A life cycle evaluation of wood pellet gasication for district heating

in British Columbia
Ann Pa
a
, Xiaotao T. Bi
a,
, Shahab Sokhansanj
a,b
a
Clean Energy Research Centre for University of British Columbia, 2360 East Mall Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z3
b
Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 23 November 2010
Received in revised form 28 January 2011
Accepted 1 February 2011
Available online 5 February 2011
Keywords:
Life cycle analysis (LCA)
Wood pellets
British Columbia
District heating
Gasication
a b s t r a c t
The replacement of natural gas combustion for district heating by wood waste and wood pellets gasi-
cation systems with or without emission control has been investigated by a streamlined LCA. While stack
emissions from controlled gasication systems are lower than the applicable regulations, compared to
the current base case, 12% and 133% increases are expected in the overall human health impacts for wood
pellets and wood waste, respectively. With controlled gasication, external costs and GHG emission can
be reduced by 35% and 82% on average, respectively. Between wood pellets and wood waste, wood pellets
appear to be the better choice as it requires less primary energy and has a much lower impact on the local
air quality.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
As climate change due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is
gaining recognitions, various methods of climate change adapta-
tion and GHG emission mitigation have been proposed, discussed
and explored. Replacing a fraction of the current fossil fuel by
alternative energy sources such as bioenergy is one of the many
approaches recommended by policy makers. For instance, ethanol
blending requirement in transport fuel in the United States
reaches 1.14 EJ in 2010 and will increase to 3.18 EJ by 2022 while
the European Union target for renewable energy in the transport
sector in 2020 is set to 10%, or 1.29 EJ of biofuel (IEA and OECD,
2009; European Commission, 2007). Other than in the transport
sector, there are numerous studies that emphasize the potentials
of renewable energy, or more specically bioenergy, in district or
residential heating and in combined heat and power systems
(CHP) (Difs et al., 2010; Bjrklund et al., 2001). The importance
of policy developments to promote the use of bioenergy in these
sectors is also discussed (Kopetz, 2007; Rickerson et al., 2009).
However, the use of biomass for district heating has been quite
controversial due to concerns with possible increase in health im-
pact (Ries et al., 2009). This concern is especially true when the
fossil fuel to be replaced is natural gas and when the community
is densely populated. There are currently a few major district
heating systems in Vancouver. These include one located in the
stadium and entertainment district in the core of downtown
(Davis, 2004) and three in Vancouvers largest hospital sites (Roger
Bayley Inc., 2009; Ministry of Energy of British Columbia, 2010).
The most recent establishment is the Southeast False Creek Neigh-
bourhood Energy Utility (NEU) which provides hot water and heat
for all new buildings in the area, including the Olympic Village that
was built to accommodate Olympic athletes participating in the
2010 Winter Olympic (City of Vancouver, 2010). The downtown
system operates on natural gas while the NEU operates on a
base-load system utilizing sewer heat recovery pump along with
a natural gas peaking/back-up boiler. There was a debate at the
beginning on the energy source to be chosen for the base-load sys-
tem and the two contenders were biomass and sewer heat (Roger
Bayley Inc., 2009). In the end sewer heat recovery heat pump sys-
tem was selected because of the public concerns on local air qual-
ity and trafc inconvenience that may arise from biomass
utilization.
Another district heating system in Vancouver is at the Univer-
sity of British Columbia (UBC), where more than 99% of the heat
is generated from natural gas and the rest from fuel oil during peak
season. With UBCs ambitious plan of reducing GHG to 33%, 67%
and 100% below the 2007 level by 2015, 2020 and 2050, respec-
tively, the University has devised a detailed plan of action. Replac-
ing natural gas with renewable energy is an important part of the
actions to be taken (University of British Columbia, 2010a). In fact,
$26 million CAD has been allocated for the establishment of a bio-
mass gasication cogeneration system on campus for research and
0960-8524/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2011.02.009

Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 604 822 4408; fax: +1 604 822 6003.
E-mail address: xbi@chbe.ubc.ca (X.T. Bi).
Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Bioresource Technology
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ bi or t ech
demonstration purposes (University of British Columbia, 2010b).
Given UBCs strong motive to become green and the large amount
of GHG emissions from the boiler house, it is interesting to inves-
tigate the complete replacement of fossil fuels in its boiler house
with bio-based fuels. Wood pellets, made of sawmill residue, burn
cleaner than biomass residue and are produced in large quantity in
BC are thus considered as a potential candidate. In 2008, 9 out of 30
pellet plants in operations in Canada are located in BC and about 35
Canadian pellet mills are in the planning stage with 13 of them to
be located in BC (Melin, 2008, unpublished data). Overall, about
90% of the pellets produced in Canada were exported and 78% of
these pellets were shipped to Europe (Melin, 2008, unpublished
data; Spelter and Toth, 2009). Finding domestic applications for
these pellets would result in less transportation-related GHG emis-
sions. The technology to be evaluated is gasication as it is cleaner
than direct combustion.
The replacement of UBCs current natural gas boiler house
with a wood pellet gasication system is evaluated by a stream-
lined life cycle analysis (LCA). LCA is a powerful tool for scenario
comparisons as the incremental variation between each scenario
would provide valuable insights for decision making. Up to date,
LCA has been used to examine the benets and impacts of various
new projects such as the wastewater treatment and reuse system
in China (Zhang et al., 2010). As there have been many concerns
on the true impacts and degree of sustainability of biomass en-
ergy systems, LCA has been used extensively in recent years to
evaluate a wide range of bioenergy systems and, sometimes for
comparison purposes, fossil fuel energy systems. Some examples
include the study on lignocellulosic ethanol production (Spatari
et al., 2010; Gonzlez-Garca et al., 2010), biofuel production from
microalgae (Campbell et al., 2011; Collet et al., 2011) and biomass
district heating systems (Eriksson et al., 2007). Eriksson et al.
(2007) conducted a LCA study of district heating and CHP system
in Sweden using three different fuels: waste incineration, biomass
combustion and natural gas combustion. Another study at-
tempted to use LCA to investigate which of natural gas combus-
tion, wood pellet combustion, sewer heat recovery and
geothermal recovery would be the best choice for a district heat-
ing system in Vancouver, BC, Canada (Ghafghazi et al., in press).
The study reveals that none of the energy sources has absolute
advantages over the others in all the impact categories considered
although by using renewable energy at least 200 kg of CO
2
-eqv
can be avoided per MWh of heat produced. Furthermore, the per-
formance of each type of energy source depends on many factors
such as electricity mix and types of energy utilized for producing
pellets.
For this study, an in-house life cycle inventory (LCI) database of
BC pellets (Pa et al., 2009) is utilized to evaluate a total of ve sce-
narios for district heating at UBC. The base scenario is the current
installation and the others are wood waste gasication, wood pel-
let gasication and each of the two gasication operations with
emission controls. The wood waste gasication scenario utilizes
emission factors from the industry for wood waste gasication
while the pellet scenario uses estimated wood pellet gasication
emission factors based on literature values and wood waste gasi-
cation emission factors from industry. For the scenarios with emis-
sion controls, an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) for dust control
and a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) unit for NO
X
control are
included. The overall impacts on human health, ecosystem quality
and primary energy consumption in addition to GHG reduction
resulting from using wood waste and wood pellets are compared
to demonstrate the pros and cons of wood waste and wood pellet
utilization when replacing natural gas. The externality analysis
based on variations in emission proles in different scenarios is
also performed to quantify the economical benets for each
option.
2. Method and calculation
2.1. In-house BC pellet LCI Database
The functional unit for the in-house BC pellet LCI database is
one tonne (t) of wood pellets. Allocations are mass-based. The
streamlined life cycle consists of harvesting, transportation of har-
vested material to sawmill, sawmill processing, transportation of
sawmill by-products such as planer shavings and sawdust to pellet
mill, pellet mill operations, pellet transportation in bulk via heavy
duty trucks (HDV, class 8, which has a gross vehicle weight rating
of above 15 t) and train to port in North Vancouver. For this study,
the transportation of pellets from port in North Vancouver to UBC
campus and the pellet usage in the UBC gasication/combustion
boiler are also included. The 20.2 km transportation from port in
North Vancouver to UBC is by HDV. Emissions from infrastructures
and land use changes are not included in the database in view that
pellets in BC are made from sawmill residue and forest residue.
The pollutants investigated are CO
2
, CH
4
, N
2
O, CO, non-methane
volatile organic compound (NMVOC), NO
X
, SO
X
and particulate
matters (PM). Other pollutants in trace amounts, although avail-
able in some databases, are not included in this study for consis-
tency reasons. CO
2
is categorized as either fossil or biogenic.
However, CH
4
and CO are separated into biogenic or generic where
generic may contain a small amount of biogenic emissions as not
all emission data used segregated fossil and biogenic emissions
of CH
4
and CO. Note that all indirect emissions are also included
in the analysis. For instances, emissions produced during produc-
tion and transportation of fuels are all accounted for in the
database.
Energy consumption data during harvesting and sawmill oper-
ations are obtained from Sambos (2002) and Nyboers (2008)
work, respectively. Information gathered from a few member com-
panies of Wood Pellet Association of Canada provided energy con-
sumption data for pellet mill and port operations. The different
types of energy considered are electricity, natural gas, heavy fuel
oil (HFO), middle distillates (diesel), propane, steam, wood waste
and gasoline. The primary energy consumptions are included in
this database and the electricity mix used is specic to BC. Details
regarding various transportation segments are also obtained from
the surveys.
The pellet LCI database was presented in the 8th World Con-
gress of Chemical Engineering in Montral (Pa et al., 2009) and will
be released in a follow-up publication with more details. The
methodology used to establish this database is used to construct
all the scenarios in this study.
2.2. UBC district heating system
For this study, a total of ve scenarios will be investigated. The
base case is the current operation and the four woody biomass gas-
ication systems are wood waste, wood pellets and each of these
two systems equipped with ESPs with 99% PM removal efciency
and SCR with 80% NO
X
removal efciency.
The values presented in this work are either per MJ of fuel input
or per year of operation. The annual operation is based on the
amount of heat that is currently generated in the base scenario
on a yearly basis, which is 974 TJ. This is chosen as the functional
unit because the amount of heat to be produced in a year is iden-
tical for all scenarios thus allowing for scenario comparison, which
is also equivalent to the functional unit of per unit of energy
produced.
2.2.1. Base scenario
The current facility conguration consists of boilers where the
fuels (natural gas and fuel oil) are fed into. The fuels are combusted
6168 A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177
to heat up the entering water stream to produce steam at 165 psig
(1138 kPa) that is then distributed around the campus. The ue gas
from the boilers is directed to an economizer to preheat the water
entering the boiler before the ue gas exits the facility. For the base
case, the stages in the LCA of both natural gas and oil include pro-
duction of fuels, their transportation or transmission to UBC, and
emissions during the end usage at the current facility. The emis-
sion factors for natural gas and fuel oil production and transmis-
sion are obtained from GHGenius v3.17 (Delucchi and Levelton,
2010) and are referred to as upstream emission factors. In GHGe-
nius, CH
4
and CO emissions from both fossil and biomass origins
are not segregated and are both reported simply as CH
4
and CO.
By default, GHGenius does not display biogenic emissions of CO
2
but this can be altered so biogenic CO
2
emission values can be ex-
tracted. The combustion emission factors for the current installa-
tion are from the Combustion Test Report provided by UBC boiler
house (Northwest Instrument Systems Inc., 2009), EMEP CORINAIR
Emission Inventory Guidebook (European Environment Agency,
2007) and US EPA AP-42 documents (US Environmental Protection
Agency, 1995). For the Combustion Test Report, the boiler was red
with different fuels and at different capacities. The emissions were
higher if the equipment was operated at a lower capacity. For the
purpose of this study, the emission factors at 50% capacity are se-
lected. The emissions were reported as concentrations (in ppmv) of
the ue gas so material balance is carried out to determine the ue
gas ow rate. For natural gas ring, SO
X
emission is assumed to be
0 as sulfur content in the BC natural gas is negligible. Table 1 lists
the total emission factors of the UBC boiler running on natural gas
and fuel oil with the sources of emission factors specied. The cur-
rent amount of steam production is further explained in detail in
the following section for easy comparison with the woody biomass
scenarios.
