Summary of Bio-MEG Report
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Transcript of Summary of Bio-MEG Report
SIPL, India 7
Executive Summary This life cycle assessment (LCA) study compares Mono Ethylene Glycol (MEG) produced
from renewable source molasses with MEG produced from petroleum route. The assessment
is based on data collected at India Glycols Limited, Kashipur, India henceforth referred to as
IGL. The MEG produced from Molasses will henceforth be referred to as Bio-MEG while MEG
produced from petroleum will henceforth be referred to as conventional MEG.
Goal and scope
The Present study evaluates and compares ‘Life Cycle Assessment’ & ‘GHG Accounting’ of
Bio-MEG and conventional MEG. The methodology of the study is based on ISO 14044-2006
standards. The input material for Bio-MEG will be Ethanol obtained from sugarcane and
input material for conventional MEG will be Ethylene Oxide obtained from crude oil. The
study evaluates all relevant processes affected by the production. This includes agricultural
cultivation of sugarcane as well as excavation of crude oil.
The functional unit in this study has been taken as 1 ton of MEG.
Scope of BIO-MEG study will start from cultivation of Sugar cane, transportation of
sugarcane to sugar plant, production of molasses, production of ethanol and finally
production of BIO - MEG.
Scope of conventional MEG will start from crude oil extraction, ethylene oxide production
and finally conventional MEG production.
The comparison will be made between LCA study of Bio-MEG produced at IGL and LCA study
of conventional MEG produced in India, US and Europe with process and data taken from
India and for US & EU process details taken from ecoinvent & USLCI available in SimaPro
against various impacts categories.
This study will be Cradle to Gate Study.
SIPL, India 8
Impact categories and methods
The study addresses the following environmental impact categories: Global warming
potential or GHG, resource depletion, carcinogenic effect, acidification, nutrient enrichment
(eutrophication), photochemical ozone formation etc. There is no India specific impact
assessment method available. Also characterization and normalization factors are not
available. Default characterization factors from Ecoindicator99 and IPCC 2007 GWP100a are
applied and the system modeling is performed in SimaPro 7.2.4 (LCA software tool).In this
study we have used hierarchist perspective of EcoIndicator99 as the weights given to
human health and ecosystem quality and resources are in line with the importance given to
them in India. Default normalisation as shown below has been used in this study.
Normalisation Weights
Human Health 1.54E-02 400
Ecosystem Quality 5.13E+03 400
Resources 8.41E+03 200
Inventory analysis
Life cycle assessment studies are in its infancy in India. There is no India specific database
available for most of the materials. It was a strenuous and difficult task to collect data for
sugarcane cultivation, molasses production, MEG production, Diesel and Naptha production
etc. Questionnaires, interactions with industry experts, study of published report and
research papers on similar topics, economic surveys etc were used as data collection
methodologies. Data gaps were filled from SimaPro databases. The study handles allocation
issues by mass-economic system and mass allocation.
Results
The results obtained are summarized in the following tables and figures:
The total GHG emitted in ton CO2 eq. from major processes for the production of one ton of
Bio-MEG calculated as per IPCC 2007 100a is shown in table 1 below. Bio-Ethanol from
molasses is the biggest contributor while oxygen, electricity and steam are other three
major contributors. Total GHG emitted in ton CO2 eq. from one ton of Bio-MEG production is
1331.11 kgs.
SIPL, India 9
Table:1
Processes which are major GHG contributors to 1 ton Bio-MEG production
from Molasses expressed in kg. CO2 eq.
Bio-Ethanol from Molasses
Oxygen, liquid production
Electricity, high voltage, production
Steam production from waste and coal
545 53.2 288 244
The net GHG savings are ~597 kg CO2 eq. per ton Bio-MEG production in comparison to
conventional MEG production in India. The difference is very high also when Indian Bio-MEG
production process is compared with MEG - US and MEG - Europe as shown in figure1. The
US and EU processes were taken from USLCI and ecoinvent databases respectively.
European MEG is approximately 20% higher than Bio-MEG from IGL. Since USLCI has no
process detail for MEG it was created by editing MEG process from ecoinvent and ethylene
oxide process from USLCI was used in place of ethylene oxide from ecoinvent to create. This
was necessary to make the comparison among similar products. However, MEG process for
US had electricity and other details from Europe taken from ecoinvent. It is assumed that
this editing will not affect the results much. MEG process from US is approximately 31%
higher than Bio-MEG from IGL. These processes are available in SimaPro and details were
taken from ecoinvent report no-8.
Figure1
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
Bio-MEG MEG - Europe
MEG - US MEG - India
1331.11
1605.75 1747.14
1928.79
Kg CO2 eq.
Comparision as per IPCC 2007
SIPL, India 10
Eco-Indicator 99 is an impact assessment method for calculating various impacts like
carcinogens, land use, fossil fuel, minerals etc. Seen from the life cycle perspective, the
major contributors to various impacts come from Bio-ethanol from molasses, Oxygen liquid
production, Electricity high voltage production and steam production as shown in table 2.
