Abstract

Abstract
Life cycle assessment of bioenergy production using wood pellets: The case of remote communities in Canada
Saghar Sadaghiani
A reliable and environmentally friendly energy source is crucial to remote Canadian communities. Currently, fossil fuels are the primary source of electricity and heat in these communities. Diesel generators mostly powered these communities, contributing to climate change due to fuel transportation and emissions. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reduce fossil fuel reliance in these communities. We examined wood pellets’ use in a remote Canadian community using Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). In addition, the combustion of wood pellets will be compared with diesel combustion. To perform the LCA, we utilized SimaPro (version 8.4.0.0), a widely used software for conducting LCA. SimaPro provides a comprehensive platform for modeling and analyzing the environmental performance of products or processes. The Ecoinvent 3 library also provided life cycle inventory (LCI) data for a variety of materials, processes, and energy systems. Pellets LCA covered harvesting, transportation, sawmill operation, pellet production, and combustion stages. Our first step was to collect data on these five stages. Furthermore, these stages were compared in eight impact categories (Global warming, carcinogenic, non-carcinogenic, ozone depletion, respiratory effects, smog, acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication, and fossil fuel depletion). According to the results, pelletization and combustion are the most harmful stages to the environment, especially non carcinogenics effects for the pelletization and respiratory effects of pellet combustion. Lastly, we compared wood pellet combustion with diesel combustion to assess bioenergy's efficiency. We found that the combustion of wood pellets performs better in many impact categories than in burning diesel, especially in non-carcinogenic ones.