2.2.2. Woody biomass gasication scenarios
The system boundary and stages for the wood pellet scenario
have already been described earlier in the In-house BC pellet LCI
Database section. The life cycle stages for the wood waste gasi-
cation scenarios include the production of two types of wood res-
idues and their transportation, and the nal usage at UBC. The two
types of wood residues are forest harvesting residues and sawmill
residues.
The forest residue production started from harvesting operation
with data taken from Sambo (2002). The forest residue is chopped
in the forest using mobile chopper and the emissions related to this
process are from US-EI (Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories
et al., 2008). The chopped residue is then transported to railhead
via HDV over a distance of 150 km. From the railhead to the North
Vancouver shipping port, the train would travel 350 km. From the
shipping port, the forest residue would be delivered to UBC district
heating facility via HDV over a distance of 20.2 km.
For the sawmill and planer mill residue, the harvesting of wood
for the forest and sawmill operations are all included and emission
data are based on literature used for the pellet LCI but converted
accordingly so that the functional units are per tonne of wood res-
idue with 51% moisture content, dry basis. The sawmill residue
would be transported to the railhead via HDV over a distance of
25 km. The residue then travel by train for 350 km before arriving
the North Vancouver port. The residue is then delivered to UBC via
HDV over a distance of 20.2 km. The distances used in the calcula-
tions are estimated based on harvest eld and sawmill locations in
BC, Canada (Natural Resources of Canada, 2003a,b) and opinions
from the local industry (Melin, 2010, personal communication).
The nal wood waste to be gasied is assumed to have a mois-
ture content of 60%, dry basis, as that is maximum moisture con-
tent allowed for smooth operation of the gasier. Due to this
limitation, some natural drying/aging is assumed to happen at
UBC and the moisture content difference between the fuel deliv-
ered and the fuel fed into the system is taken into account.
The proposed biomass utilization system for woody biomass
gasication is a retrotted air gasication system because gasica-
tion generally produces lower PM, CO, VOC (volatile organics) and
NO
X
emissions compared to direct combustion (European Environ-
ment Agency, 2007; Sparica, 2009, personal communication). The
syngas produced is combusted in the existing natural gas combus-
tor to heat up water in the boiler to generate steam. The ue gas
can be treated with an ESP to remove PM and/or a SCR unit to re-
move NO
X
if required.
The thermal efciency of this system depends on the moisture
content of the biomass fuel. Typical thermal efciency for biomass
fuel with approximately 60% moisture content (dry basis) is 62%
(Sparica, 2009, personal communication) and this is the thermal
efciency assumed for the wood waste scenarios. For biomass with
10% moisture content, the thermal efciency is 78% (Sparica, 2009,
personal communication). This number is used for wood pellet sce-
narios despite the moisture content of BC wood pellets is actually
around 6%. Combining thermal efciency and the amount of steam
produced in 2008, it is deduced that 126,015 t of wood waste, with
a gross caloric energy content at 12.50 MJ/kg (Forest Product
Table 1
Estimated total emission factors for UBC boiler house and their sources.
Fuel oil-ring boiler Natural gas-ring boiler
Total emission
factor (g/GJ of
fuel used)
Source of emission factor Total emission
factor (g/GJ of
fuel used)
Source of emission factor
Upstream Combustion Upstream Combustion
CO
2
, fossil 88,593 Delucchi and
Levelton (2010)
European Environment
Agency (2007)
53,393 Delucchi and
Levelton (2010)
Northwest Instrument Systems
Inc. (2009)
CO
2
, biogenic 475 0 79.9 0
CH
4
120 European Environment
Agency (2007)
72.3 European Environment
Agency (2007) N
2
O 7.97 1.67
CO 26.1 US Environmental Protection
Agency (1995)
9.14 Northwest Instrument Systems
Inc. (2009)
NMVOC
a
22.8 European Environment
Agency (2007)
5.05 European Environment
Agency (2007)
NO
X
89.8 Northwest Instrument Systems
Inc. (2009)
36.1 Northwest Instrument Systems
Inc. (2009)
SO
X
245 Mass balance based on input S
content from Podolski et al. (2008)
6.09 Mass balance based on input S
content
PM 5.73 European Environment Agency (2007) 0.49 European Environment
Agency (2007)
a
Non-methane volatile organic compounds.
A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177 6169
Laboratory, 2004), is required annually to produce the same
amount of steam as the base case. For the wood pellet scenarios,
64,257 t of wood pellets, with a gross caloric energy content at
19.4 GJ/t (Accredited Laboratory, 2007), is required. Just for com-
parison, in 2008 the boiler house consumed 1034 TJ of natural
gas and 7.84 TJ of fuel oil to generate 350 kt of steam at 165 psig
(1138 kPa), translating to 974 TJ of heat produced (UBC Utilities,
2009). These numbers correspond to a 93% overall thermal
efciency.
2.2.1.2. Woody biomass gasication emission factors. For the wood
waste scenarios, the gasication emission factors utilized were
based on wood waste gasication in a commercial xed bed gas-
ier. The biogenic CO
2
emission is calculated based on the carbon
content of wood. It was assumed that the carbon content in dry
wood is 50% and the moisture content of wood waste, a mixture
of forest residue and sawmill and planner mill residue, is 60%,
dry basis, which is the maximum moisture allowed for the gasier.
At 60% moisture content, the mixed waste would give off 0.092 kg
of biogenic CO
2
emission per MJ of pellets gasied. The CH
4
, N
2
O
and SO
X
emission factors are not available so they are estimated
by the emissions of wood waste combustion in boiler from US
AP42 document (US Environmental Protection Agency, 1995). The
annual emissions are obtained by multiplying the emission factors
by the annual fuel consumption.
It is speculated that wood pellet gasication emission factors
may vary quite substantially given that the combustion emission
for wood waste and wood pellets do vary considerably as shown
in the literature or published database (Swiss Centre for Life Cycle
Inventories, 2008; Johansson et al., 2004; Wierzbicka et al., 2005;
Lillieblad et al., 2004). In attempt to better represent wood pellet
gasication emissions in the wood pellet scenarios, which are not
available in the literature, the emission factors are estimated using
two types of ratios. The rst ratio is the ratio between wood and
pellet combustion emission factors from literature and database.
This rst ratio together with the wood gasication emission factors
from the industry can yield a set of estimated emission factors for
the wood pellet gasication system. The second ratio is the ratio
between published wood combustion emissions and the wood gas-
ication emission from the industry. This ratio can then be applied
to pellet combustion emission factors from literature and database,
resulting in another set of estimated emission factors for pellet
gasication, provided that the values of pellet and wood combus-
tion emissions are different from those used to calculate the rst
ratio, as that would yield two identical sets of wood pellet gasica-
tion emission factors.
In order to carry out this approximation process based on ratios,
it is crucial to compare data with similar set-up in terms of emis-
sion controls, system type and type of biomass used. Different
emission data are matched based on considerations mentioned
and whenever possible, data from the same article or database
are compared. For the calculation of the rst type of ratio, no unit
conversion is required as the units used are usually consistent
within a single source. However, when calculating the second type
of ratios, unit conversions need to be performed as industrial emis-
sion data for wood gasication are provided in mass of pollutant
per energy unit of wood utilized while most literature report their
data in mass of pollutant per volume of ue gas with the O
2
% or
CO
2
% of ue gases provided along with the specication on dry
or wet gas basis. Conversions of units are performed as described
in The Handbook of Biomass Combustion and Co-ring (van Loo
and Koppejan, 2007). Since gasication emission factors from the
industry do not include CH
4
and N
2
O, their ratios are not calculated
and pellet combustion emission factors from the US-EI database
are used in the estimated pellet gasication emission data. Table 2
lists all the emission factors used in the calculation of the ratios. T
a
b
l
e
2
L
i
s
t
o
f
p
e
l
l
e
t
a
n
d
w
o
o
d
c
o
m
b
u
s
t
i
o
n
e
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
f
a
c
t
o
r
s
f
r
o
m
l
i
t
e
r
a
t
u
r
e
i
n
k
g
o
f
p
o
l
l
u
t
a
n
t
e
m
i
t
t
e
d
p
e
r
M
J
o
f
f
u
e
l
u
t
i
l
i
z
e
d
.
S
o
u
r
c
e
W
i
e
r
z
b
i
c
k
a
e
t
a
l
.
(
2
0
0
5
)
P
a
g
e
l
s
e
t
a
l
.
(
2
0
0
3
)
J
o
h
a
n
s
s
o
n
e
t
a
l
.
(
2
0
0
4
)
U
S
E
n
v
i
r
o
n
m
e
n
t
a
l
P
r
o
t
e
c
t
i
o
n
A
g
e
n
c
y
(
1
9
9
5
)
S
w
i
s
s
C
e
n
t
r
e
f
o
r
L
i
f
e
C
y
c
l
e
I
n
v
e
n
t
o
r
i
e
s
e
t
a
l
.
(
2
0
0
8
)
L
i
l
l
i
e
b
l
a
d
e
t
a
l
.
(
2
0
0
4
)
F
u
e
l
F
o
r
e
s
t
r
e
s
i
d
u
e
P
e
l
l
e
t
F
o
r
e
s
t
r
e
s
i
d
u
e
M
i
x
e
d
w
o
o
d
P
e
l
l
e
t
W
e
t
w
o
o
d
M
i
x
e
d
w
o
o
d
c
h
i
p
f
r
o
m
f
o
r
e
s
t
P
e
l
l
e
t
S
h
a
v
i
n
g
c
h
i
p
s
,
a
n
d
s
a
w
d
u
s
t
P
e
l
l
e
t
L
o
a
d
M
e
d
i
u
m
H
i
g
h
M
e
d
i
u
m
8
0
%
6
0
%
4
5
%
L
o
w
L
o
w
E
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
c
o
n
t
r
o
l
M
u
l
t
i
c
y
c
l
o
n
e
M
u
l
t
i
c
y
c
l
o
n
e
N
o
n
e
M
u
l
t
i
c
y
c
l
o
n
e
M
u
l
t
i
c
y
c
l
o
n
e
T
y
p
e
o
f
e
q
u
i
p
m
e
n
t
1
.
5
M
W
,
m
o
v
i
n
g
g
r
a
t
e
1
M
W
,
m
o
v
i
n
g
g
r
a
t
e
E
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
m
e
d
i
a
n
f
o
r
p
e
l
l
e
t
b
o
i
l
e
r
E
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
m
e
d
i
a
n
f
o
r
p
e
l
l
e
t
b
o
i
l
e
r
F
u
r
n
a
c
e
,
5
0
k
W
1
.
5
M
W
,
m
o
v
i
n
g
g
r
a
t
e
B
i
o
g
e
n
i
c
C
O
2
9
.
1
7
E

