Drop-in Biofuel Production: An Environmental Assessment Perspective

Currently fossil-derived fuel is the major input driving the transportation sector. The primary environmental concern associated with this fossil dependency relates to greenhouse gas emission leading to climate change in addition to rapid depletion of natural reserves of petroleum and diesel. An alternative approach to reduce the environmental burdens of the transportation sector is to increase the production and consumption of biomass-derived fuels such as drop-in biofuels. However, despite the change in source of fuel, the process in its entirety is associated with environmental burdens arising from the utilization of materials and energy. Hence, life cycle assessment studies are conducted to quantify the environmental burdens. This chapter reviews the environmental sustainability assessment of various approaches applied for drop-in biofuel derived from biomass. The life cycle stages are majorly categorized into biomass cultivation and harvesting, pretreatment, and biofuel production followed by upgradation for intended use. The biochemical routes are still in the early stages of development, and it is pertinent to discuss the nature of the associated environmental impacts. This could provide an environmental insight into the current and future strategies for drop-in fuel production to derive a comparatively greener fuel as compared to the fossil-derived fuels.