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LIFE-CYCLE COST ANALYSIS OF RAPESEED OIL- AND ALGAE OIL-BASED BIOFUELS

Ewa Kardasz

Abstract

Currently, new solutions in the field of alternative fuels are being sought after, taking into account the economic and the ecological aspects of their production. Due to the depleting resources of conventional fuels, one of the currently considered new research directions is the production of fuels derived from unconventional sources. This is due to the constantly increasing number of vehicles and growing traffic. It is noted that the consumption of gas oil is larger than that of gasoline. Therefore, potential fuel plants that can be used to power diesel engines should be sought. Nowadays sources of energy are strongly important for efficiency improvement in all of the industries. Algae fuel is a perspective area for research. Different types of available raw materials have various of features. Some of them will have huge influence for shortening of production time and quality of the finish product. Algae fuel has a leading position comparing to another types of petrol, according to their energy characteristics. The competitive edge of algae production is opportunity to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, the main technological difficulty in algae fuel production is sensitivity to the temperature. The article discusses two types of biofuels derived from biomass ? rapeseed oil and crude oil produced from algae. A cost analysis of production activities related to the cultivation of canola and algae and the production process of the two biofuels was conducted. The analysis was carried out by means of product life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA). First, the cost and revenues were estimated, which allowed for the calculation of the achievable return. Then, potential cost reduction were analyzed. Finally, the data obtained for both types of biofuels were compared, and their cost-effectiveness was analyzed, leading to the overall conclusions indicating the financial consequence of choosing one of the variants over the other. As a result of analysis of this article, the main difference in algae-based fuel production in comparing to rapeseed oil production is their price per liter ? the price of one liter of algae-based fuel oil is almost 50 times higher than the price of rapeseed oil.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2018/4.1/s17.057

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