0
2
9
.
1
7
E

0
2
1
.
0
3
E

0
1
9
.
6
5
E

0
2
8
.
9
3
E

0
2
7
.
8
5
E

0
2
B
i
o
g
e
n
i
c
C
H
4
4
.
3
5
E

0
5
1
.
7
7
E

0
6
9
.
0
3
E

0
6
9
.
0
3
E

0
6
7
.
0
0
E

0
7
3
.
0
0
E

0
7
N
2
O
5
.
5
9
E

0
6
5
.
5
9
E

0
6
3
.
0
0
E

0
6
2
.
5
0
E

0
6
B
i
o
g
e
n
i
c
C
O
4
.
1
0
E

0
3
3
.
2
0
E

0
4
2
.
5
8
E

0
4
2
.
5
8
E

0
4
1
.
1
8
E

0
4
6
.
5
0
E

0
5
4
.
0
0
E

0
4
3
.
4
4
E

0
5
N
M
V
O
C
2
.
8
5
E

0
5
2
.
5
0
E

0
6
7
.
3
1
E

0
6
7
.
3
1
E

0
6
9
.
0
0
E

0
7
1
.
5
0
E

0
6
N
O
X
7
.
2
0
E

0
5
6
.
7
0
E

0
5
9
.
4
6
E

0
5
9
.
4
6
E

0
5
1
.
1
0
E

0
4
7
.
4
0
E

0
5
3
.
3
1
E

0
5
4
.
6
7
E

0
5
S
O
X
1
.
0
7
E

0
5
1
.
0
7
E

0
5
2
.
5
0
E

0
6
2
.
5
0
E

0
6
P
M
2
.
5
3
.
4
0
E

0
5
2
.
0
0
E

0
5
P
M
4
.
4
6
E

0
5
6
.
8
8
E

0
5
1
.
8
7
E

0
5
8
.
1
0
E

0
5
5
.
5
9
E

0
5
4
.
5
4
E

0
5
8
.
8
0
E

0
5
1
.
9
0
E

0
5
1
.
4
2
E

0
4
9
.
4
6
E

0
5
4
.
3
0
E

0
5
2
.
3
7
E

0
5
2
.
1
6
E

0
5
2
.
1
6
E

0
5
6170 A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177
Table 3 summarizes the two set of emission factors obtained
from the two types of ratios and their average values. The average
estimated pellet gasication emission factors are used for the cal-
culation in uncontrolled pellet scenario in this study. Note that SO
X
is manually set to zero since SO
X
emission depends mostly on the
sulfur content of the fuel and wood pellet contains negligible sulfur
at less than 0.01%, dry basis (Johansson et al., 2004).
2.2.1.3. Emission controlled woody biomass gasication scenarios.
Table 3 also includes the current air emission limits, in kg per MJ
of fuel consumed, for biomass boilers and heaters in Metro Van-
couver (Metro Vancouver, 2008) and the wood waste gasication
emission factors used in this study. It is apparent that emission
control units need to be in place in order to stay below the local
air emission limit. The numbers show that NO
X
and PM need to
be reduced by 37% and 66%, respectively for wood pellet and 44%
and 87% for wood waste gasication. Both can be easily achieved
by technologies such as SCR for NO
X
reduction and ESP for PM re-
moval as the typical removal efciencies for these units are
approximately 80% and 99%, respectively (Forzatti, 2001; De
Nevers, 2000). These efciencies are applied for the controlled
woody biomass gasication emission scenarios.
2.3. Life cycle impact assessments of the scenarios
Biogenic CO, CO
2
and CH
4
have the same impacts as non-bio-
genic emissions in terms of human and ecosystem quality as the
chemical structure does not depend on the origin of emissions.
However, in terms of climate change impact, biogenic CO, CO
2
and CH
4
are considered to have less impact than their fossil-origin
counterparts as biogenic carbon emissions are considered to be
carbonneutral and do not result in net-increase in the carbon con-
tent of the atmosphere. By denition PM is for all particulate mat-
ters while PM
2.5
refers to those less than 2.5 lm and PM
10
are
those less than 10 lm. PM
2.5
are the ones with signicant health
impacts (Humbert et al., 2005). The impact factors for PM are esti-
mated based on an average PM
2.5
to PM ratio in ambient air of 0.33
(Humbert et al., 2005; Dockery and Pope, 1994). Throughout this
study, care was taken to avoid double accounting. When only PM
emission factors are available, such as from GHGenius database
(Delucchi and Levelton, 2010), they are used and the impacts are
calculated using PM impact factors. When both PM and PM
2.5
emission factors are available, only the PM
2.5
emission factors
and thus impacts are utilized. In the result section, sometimes both
PM and PM
2.5
are listed, but it is important to acknowledge that for
each process, only one of the PM or PM
2.5
emission factors, and
thus their respective impact factors, is used, not both.
The emission factors and energy consumption data are im-
ported into a commercial LCA software, SimaPro, to allow for the
use of various life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods. IM-
PACT 2002+ (Jolliet et al., 2003) is selected for impact assessment
in this case study. IMPACT 2002+ includes both midpoint and
end point impacts by linking all life cycle inventory data via 15
midpoint categories to four damage, or end point, categories, as
illustrated in Fig. 1. The dashed lines indicate that the conversion
into damage categories has not yet been properly established.
The units used for each impact category, such as DALY and
PDF m
2
yr, are dened in Fig. 1.
The most current version of IMPACT 2002+ at time of analysis
(v2.06) is adapted for analysis with two extra categories added to
keep track of the primary energy consumption and external costs
throughout the entire life cycle. These two new end point catego-
ries are also presented in Fig. 1. The impacts of biogenic CH
4
and
CO are added under the categories of respiratory organic and inor-
ganic, respectively, using the impact values of their fossil fuel ori-
gin counterparts. Six endpoint categories, human health,
ecosystem quality, climate change, primary energy consumption,
external cost and resources can be obtained. Only the rst ve will
be evaluated in this study. It is important to keep in mind that IM-
PACT 2002+ was developed in Europe so the values of parameters
used for the compilation of human toxicity are at a continental le-
vel for Western Europe. Due to this reason, the nal values to be
presented here only serve as indicators for scenario comparisons
as the absolute values may not be so meaningful due to geograph-
ical and geological differences in Western Canada and Western
Europe.
External cost, also known as externality, is the unaccounted and
uncompensated impact on a group arising from the social or eco-
nomic activities of other groups (European Commission, 2003).
Table 3
Estimated wood pellet gasication emission factors and air emission limits for biomass boilers in Vancouver, Canada.
Pollutant Wood waste
gasication emission
factors (kg/MJ)
Estimated pellet gasication
emission factors based on
ratio 1 (kg/MJ)
Estimated pellet gasication
emission factors based on
ratio 2 (kg/MJ)
Average estimated pellet
gasication emission
factors (kg/MJ)
Vancouver air emission
limit for biomass boilers
(kg/MJ)
Biogenic CO
2
9.17E02 8.50E02 8.22E02 8.36E02
Biogenic CH
4
9.03E06 3.00E07 3.00E07 3.00E07
N
2
O 5.59E06 2.50E06 2.50E06 2.50E06
Biogenic CO 1.46E05 1.26E06 1.14E06 1.20E06 1.59E04
NMVOC 4.30E06 3.77E07 3.02E07 3.39E07
NO
X
7.31E05 6.80E05 6.33E05 6.56E05 4.10E05
PM 4.00E05 1.92E05 1.14E05 1.53E05 5.13E06
Fig. 1. Overall scheme of the IMPACT 2002+ framework, linking LCI results via the
midpoint categories to damage categories with modications implemented for this
study (based on Jolliet et al., 2003).
A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177 6171
Therefore, externality reects the impact on environment and hu-
man health. Table 4 lists three sets of reported external costs for air
pollutants investigated in this study. The costs for biogenic CO
2
,
CH
4
and CO are estimated using the impact factors for different
pollutants in IMPACT 2002+. The global warming factors listed in
IMPACT 2002+ are mostly based on IPCC 2001s 500-year time
horizon values. Since CO
2
only has an effect on climate change
and biogenic CO
2
has no impact, biogenic CO
2
has been assigned
a zero external cost. It is noted that the average external cost for
CH
4
in the literature is close to $0.23, which is equal to the cost
of CO
2
multiplied by the impact factor of CH
4
, a value of seven.
The same observation is made for N
2
O where the calculated value
based on its impact factor of 156 is $5.15. Based on these observa-
tions, the external cost of biogenic CH
4
is estimated by multiplying
its impact factor of 4.25 by the cost of CO
2
to yield $0.14. This is
plausible as CH
4
only has effects on global warming according to
IMPACT 2002+. For biogenic CO, it also has impact on human
health, which is the total cost of CO minus the cost of climate
change. With the cost of climate change for CO being estimated
as the cost of CO
2
multiplied by the climate change impact factor
for CO in IMPACT 2002+, which is 1.57, the health cost for CO is
found to be $0.67, which applies to CO from all sources. Since
the climate change impact factor of biogenic CO is 0, the total cost
of biogenic CO is equal to the health cost of CO. The emission
reduction achieved from replacing natural gas and fuel oil with
wood pellets can then be combined with external cost for each pol-
lutant in Table 4 to derive the reduction in external costs.
Since health impact depends heavily on the emission location
and its proximity to population, the health impact associated with
end usage alone for all ve scenarios are compared as the point of
usage is at UBC campus, where the risk of exposure to pollutant is
