RED) and the Fuel Quality Directive(FQD, 2009\/30\/EC). The greenhouse gas (GHG) emission saving<\/p>\n

achieved by biofuels must be at least 35% compared to fossil fuels; this requirement rises to at least 50% by 2017, and 60% by 2018 for biofuels produced in new installations.<\/p>\n

RED Annex V defines default values for greenhouse gas emission savings of 22 biofuel production pathways (table I, equal to Annex IV of the FQD). If the default value is below the minimum requirement, economic operators have to make their own calculations. They will find the calculation methodology in the same Annex: total greenhouse gas emissions are the sum of emissions from cultivation, processing, transportation, distribution, and direct land use change (figure 1). However, the RED and the FQD do not fix standard values for conversion factors which are necessary to convert e.g. the amount of fertiliser used into CO2<\/sub> emission equivalents \u2013 leaving insecurity to users, auditors and national regulation agencies. As various values are found in the literature, differences in the result can add up to 10%, 20% or even more percent for the same shipment of biofuel.<\/p>\n

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Table 1: Annex 1 of the Renewable Energy Directive of the European Union Dir. EC 28\/2009<\/em><\/p>\n

The project BioGrace (funded by the Intelligent Energy for Europe<\/a> programme) aims to harmonise calculations of biofuel greenhouse gas emissions and thus supports the implementation of these two directives. The BioGrace consortium has recalculated the 22 default values. In the Excel GHG calculation tool it makes every calculation step transparent. Its list of standard values<\/span> (table II) contains the conversion factors that were used for calculating the default values in the RED Annex V.<\/p>\n

The Excel GHG calculation tool<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the BioGrace Excel GHG calculation tool each of the 22 biofuel production pathways is demonstrated in a separate worksheet (figure 2). Input numbers shown in the cells are the ones that were used for the calculation of the default values. Economic operators may insert their individual input numbers for obtaining the actual emission saving value.<\/p>\n

The Excel tool also features extra worksheets for those calculation steps that are not covered by the default values which are:<\/p>\n