Table:2
Major impacts due to different processes in Bio-MEG production as per Eco Indicator 99
Impact category Unit Total
Bio-Ethanol from Molasses
Oxygen, liquid
production
Electricity, high voltage, production
Steam production from waste and coal
Carcinogens DALY 0.000956 0.000791 1.83E-05 9.89E-05 4.59E-05
Resp. organics DALY 2.34E-06 1.56E-06 4.14E-08 2.24E-07 4.41E-07
Resp. inorganics DALY 0.004085 0.003257 6.53E-05 0.000354 0.000378
Climate change DALY 0.000279 0.000116 1.11E-05 6.02E-05 4.98E-05
Radiation DALY 2.72E-06 1.83E-06 6.73E-08 3.65E-07 2.77E-07
Ozone layer DALY 1.25E-07 9.93E-08 1.75E-09 9.49E-09 1.14E-08
Ecotoxicity PAF*m2yr 310.367 200.4195 9.79919 53.06881 42.05201
Acidification/ Eutrophication PDF*m2yr 59.94128 33.67852 1.458618 7.89934 15.53138
Land use PDF*m2yr 24.64406 8.774535 0.413336 2.238477 13.00039
Minerals MJ surplus 23.04717 15.42853 0.182018 0.985741 4.68023
Fossil fuels MJ surplus 1600.502 618.723 24.75783 134.0793 397.1831
The normalized impacts are shown in figure2. In this study SimaPro’s default value for
normalization has been taken. There has not been any study which has determined or
calculated India specific normalization and characterization factors. This is the reason for
use of default value of SimaPro.
A close scrutiny of the figure 2 and table 2 establish that
Respiratory inorganics has maximum impacts in Bio-MEG production
Fossil fuels and Carcinogens are other two major impacts
Climate change is 4th in overall severity in Bio-MEG production.
The biggest contributor to Carcinogens and Respiratory inorganics is Bio-Ethanol
from molasses which finally leads to sugarcane cultivation.
SIPL, India 11
Figure 2 : Normalised impacts due to different processes in Bio-MEG production as per Eco Indicator99
The results were mixed when Bio-MEG was compared with Conventional MEG produced in
India, Europe and US per Eco-Indicator 99 method. Bio-MEG has highest impacts in land
use, carcinogens, acidification and respiratory inorganics categories. These are due to
sugarcane cultivation, leftovers in the sugarcane field etc. However, Bio-MEG fares better in
other impact categories as shown below in table 3. Green colour shows Bio-MEG has least
impacts while red colour shows Bio-MEG has highest impacts. In Ecotoxicity Bio-MEG is
better than Conventional MEG produced in India.
Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.07 / Europe EI 99 H/H / Normalisation
Analysing 1 ton 'Bio-MEG';
Water, completely softened, at plant/RER U
Process water, ion exchange, production mix, at plant, from surface water RER S
Oxygen, liquid, at plant/ India U
Potassium carbonate, at plant/GLO U
Sulphuric acid, liquid, at plant/RER U
Calcium borates, at plant/TR U
Electricity, high voltage, production India, at grid/India U
Steam production from waste and coal at Plant/India U
Heat, from resid. heating systems from NG, consumption mix, at consumer, temperature of 55°C EU-27 S
Heat, from resid. heating systems from NG, consumption mix, at consumer, temperature of 55°C EU-27 S
Carcinogens Resp. organi
cs
Resp. inorga
nics
Climate
change
Radiation Ozone layer Ecotoxicity Acidification
/ Eutrophicat
Land use Minerals Fossil fuels
0.26
0.24
0.22
0.2
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
SIPL, India 12
Table:3
Single score Comparison as per Eco-Indicator 99 among Bio-MEG and MEG from Europe, US & India
Impact category Unit Bio-MEG MEG-Europe MEG-US MEG-India
Total Pt 170.96 232.57 266.74 297.84
Carcinogens Pt 18.67 1.51 2.21 6.01
Resp. organics Pt 0.05 0.05 0.36 0.11
Resp. inorganics Pt 79.77 13.76 27.45 36.63
Climate change Pt 5.44 6.48 6.96 7.39
Radiation Pt 0.05 0.17 0.08 0.09
Ozone layer Pt 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01
Ecotoxicity Pt 2.42 2.32 1.46 4.87
Acidification/ Eutrophication Pt 4.68 1.45 2.53 3.44
Land use Pt 1.92 0.80 0.41 1.89
Minerals Pt 0.82 3.06 1.75 3.18
Fossil fuels Pt 57.14 202.98 223.53 234.22
Single score results, shown in figure 3, as per EcoIndicator99 shows that overall impact of
Bio-MEG is lowest. It also shows impact of MEG produced in India is higher than that of MEG
produced in US and Europe. It is to be noted that ethylene glycol and MEG are same
products.
Figure3- Single score results as per Eco-Indicator 99 for Bio-MEG and conventional MEGs
Method: Eco-indicator 99 (H) V2.07 / Europe EI 99 H/H / Single score
Comparing 1 ton 'Bio-MEG', 1 ton 'Ethylene glycol, at plant/RER U', 1 ton 'Ethylene glycol, at plant/US U' and 1 ton 'Ethylene glycol, at plant/India U';
Carcinogens Resp. organics Resp. inorganics Climate change Radiation
Ozone layer Ecotoxicity Acidification/ Eutrophication Land use Minerals
Fossil fuels
Bio-MEG Ethylene glycol, at plant/RER U Ethylene glycol, at plant/US U Ethylene glycol, at plant/India U
Pt
280
260
240
220
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0