much higher compared to pellet mills in suburban areas. The end
stage health impacts for all scenarios are normalized by the value
of the base scenario as it is the relative, not the absolute, values of
the health impact that are relevant for this comparison.
3. Results and discussion
Using values presented in Table 1, the current annual emissions
from UBC boiler house are calculated and presented in Table 5,
together with the emissions from all the biomass gasication sce-
narios. The emission factor for PM instead of PM
2.5
is provided for
all processes in the life cycle except for steam generation, where
the PM
2.5
emission factor is provided instead of PM. Due to this
reason, there are both PM and PM
2.5
emissions reported in Table 5
but there is no overlapping between them as the emission factor
for PM during steam generation was not used in the calculation.
From Table 5 it is apparent that the estimated biogenic CO,
NMVOC, NO
X
and PM emissions for pellet gasication are lower
than wood waste gasication, as observed in pellet and wood
waste combustion. It appears that the most obvious advantage of
switching to woody biomass gasication is the drastic reduction
of CO
2
emissions of fossil fuel origin. However, this is coupled with
a substantial increase in biogenic CO
2
emission, particularly due to
lower thermal efciency for the biomass gasication system and
the high carbon intensity of biomass energy. Another emission
reduction lies in generic CH
4
. Even though there is a slight increase
of biogenic CH
4
emission, there is a net CH
4
reduction of 64% and
77% when accounting CH
4
from all origins for wood waste and pel-
let gasication, respectively. The high CH
4
emission from the cur-
rent scenario arises from the upstream processing of natural gas
as well as the leakage and loss during pipeline transmission. This
observation is more noticeable in Fig. 2 where the stage-wise dis-
tribution of each pollutant for the current scenario is illustrated. It
is evident from the same gure that natural gas burns very cleanly
with most of the emissions from upstream, with the exception of
fossil CO
2
, N
2
O and NMVOC. Despite that natural gas combustion
and upstream operations seem to be contributing the most to the
emissions and environmental impacts, it is important to note that
more than 99% of the energy input was from natural gas thus Fig. 2
does not suggest that fuel oil burning is cleaner than natural gas.
However, it is noted that there is a signicant SO
X
emission from
oil combustion despite that only less than 1% of the energy input
was from fuel oil.
Other than generic CH
4
emission and CO
2
emission of fossil ori-
gins, all other emissions would increase when the boiler is
switched from natural gas to woody biomass gasication. The most
signicant increase, other than in biogenic CO
2
, is in PM emissions,
reaching approximately 130- and 77-folds for wood waste and
wood pellets, respectively. Even with an ESP unit, the increase
Table 4
Summary of external costs from literature and the external costs used in this study.
Bi and Wang (2006) Average values from various
states in the US
a
Golay (2005)
Dones et al. (2005) Values used in this analysis Calculation and remarks
CAD $/kg CAD $/kg CAD $/kg CAD $/kg
CO
2
, fossil 0.04 0.03 0.03 0.03 Average of all values
CO
2
, biogenic 0 Estimated using impact factors in
IMPACT 2002+ method
CH
4
1.05
b
0.25 NA 0.25 State average value is used as it is
not just estimation based on GWP
CH
4
, biogenic 0.14 Estimated using impact factors in
IMPACT 2002 + method
N
2
O 12.52
b
4.73 NA 4.73 State average value is used as it is
not just estimation based on GWP
CO 0.41 1.02 NA 0.72 Average of all values
CO, biogenic 0.67 Estimated using impact factors in
IMPACT 2002 + method
NMVOC NA NA 1.78 1.78
VOC NA 3.76 NA 3.76
NO
X
5.23 6.41 4.59 5.41 Average of all values
SO
X
5.46 2.30 4.64 4.14 Average of all values
PM 14.70 3.14 18.52
c
12.12 Average of all values
PM
2.5
NA NA 30.87 30.87
a
Based on values from New York State Public Service Commission, Department of Public Utilities of Massachusetts, Public Service Commission of Nevada and
California Public Utilities Commission and presented in Golays lecture slides (Golay, 2005).
b
Estimated by source based on CO
2
cost multiplied by specic pollutants 100 years time horizon GWP (global warming potential) value from the 2007 IPCC report.
c
Estimated by source based on typical PM
2.5
/PM ratio.
6172 A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177
would still be approximately 17- and 43-folds for wood waste and
pellet, respectively. ESP appears to be less effective for the pellet
scenario because a large portion of PM emission is released from
the upstream fuel preparation process, which is not controlled by
the ESP installed for the gasication plant. For wood pellet sce-
nario, approximately 31% of the total PM emission is from pellet
mill where wood residue is burned for biomass drying. Thus,
removing PM from gasication process alone would achieve a less
signicant PM reduction over the entire life cycle. However, it is
important to point out that the zero emission of PM
2.5
under cur-
rent natural gas operation results from the fact that all emission
factors related to base scenario are only for PM but not for PM
2.5
specically. With emission controls in place, the increase in other
pollutant emissions ranges from 215% (for NMOVC) to 448% (for
N
2
O) for wood waste and 42% (for SO
X
) to 393% (for all CO), for
wood pellets.
In Fig. 3, the stage-wise contributions to the total emissions are
illustrated for wood waste gasication (Fig. 3a), wood pellet gasi-
cation (Fig. 3b), wood waste gasication with emission controls
(Fig. 3c) and wood pellet gasication with emission controls
(Fig. 3d), respectively. Fig. 3 reveals that the top contributor to bio-
genic CO
2
and N
2
O emissions is the gasication stage for all woody
biomass gasication scenarios. For the uncontrolled wood waste
scenario, more than 80% of the generic CO and approximately
50% of the NMVOC emissions are emitted during the harvesting
stage. The gasication stage is the main contributor to the remain-
ing pollutants except for fossil-origin CO
2
and generic CH
4
as more
than 40% of each of these pollutants are emitted during harvesting.
For wood waste gasication with emission control units, the har-
vesting stage also becomes the main contributing stage for NO
X
and PM emissions throughout the life cycle and remains to be
the main contributor for fossil-origin CO
2
and generic CH
4
.
For both uncontrolled and controlled wood pellet scenarios, the
harvesting stage is the main contributor to fossil-origin CO
2
, gener-
ic CO, NMVOC, and SO
X
while pellet mill is where the majority of
biogenic CH
4
and CO is emitted due to the burning of wood residue
within the mill. In the uncontrolled pellet scenario, 42% of the NO
X
emission in the life cycle is emitted in the harvesting stage and 40%
from gasication. Moreover, gasication is responsible for 44% of
the life cycle PM emission. However, with emission control, gasi-
cation stages contribution to PM and NO
X
are reduced to 0.8% and
12%, respectively, with pellet mill becoming the new hot-spot for
PM emission. Note that the PM categories in both Figs. 2 and 3 refer
to All PM in Table 5.
The external costs from each scenario are also presented in Ta-
ble 5. By switching to wood waste gasication, there is actually an
increase of $450,000 CAD in external costs while wood pellet gas-
ication would result in an $87,000 CAD saving. It was stated ear-
lier that in order to satisfy the air emission limits in Vancouver for
biomass boiler the NO
X
and PM emissions need to be reduced. With
the installation of SCR and ESP units, these two pollutants can be
reduced by 80% and 99% thus achieving emissions much lower
than what is required. With the emission control units, the exter-
nal costs can be reduced by 38% and 31% from the base case for
wood waste and wood pellets, respectively. Note that no spatial
variation of the external cost has been considered in the current
analysis in which the emissions released in densely populated ur-
ban area and less populated remote area are given the same exter-
nal cost for each gas pollutant.
Since emissions are increased for all major pollutants when the
boiler house is switched from natural gas to wood pellet gasica-
tion, it is hard to comprehend the relative overall impacts from
each scenario based on emission inventories only. Fig. 4 compares
each of the ve scenarios impacts on human health, ecosystem
quality and climate change, as well as a breakdown of these
T
a
b
l
e
5
A
n
n
u
a
l
a
i
r
e
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
s
f
r
o
m
c
u
r
r
e
n
t
a
n
d
w
o
o
d
p
e
l
l
e
t
s
c
e
n
a
r
i
o
s
.
U
n
c
o
n
t
r
o
l
l
e
d
w
o
o
d
y
b
i
o
m
a
s
s
g
a
s
i

