The manuscript “Neri et al., Biomass Residues to Renewable Energy: A Life Cycle Perspective Applied at a Local Scale“, on the impact of renewable energy from wood residues, was recently published on the open access scientific journal Energies.
The work, a joint venture between the University of Bologna and researchers from EMC Innovation Lab, deals with the assessment of the environmental impact of renewable energy production from wood residues.
Italy, like every country member of the European Union (EU), will have to achieve the objectives required by the Energy Roadmap 2050. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the environmental impacts of residues recovery arising from the management of public and private green feedstocks, carried out in the Bologna district, and their usage in a centralized heating system to produce thermal energy for public buildings.
The results on the impact of renewable energy from wood residues, obtained by using the ReCiPe impact assessment method, are compared with scores achieved by a traditional methane boiler.
The study shows some advantages of the biomass-based system in terms of greenhouse gases emissions and consumption of non-renewable fuels, which affect climate change (-41%) and fossil resources depletion (-40%), compared to the use of natural gas.
Moreover, the analysis denotes the higher contribution to the cumulative impact of the biomass transportation (98%), even if distances are restricted to 30 km. Therefore, it is clear that greater environmental benefits could be achieved by the reduction of the provision distances (short supply chain) or using more sustainable engines, such as methane-based or hybrid truck.
