Life Cycle Biofuel

This category is now deprecated. The latest DEFRA methodology for biomass-associated greenhouse gas emissions can be found here.

This category allows the user to calculate life-cycle emissions from various biofuels. The methodology follows that from the latest Defra data and advice. Full life-cycle emissions are calculated including contributions from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane.

Note that this category does not enable the user to calculate the direct emissions of carbon dioxide for the combustion of biofuels. This is a full life-cycle calculation only.

How to use this category

To use this category firstly use the drill-down type to select the type of biofuel to be included in the calculation from the following options.

• Biodiesel (ME) - Methyl Ester, biodiesel produced from oils using conventional esterification processes

• Biodiesel (HVO) - Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil, biodiesel produced from vegetable oils using hydroprocessing

• Bioethanol

• BioETBE (refinery)

• BioETBE (non-refinery)

• Biomethane

The quantity of biofuel must then be set as using the mass or volume profile item value. The volume profile item value is required for all biofuels except Biomethane. Biomethane is measured by mass, rather than volume so the mass profile item value should be used in this case. If the wrong profile item value is used then the algorithm will return a value of '0'. The algorithm multiplies this quantity by the appropriate emission factor and returns a value of kgCO₂e, which includes contributions from CO₂, N₂O and CH₄ emissions.