c
a
t
i
o
n
C
o
n
t
r
o
l
l
e
d
w
o
o
d
y
b
i
o
m
a
s
s
g
a
s
i

c
a
t
i
o
n
a
E
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
s
f
o
r
b
a
s
e
S
c
e
n
a
r
i
o
(
t
/
y
r
)
E
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
s
f
o
r
w
o
o
d
w
a
s
t
e
(
t
/
y
r
)
R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
i
n
e
x
t
e
r
n
a
l
c
o
s
t
(
$
1
0
0
0
C
A
D
)
E
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
s
f
o
r
w
o
o
d
p
e
l
l
e
t
(
t
/
y
r
)
R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
i
n
e
x
t
e
r
n
a
l
c
o
s
t
(
$
1
0
0
0
C
A
D
)
E
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
s
f
o
r
w
o
o
d
w
a
s
t
e
(
t
/
y
r
)
R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
i
n
e
x
t
e
r
n
a
l
c
o
s
t
(
$
1
0
0
0
C
A
D
)
E
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
s
f
o
r
w
o
o
d
p
e
l
l
e
t
s
(
t
/
y
r
)
R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
i
n
e
x
t
e
r
n
a
l
c
o
s
t
(
$
1
0
0
0
C
A
D
)
A
l
l
C
O
2
5
5
,
9
9
7
1
5
4
,
2
0
5
1
,
5
0
6
1
2
1
,
5
5
2
1
,
5
5
2
1
5
4
,
2
0
5
1
,
5
0
6
1
2
1
,
5
5
2
1
,
5
5
2
C
O
2
,
f
o
s
s
i
l
5
5
,
9
1
1
8
,
6
2
9
1
,
5
0
6
8
,
8
7
7
1
,
5
5
2
8
,
6
2
9
1
,
5
0
6
8
,
8
7
7
1
,
5
5
2
C
O
2
,
b
i
o
g
e
n
i
c
8
6
.
3
0
1
4
5
,
5
7
5
0
.
0
0
1
1
2
,
6
7
6
0
.
0
0
1
4
5
,
5
7
5
0
.
0
0
1
1
2
,
6
7
6
0
.
0
0
A
l
l
C
H
4
7
5
.
7
0
2
7
.
1
8
1
3
.
8
3
1
7
.
5
2
1
4
.
7
9
2
7
.
1
8
1
3
.
8
3
1
7
.
5
2
1
4
.
7
9
C
H
4
7
5
.
7
0
1
2
.
8
5
1
5
.
8
4
1
6
.
3
6
1
4
.
9
6
1
2
.
8
5
1
5
.
8
4
1
6
.
3
6
1
4
.
9
6
C
H
4
b
,
b
i
o
g
e
n
i
c
0
.
0
0
1
4
.
3
3

2
.
0
1
1
.
1
7

0
.
1
6
1
4
.
3
3

2
.
0
1
1
.
1
7

0
.
1
6
N
2
O
1
.
7
9
9
.
8
1

3
7
.
8
9
4
.
6
3

1
3
.
4
0
9
.
8
1

3
7
.
8
9
4
.
6
3

1
3
.
4
0
A
l
l
C
O
9
.
6
5
4
7
.
7
3

2
5
.
9
7
4
7
.
6
0

2
5
.
9
8
4
7
.
7
3

2
5
.
9
7
4
7
.
6
0

2
5
.
9
8
C
O
b
9
.
6
5
2
1
.
6
2

8
.
5
9
2
3
.
4
3

9
.
8
9
2
1
.
6
2

8
.
5
9
2
3
.
4
3

9
.
8
9
C
O
,
b
i
o
g
e
n
i
c
0
.
0
0
2
6
.
1
0

1
7
.
3
8
2
4
.
1
7

1
6
.
1
0
2
6
.
1
0

1
7
.
3
8
2
4
.
1
7

1
6
.
1
0
N
M
V
O
C
5
.
4
0
1
7
.
0
1

2
0
.
6
2
1
1
.
7
9

1
1
.
3
4
1
7
.
0
1

2
0
.
6
2
1
1
.
7
9

1
1
.
3
4
N
O
X
3
8
.
0
4
2
1
9

9
8
0
2
0
3

8
9
3
1
2
7
.
0
0

4
8
1
1
3
7
.
5
6

5
3
9
S
O
X
8
.
2
2
1
2
7
.
0
0

7
7
.
8
1
1
1
.
6
4

1
4
.
1
1
2
7
.
0
4

7
7
.
8
1
1
1
.
6
4

1
4
.
1
1
A
l
l
P
M
0
.
5
6
7
2
.
5
5

8
8
2
4
3
.
5
5

5
2
2
1
0
.
1
8

1
2
6
2
4
.
6
3

2
9
2
P
M
0
.
5
6
7
2
.
0
6

8
6
7
4
3
.
5
2

5
2
1
9
.
6
9

1
1
1
2
4
.
5
9

2
9
1
P
M
2
.
5
c
0
.
0
0
0
.
4
9

1
5
.
2
0
0
.
0
3

1
.
0
1
0
.
4
9

1
5
.
2
0
0
.
0
3

1
.
0
1
T
o
t
a
l
c
h
a
n
g
e
s
i
n
e
x
t
e
r
n
a
l
c
o
s
t

4
5
0
8
7
8
0
4
6
7
1
a
s
e
l
e
c
t
i
v
e
c
a
t
a
l
y
t
i
c
r
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
(
S
C
R
)
h
a
s
a
r
e
m
o
v
a
l
e
f

c
i
e
n
c
y
o
f
8
0
%
w
h
i
l
e
e
l
e
c
t
r
o
s
t
a
t
i
c
p
r
e
c
i
p
i
t
a
t
o
r
h
a
s
a
P
M
r
e
m
o
v
a
l
e
f

c
i
e
n
c
y
o
f
9
9
%
.
b
m
a
y
i
n
c
l
u
d
e
s
o
m
e
b
i
o
g
e
n
i
c
e
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
s
a
s
w
e
l
l
.
c
f
r
o
m

