Biofuels for Transport, the Challenge of Correctly Assessing their Environmental Impact

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to discuss technically some causes of uncertainties related to the environmental assessment of liquid biofuels for transport. This discussion of causes of uncertainties is mainly based on three topics taken as examples. The three topics selected due to their importance in order to illustrate the complexity of environmental assessment of biofuels and the difficulty to reduce uncertainties are: 1) agro-environmental impact of bioethanol (from sugar cane) in Brazil and biodiesel (from palm oil) in Malaysia. These two tropical countries were selected due to their role of leader at world level and their strong export potential to the European Union), 2) N2O (Nitrous oxide) emissions related to biofuels cultivation and land use change and 3) Life cycle assessment (LCA) of biodiesel from palm oil in Malaysia. These three topics are discussed and recommendations are formulated in order to reduce scientific uncertainty, for example through the development of internationally agreed sustainability certification systems with corresponding verification measures or further research on emissions and indirect land use change.