Green House Savings Produced By Argentine Biodiesel Use

One answer to the environmental concern regarding Greenhouse gases emitions control has been the promotion of different biofuels as mandatory targets in many countries. Argentina as one of the world main producer of vegetable oils found a great opportunity to use a byproduct of its important seed processing industry to develop efficient biofuels for domestic and international markets.

The Argentinean soybean industry is extremely strong: more than 70,000 producers for 18 million of cultivated hectares and 30 million tons of products (2008-2009). The sector provides 13 billion dollars and represents an important source of foreign exchange for the State. The export taxes were 5% for biofuel and 35% for grain in 2007: this difference prompted soy exporters to invest in biodiesel plants for export. In this way, the first phase of biofuel development started. Economies of scale and the efficiency of the soy chain are exploited to make the Argentinean biodiesel a competitive product. Despite the increase in the biodiesel tax to 20% (2008), the strong international demand encouraged new investments. The production is concentrated around Rosario (province of Santa Fe), on the Paraná River, in the soybean oil exportation complex. Thus, the province of Santa Fe has 80% of the national production, against 8% for Buenos Aires and 7% for Santiago del Estero this gives additional advantages regarding GHG emitions since distances from the production area to the transforming complex and export ports don’t exceed 300 km.

Large national companies (the oil manufacturers, General Deheza, Vicentin, and Eurnekian Citrusvil_[1]) and transnational corporations (Dreyfus, Glencore and Bunge) build efficient industrial plants followed by medium private investors with smaller facilities in different parts of the country mainly concentrated on domestic market. The capacity 2013 is over 4 million tons per year.. Such volumes can be competitive in the global market. However, biodiesel exportation is fragile due to international and local changes in rules. The internal market is more recent and starts with an obligation to add 5%.

Since the 1970s, (bio) technological changes improve the production and productivity of the soybean chain. Now, biodiesel is diversifying its by-products, customers and locations. It also awakes the interest and creativity of engineers, chemists, and researchers since it offers an opportunity to put old and new industrial plants in operation.

Soybean production is characterized for the employment in more than 82 % of no tilling together with other modern technologies as presition agriculture. This gives an important advantage in GHG emitions savings and energy balance.

The industrial plants responsible for the principal market share of biodiesel are characterized by its high scale and efficiency. Most are located beside the processing complex and ports, which gives enormous advantages from the energy and emitions results. Raw material is coming from a radius no larger than 300 km, which also helps to increase efficiency.

In the last years, new bio refineries were developed in order to get higher value products of the biodiesel process as glycerin and sub products. This enlarges the benefits of the chain and increases the countries income.

The last eight years were characterized by huge investments in biodiesel industry using soybean oil as the main feedstock. The first investments were produced by the new emerging European market and more recently for a growing domestic one, triggered by increasing mandatory blend now reaching 10 % in the country.

In order to give an answer to increasing concerns regarding the green house savings produced by soybean oil biodiesel several international and national studies were performed giving a realistic evaluation of a very efficient transformation chain in the country.

Several studies have been completed in order to clearly calculate the GHG emissions of the Argentine biodiesel sector according to generally accepted international methodologies. Since the country has different agro-ecosystems and distances from the ports, different analyses were completed for different regions of the country. The key element to assess the Greenhouse Emission Saving (GES) was the soybean supply area. (Panichelli, 2012) With respect to GHG emissions (Kg CO2 eq/km), emissions reduction averaged 76% (0.0447 Kg to 0.0464 CO2 eq/km). The scenario that showed more GHG emissions was South East of Bs.As. (0.0447 Kg CO2 eq/km). Comparatively and percentage with conventional diesel, its reductions of GHG emissions were of 75.5 %. The scenario that showed less GHG emissions was placed in South of Córdoba (0.0464 Kg CO2 eq/km). Comparatively and percentage with conventional diesel, its reductions of GHG emissions are of 76.5%.

A deep analysis was performed of the studies looking at criteria, methodology employed, allocation factors, coproducts evaluation and data origin in order to obtain a realistic value of greenhouse savings that could represent soybean oil biodiesel produced under the particular Argentinean conditions.

A comparative analysis showed that the crop yields and the oversea transport are the main sources of variability between studies and years. The industry values are very constant and no significative difference was detected between the differen literature sources.

As methodological framework the ACM0017 (production of biodiesel to be used as a fuel) was used. Specific calculations were performed in order to obtain the total ammount of conventional diesel fuel replaced in each market.

Based on export and domestic market commercialization a national greenhouse savings calculation was performed for the last four years (2010-2013). For each case the total emitions were taken into account savings ranged 4 million tons per year.