s
t
e
a
m
g
e
n
e
r
a
t
i
o
n

o
n
l
y
a
s
n
o
P
M
e
m
i
s
s
i
o
n
f
a
c
t
o
r
w
a
s
a
v
a
i
l
a
b
l
e
f
o
r
t
h
i
s
p
r
o
c
e
s
s
.
A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177 6173
impacts into different stages to signal out hot-spots throughout
their life cycles.
By switching to woody biomass, both impacts on human health
and ecosystemquality increase signicantly. For human health, the
current impact is 4 DALY and it would increase by 6.2- and 8.6-
folds for wood pellets and wood waste, respectively. Even with
emission control units, the increase would still be 3.3-folds on
average for both woody biomass fuels. Since the parameters used
in the impact assessment method are based on Western Europe,
care should be exercised in the interpretation of human health
impact.
The current impact on ecosystem quality is 2.26E5 PDF m
2
yr
and it would increase by around 4.7 and 4.2 times when switched
from natural gas to wood waste and wood pellet gasication sys-
tems, respectively. With SCR and ESP, the increase can be lowered
to an average of 2.4-folds for both fuel types.
From Fig. 4 it becomes apparent that the harvesting of woody
material and the gasication stage contribute greatly to human
Fig. 2. Stage-wise emission distribution for current natural gas boiler scenario.
Fig. 3. Stage-wise emission distribution for (a) wood waste gasication, (b) wood pellet gasication, (c) wood waste gasication with SCR and ESP units with 80% NO
X
and
99% PM removal efciency, respectively, and (d) wood pellet gasication with identical emission control units.
6174 A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177
health impact. It is evident that by adding emission control units,
the pellet scenarios human health impact for the entire life cycle
can be further reduced by 35% while the health impact associated
with gasication alone can be further reduced by 87%. However,
since wood waste requires little upstream processing, the addition
of emission control can effectively reduce the overall health impact
by 59% and the reduction in gasication stage alone would be 88%.
For the effect on ecosystem quality, the main contributions are
from the harvesting and gasication stages as well. With emission
control, gasication only contributes 20% and 12% to the entire life
cycles impact on ecosystem quality for wood waste and pellet,
respectively. Moreover, with emission controls the ecosystem
quality impact for the entire pellet gasication life cycle can be fur-
ther lowered by 32% while impacts associated with gasication
alone can be reduced by 80% when compared to uncontrolled pel-
let scenario.
Lastly, Fig. 4 conrms that the key advantage associated with
switching to woody biomass is the reduction in GHG emissions.
Fig. 4c clearly illustrates that impact on climate change can be re-
duced by 82% and 83% from the current 56.7 kt of CO
2
-equvalent
per year when wood waste and wood pellets are used, respectively.
Another scenario performance indicator is primary energy con-
sumption. To generate 974 TJ of usable heat annually, the current
natural gas scenario consumes 1284 TJ of primary energy and this
number is slightly higher for the pellet scenarios at 1516 and 1725
TJ for wood waste scenarios. Primary energy takes into account the
energy resource required to produce fuels, power or products.
These include the heating value of raw materials such as harvested
wood and crude oil, energy required to produce fuels such as die-
sel, and energy required to convert different fuels, such as natural
gas or diesel, to electricity.
It is important to acknowledge that human health impact is
more of local concern as compared to the global climate change im-
pact. As the UBC district heating systemis located in a densely pop-
ulated area, the stack emissions from the boiler house will have the
most signicant impact on human health. The end usage contribu-
tions to human health impact for all ve scenarios are normalized
by the base case value and are compared in Fig. 5. It is apparent that
the human health impact directly linked to the end usage increases
substantially when switched from natural gas to woody biomass as
it would be augmented by 18- and 7.7- folds for uncontrolled wood
waste and pellet gasication, respectively. This value is lowered to a
133% increase for controlled wood waste scenario and a mere 12%
increase for controlled wood pellet scenario. As a result, it is
strongly recommended that both the PM and NO
X
emission control
units be installed in biomass combustion/gasication district heat-
ing systems to prevent the deterioration of local air quality and
drastic increase in local health impact, in addition to meeting the
local emission standards. It should be noted that adopting wood
pellet gasication may have other impacts on the community that
are not accounted for in this study, such as the noise and inconve-
nience associated with pellet delivery trafcs.
In this study, the gasication plant produces only heat so the
LCA study of a CHP plant in place of the existing boiler house might
yield different results. As UBC also aims to become a net energy
exporter by 2050, the CHP option is readily pursued as UBC has
Fig. 4. Stage-wise impact analysis in terms of (a) human health, (b) ecosystem quality, and (c) climate change for current and woody biomass gasication with and without
emission control units.
A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177 6175
already decided to establish a CHP demonstration unit on campus
using a system developed by Nexterra and GE to provide green
heat and electricity while serving as a research facility.
4. Conclusions
Replacing fossil fuels with biomass may not always be desirable
and the decision would depend heavily on the priorities of the spe-
cic project. Natural gas combustion outperforms emission-con-
trolled woody biomass gasication scenarios in primary energy
consumption and all impact categories considered other than cli-
mate change while all woody biomass gasication scenarios yield
signicant reduction on GHG and external costs. Pellet gasication
is superior to wood waste as it has lower primary energy consump-
tion and the health impact associated with stack emission for the
controlled waste wood gasication is 133% higher than the base
scenario, compared to 12% for pellets.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank UBC Sustainability ofce, UBC
Utility, and Dr. Anthony Lau for providing the air emission data
for the existing natural gas district heating facility. The authors
are also grateful to the nancial support from Agriculture Canadas
ABIN program and the UBC Graduate Fellowship (UGF) program.
References
Bi, H.T., Wang, D., 2006. An evaluation of the AirCare program based on cost-benet
and cost-effectiveness analyses. Bull Sci Technol Soc. 26, 472478.
Bjrklund, A., Niklasson, T., Wahln, M., 2001. Biomass in Sweden: Biomass-red
CHP plant in Eskilstuna. Refocus. 2, 1418.
Campbell, P.K., Beer, T., Batten, D., 2011. Life cycle assessment of biodiesel
production from microalgae in ponds. Bioresour.Technol. 102, 5056.
Collet, P., Hlias, A., Lardon, L., Ras, M., Goy, R., Steyer, J., 2011. Life-cycle assessment
of microalgae culture coupled to biogas production. Bioresour.Technol. 102,
207214.
De Nevers, N., 2000. Air Pollution Control Engineering. 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill, Boston.
Difs, K., Wetterlund, E., Trygg, L., Sderstrm, M., 2010. Biomass gasication
opportunities in a district heating system. Biomass Bioenergy 34, 637651.
Dockery, D.W., Pope, C.A., 1994. Acute respiratory effects of particulate air pollution.
Annu.Rev.Public Health. 15, 107132.
Eriksson, O., Finnveden, G., Ekvall, T., Bjrklund, A., 2007. Life cycle assessment of
fuels for district heating: A comparison of waste incineration, biomass- and
natural gas combustion. Energy Policy. 35, 13461362.
Forzatti, P., 2001. Present status and perspectives in de-NO
X
SCR catalysis. Applied
Catalysis A: General. 222, 221236.
Ghafghazi, S., Sowlati, T., Sokhansanj, S., Bi, X., Melin, S. (in press). Life cycle
