Greenhouse gases emissions savings of a hydrotreated vegetable oil

Greenhouse gases emissions savings of a hydrotreated vegetable oil

in a Spanish refinery

Garraín D., Herrera I., Lago C., Lechón Y., Sáez R.

CIEMAT – Public Research Centre on Energy, Environment & Technology Energy Department – Energy Systems Analysis Unit

Project funded by PSE – Plan E:

PEN-120000-2009-3

1. Introduction 2. Goal & scope

3. Life cycle inventories (LCI) 4. Results

5. Sensitivity analysis

6. Remarks & conclusions

Hydrotreating process (e.g. Diesel Supercetane production)

Goal: To reduce the sulphur content in mineral fuels

3

H ₂

Vegetable oil

HVO +

diesel

Co-processing with vegetable oil

Goal: To obtain Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) (blended with diesel)

+ H ₂ O + ^others

Fatty

acid

Objectives:

• LCA (Well-to-Wheel –WtW- analysis) of industrial-scale co-processed HVO, focused on Global Warming (GW) impact category.

• WtW analysis of hypothetical 100% HVO from

extrapolation of previous results, focused on GW impact category.

• Presentation of hypothetical GHG emissions savings

compared with diesel standard from EU Directive

2009/28/EC.

Scope: System boundaries (inputs & outputs)

T Transport

Farming, vegetable oil extraction/refining & transport

Data source: Default value from Directive 2009/28/EC (Soybean FAME production)

To extrapolate data from BIOGRACE project

?

Farming, vegetable oil extraction/refining & transport

BIOGRACE project data: Extrapolation to EU Directive 2009/28/EC values

58.00 51.75

TOTAL

Distribution to petrol stations 0.44 Oil transport 0.82

0.17 Seeds transport

13.00 Transports & distribution 1.43

20.19 16.75

Transesterification

1.22 Vegetable oil refining 1.01

4.59 Vegetable oil extraction 3.81

26.00 21.56

Oil extraction & refining &

transesterification Drying 0.42

28.33 Seeds preparation and farming

19.00 28.75

Farming

Extrapolated emissions (g CO

eq / MJ) Directive 2009/28/EC (from soybean) Allocated emissions (g CO

eq / MJ)

BIOGRACE project (from rapeseed)

FAME production stages

Crude oil extraction, transport & refining (diesel)

Data sources:

• Crude extraction & transport to Europe (mean values): ECOINVENT

• Crude origin & refining: Spanish refinery technical staff

HVO refining: Co-processing of blending ‘test-runs’ (HVO + diesel)

Data source: Spanish refinery technical staff

118 69

65 60

53 C2 – ethane

282 128

243 247

183 C1 – methane

OUTPUTS (kg) INPUTS (unit)

% HVO in final product

Not considered Water

Not considered H

, CO

, CO, N

, H

S

49 18

11 14

13 C6 - hexane

14 12

9 10

9 nC5 – n-pentane

19 16

10 6

6 iC5 – i-pentane

31 27

17 10

12 nC4 – n-buthne

9 7

4 3

3 iC4 – i-butane

346 257

152 133

17 C3 – propane

4408 3524

2562 3425

1873 Wild naphta

53050 53351

42923 42734

44386 HVO + diesel

14.42 15.01

16.72 17.19

22.52 Natural gas (GJ)

1.27 1.22

0.91 0.89

0.60 Hydrogen (t)

8.15 8.03

4.17 4.20

- Vegetable oil (t)

58.63 58.61

46.83 46.80

46.46 Diesel unsulphured (t)

13.1% HVO 12.5% HVO

8.4% HVO 8.1% HVO

Diesel (0% HVO)

Energy allocation

Transport to petrol station & combustion (both diesel & blends)

Data source: CONCAWE-EUCAR-JRC study values (most common reference)

• Transport & distribution: 1.10 g CO ₂ eq / MJ

• Combustion (diesel): 73.25 g CO ₂ eq / MJ

GHG emissions of ‘test-runs’ by LCI phase

Hypothetical 100% HVO: Extrapolation of blending results

~ 55%

Standard value (2009/28/EC)

83.8 g CO ₂ eq /MJ diesel

Remarks

• Data sources of farming stage

Remarks

• Source of hydrogen: Relevance in ‘energy resources depletion’

when imported

Remarks

• Source of hydrogen: Relevance in ‘energy resources depletion’

when imported

Remarks

• Other impact categories: Worse performance in acidification and

eutrophication (fertilizers & pesticides in farming stage)

Remarks

• Different allocation procedures of co-products in co-processing

~ 55%

St. (2009/28/EC) 83.8 g CO

eq /MJ

~ 60%

4 g

Conclusions

• Both HVO&diesel blends and the hypothetical 100% HVO could attain excellent environmental performances in terms of GHG emissions savings.

• Results of the hypothetical case are indicative of the reducing trend of these emissions. Corresponding operation conditions should be optimized and data sources should be adapted where appropriate.

Next publications

Garraín D., Herrera I., Lago C., Lechón Y. and Sáez R. Life Cycle Assessment of biofuels from hydrotreated

vegetable oil (in Spanish), to be published as a book ‘CIEMAT Docs Collection’ (1

Q 2011) (available

Daniel Garraín

CIEMAT – Energy Department Energy Systems Analysis

Av. Complutense, 22 Unit E28040 Madrid (Spain)

Tel.: +34 913466091 daniel.garrain@ciemat.es

www.ciemat.es