Civil and Environmental Engineering, 351 McCormick Road, Thornton Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, United States.
Bioresour Technol. 2013 Nov;148:163-71. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2013.08.112. Epub 2013 Aug 27.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used widely to estimate the environmental implications of deploying algae-to-energy systems even though no full-scale facilities have yet to be built. Here, data from a pilot-scale facility using hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is used to estimate the life cycle profiles at full scale. Three scenarios (lab-, pilot-, and full-scale) were defined to understand how development in the industry could impact its life cycle burdens. HTL-derived algae fuels were found to have lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than petroleum fuels. Algae-derived gasoline had significantly lower GHG emissions than corn ethanol. Most algae-based fuels have an energy return on investment between 1 and 3, which is lower than petroleum biofuels. Sensitivity analyses reveal several areas in which improvements by algae bioenergy companies (e.g., biocrude yields, nutrient recycle) and by supporting industries (e.g., CO2 supply chains) could reduce the burdens of the industry.
生命周期评估（LCA）已被广泛用于估算藻类能源系统的环境影响，尽管尚未建立全规模设施。在这里，使用热液液化（HTL）的中试设施的数据来估算全规模的生命周期概况。定义了三个情景（实验室、中试和全规模），以了解行业的发展如何影响其生命周期负担。与石油燃料相比，HTL 衍生的藻类燃料的温室气体（GHG）排放量更低。藻类衍生的汽油比玉米乙醇的温室气体排放量显著更低。大多数基于藻类的燃料的投资回报率在 1 到 3 之间，低于石油生物燃料。敏感性分析揭示了藻类生物能源公司（例如，生物原油产量、养分回收）和支持行业（例如，CO2 供应链）可以改进的几个领域，这可以降低该行业的负担。