assessment of base-load heat sources for district heating system options. Int. J.
Life Cycle Assess.
Gonzlez-Garca, S., Moreira, M.T., Feijoo, G., 2010. Comparative environmental
performance of lignocellulosic ethanol from different feedstocks. Renewable
and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 14, 20772085.
Johansson, L.S., Leckner, B., Gustavsson, L., Cooper, D., Tullin, C., Potter, A., 2004.
Emission characteristics of modern and old-type residential boilers red with
wood logs and wood pellets. Atmos. Environ. 38, 13.
Jolliet, O., Margni, M., Charles, R., Humbert, S., Payet, J., Rebitzer, G., Rosenbaum, R.,
2003. IMPACT 2002+: A new life cycle impact assessment methodology. Int. J.
Life Cycle Assess. 8, 324330.
Kopetz, H., 2007. Biomassa burning issue: Policies needed to spark the biomass
heating market. Refocus. 8 (5254), 5658.
Lillieblad, L., Szpila, A., Strand, M., Pagels, J., Rupar-Gadd, K., Gudmundsson, A.,
Swietlicki, E., Bohgard, M., Sanati, M., 2004. Boiler operation inuence on the
emissions of submicrometer-sized particles and polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons from biomass-red grate boilers. Energy Fuels. 18, 410
417.
Pagels, J., Strand, M., Rissler, J., Szpila, A., Gudmundsson, A., Bohgard, M., Lilliebald,
L., Sanati, M., Swietlicki, E., 2003. Characteristics of aerosol particles formed
during grate combustion of moist forest residue. J.Aerosol Sci. 34, 1043
1059.
Rickerson, W., Halfpenny, T., Cohan, S., 2009. The emergence of renewable heating
and cooling policy in the United States. Policy and Society. 27, 365377.
Ries, F.J., Marshall, J.D., Brauer, M., 2009. Wood energy: The dangers of combustion.
Science. 324, 1390-a.
Sambo, S.M., 2002. Fuel consumption for ground-based harvesting systems in
western Canada. Advantage. 3, 112.
Spatari, S., Bagley, D.M., MacLean, H.L., 2010. Life cycle evaluation of emerging
lignocellulosic ethanol conversion technologies. Bioresour.Technol. 101, 654
667.
Wierzbicka, A., Lillieblad, L., Pagels, J., Strand, M., Gudmundsson, A., Gharibi, A.,
Swietlicki, E., Sanati, M., Bohgard, M., 2005. Particle emissions from district
heating units operating on three commonly used biofuels. Atmos.Environ. 39,
139150.
Zhang, Q.H., Wang, X.C., Xiong, J.Q., Chen, R., Cao, B., 2010. Application of life cycle
assessment for an evaluation of wastewater treatment and reuse projectcase
study of Xian. China. Bioresour.Technol. 101, 14211425.
Web references and other (reports and books)
Accredited Laboratory, 2007. Certicate of analysis issued at shipping port.
City of Vancouver. Neighbourhood Energy Utility: Sustainability: City of Vancouver.
From: <http://vancouver.ca/sustainability/building_neu.htm>. Last accessed
July, 6, 2010.
Davis, C. History of Vancouver - SunSpots. From: <http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/
sunspots_nov.htm>. Last accessed July, 6, 2010.
Delucchi, M., Levelton, 2010. GHGenius, v3.17. From: <http://www.ghgenius.com/>.
Dones, R., Heck, T., Bauer, C., Hirschberg, S., Bickel, P., Preiss, P., 2005. Externalities of
energy: Extension of accounting framework and policy applications. Final
Report on Work Package 6. From: <http://www.externe.info/expolwp6.pdf>.
European Commission, 2003. External costs research results on socio-
environmental damages due to electricity and transport. EUR 20198. From:
<http://www.externe.info/externpr.pdf>.
European Commission, 2007. Renewable energy road map renewable energies in
the 21st century: Building a more sustainable future. From: <http://ec.
europa.eu/energy/energy_policy/doc/03_renewable_energy_roadmap_en.pdf>.
European Environment Agency, 2007. Group 1: Combustion in energy and
transformation industries, in: EMEP/CORINAIR Atmospheric Emission
Inventory Guidebook 2007. European Environment Agency. From <http://
www.eea.europa.eu/publications/EMEPCORINAIR5/group_01.pdf>.
Forest Product Laboratory, 2004. TechLine fuel value calculator. From: <http://
www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/fuel-value-calculator.pdf>.
Golay, M.W., 2005 Economic feasibility and assessment methods. MIT
OpenCourseWare. From: <http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemical-engineering/
10-391j-sustainable-energy-spring-2005/lecture-notes/0210se05econfeas.pdf>.
Last accessed September 13, 2010.
Humbert, S., Margni, M., Jolliet, O., 2005. IMPACT 2002+: User guide, draft for
version 2.1. From: <http://www.sph.umich.edu/riskcenter/jolliet/impact2002.
htm#form2>.
International Energy Agency, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (IEA and OECD), 2009. CO
2
Emissions from Fuel Combustion
2009 - Highlights. International Energy Agency, France. From <http://www.iea.
org/co2highlights/co2highlights.pdf>.
Metro Vancouver, 2008. Proposed amendments to the air quality management
bylaw. From: <http://www.metrovancouver.org/boards/bylaws/BylawReview/
PropAmendAQBylaw.pdf>.
Ministry of Energy of British Columbia, 2010. District energy sector in British
Columbia. From: <http://www.empr.gov.bc.ca/MACR/investors/Documents/
DistrictHeating25Mar2010web.pdf>.
Natural Resources of Canada, 2003a. Productive forest land use. From: <http://atlas.
nrcan.gc.ca/auth/english/maps/environment/forest/useforest/proforlanduse>.
Natural Resources of Canada, 2003b. Sawmills map. From: <http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/
auth/english/maps/environment/forest/useforest/sawmills>.
Northwest Instrument Systems Inc, 2009. UBC powerhouse combustion test report
(prepared for UBC utilities).
Fig. 5. Human health impacts associated with direct releases from the end usage
only normalized by current scenario.
6176 A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177
Nyboer, J., 2008. A review of energy consumption and related data in the Canadian
wood products industry: 1990, 1995 to 2006. From: <http://www.cieedac.sfu.ca/
CIEEDACweb/pubarticles/Industry%20-%20Forest%20Products/Wood%20Produc
ts%20Report%202007%20_2006%20data_%20Final.pdf>.
Pa, A., Craven, J., Bi, T., 2009. Streamlined LCA of exported wood pellets from Canada
to Europe. 8th World Congress of Chemical Engineering (WCCE8). From: <http://
www.wcce8.org/repository/paper/08242009/518c/life_cycle_mgmt_of_products_
and_services_2/1400_pa/343_pa_pellet_lca_nal.pdf>.
Podolski, W.F., Schmalzer, D.K., Conrad, V., Lowenhaupt, D.E., Winschel, R.A.,
Klunder, E.B., Mcllvried III, H.G., Ramezan, M., Stiegel, G.J., Srivastava, R.D.,
Winslow, J., Loftus, P.J., 2008. Energy resources. Perrys Chemical Engineering
Handbook, conversion, and utilization, in.
Roger Bayley Inc, 2009. Neighbourhood Energy Utility - the challenge series. From:
<http://www.thechallengeseries.ca/chapter-05/neighbourhood-energy-utility/>.
Spelter, H., Toth, D., 2009. North Americas wood pellet sector. FPLRP656. From:
<http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplrp/fpl_rp656.pdf>. Last accessed March
24 2010.
Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories et al., 2008. US-EI (Ecoinvent processes with
US electricity), v1.6.0. From: <http://www.ecoinvent.ch/>.
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1995. AP 42: Compilation of air pollutant
emission factors. From: <http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/>.
UBC Utilities, 2009. UBC power house 2008 year end report.
University of British Columbia, 2010a. 2010-2015 university of British Columbia
Vancouver campus climate action plan. From: <http://www.sustain.ubc.ca/
sites/default/les/uploads/pdfs/UBC%20Vancouver%20CAP%20Final.pdf>.
University of British Columbia, 2010b. 2010-2015 university of British Columbia
Vancouver campus climate action plan, executive summary. From: <http://
www.sustain.ubc.ca/sites/default/les/uploads/pdfs/UBC%20Vancouver%20CAP_
summary.pdf>.
van Loo, S., Koppejan, J., 2007. Handbook of Biomass Combustion and Co-Firing.
Earthscan Publications, London, GBR. From <http://site.ebrary.com/www/lib/
ubc/docDetail.action?docID=10210567>.
A. Pa et al. / Bioresource Technology 102 (2011) 61676177 6177