The 2010 LCA of cellulose, ethanol, lignin and vanillin from Borregaard, Sarpsborg
Ostfold Research has recently made two new EPD’s of ethanol (96% and 99%) from Borregaard. In connection to this, the process model of Borregaard’s biorefinery and the LCA for the main products have been updated.
This study has been carried out using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology for the products cellulose, ethanol (96 % and 99 %), lignin (liquid and powder) and vanillin from Borregaard’s factories in Sarpsborg/Norway. The functional unit has been 1 tonne for cellulose, lignin and vanillin and 1 m3 for ethanol. The data material were originally from 2007, and the most important data have now been updated to 2010-data.
From 2007 to 2010, three major changes at Borregaard have taken place: 1) a new waste incineration plant has been built to reduce the oil consumption, 2) the aerobic part of the biological effluent plant has been stopped due to legionella problems, hence the anaerobic part has been expanded, and 3) consumption of copper sulphate and emissions of copper in the vanillin plant have been reduced due to a new recycling process.
The results show that reducing the energy use at Borregaard to a large extent will affect all the impact categories in a positive way, with the eutrophication potential being the only exception as an impact category which is not as significantly correlated to energy use.
Generation and use of energy are the sources for most of the burdens along the value chain of Borregaard’s products. A further transition to more use of renewable energy (bio energy, energy from waste, electricity with guaranty of origin) and hence reduced use of fossil energy, will also reduce the global warming potential and the ozone depletion potential. Still, the results for the other impact categories are challenging to estimate without performing analyses of such scenarios.
There are indications pointing towards the reduction in oil consumption in the boiler house being not in proportion to the increased waste incineration. This is explained by increased internal consumption of steam in the boilerhouse due to proportional lower return of condensate and hot water for production of feedwater. The other explanation could be that the new waste incineration plant has had periods of unstable operation and that the boiler house now runs at a lower load.
The new EPD’s which are made on basis of this new analysis could be found here.