A decision support system for sustainable development of biodiesel industry

Abstract

Energy plays a crucial role in modern life. The recent crises in the world oil market, rapid depletion of crude oil reserves along with growing concerns about emission of greenhouse gas have drawn attention to biofuels sources. Despite the many positive characteristics of biofuels, they cause a variety of environmental, economical, and social challenges that are not known to decision-makers by conventional evaluation tools such as Environmental Impact Assessment. This study designed and developed a specific Decision Support System (DSS) to analyze the sustainability of alternative biodiesel production in Malaysia by integrating and using Eco-indicator 99 method as a damage oriented Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), spatial analysis and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). DSS was carried out to estimate four sustainability damage categories covering human health, ecosystem quality, resources depletion and socio-economic aspects to help decision makers in achieving a holistic insight into the entire system. LCA results show that fossil fuels depletion impact is the highest contributor to the environmental burdens of palm oil and jatropha biodiesel production, by 1.5E3 MJ and 1.99E3 MJ surplus respectively. This is followed by the respiratory inorganics impact with 1.32 E-3 and 3.28 E-4 Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) for palm oil and jatropha biodiesel productions respectively. LCA as environmental analysis tool and Geographical Information System as spatial analysis tool were combined to provide an integrated methodology that is able to determine land use change impacts. Land use change analysis showed that approximately 42.2% of expansion during the period was the result of the conversion of forest, followed by agroforest and plantations (34.8%). The study used AHP to assign criteria weights from a Malaysian perspective. According to AHP analysis, the importance weights of both human health (40.9%) and ecosystem quality (32.2%) damages are higher than both resources depletion (16.5%) and socio-economic (10.4%) damages. Combining the effects on all impact categories as a single score supports the notion that the palm oil biodiesel production with 30.5 Eco-indicator point (Pt) generates 9.7% higher negative impacts on sustainability than jatropha biodiesel production which means jatropha development is more consistent with sustainability criteria and furthermore it could be beneficial in Clean Development Mechanism projects.