Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Economical Evaluation of Rice Straw Utilization System using LCA

Abstract

The rice straw has traditionally been used for feedstuff, compost, incineration etc. However, ethanol production from rice straw has attracted worldwide attention recently for energy supply and global warming problem. We investigated the rice straw utilization system in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission amount and costs for livestock feed manufacturing process, composting system, ethanol production system and incineration process using life cycle thinking. Moreover, we compared GHG emission reduction potential of each process against incineration. As the result, the GHG emission amount per ton of rice straw was the least in ethanol production system and the cost was lowest in livestock feed manufacturing process. The GHG emission reduction potential of the ethanol production system was the highest.