Indirect land-use change effects of biodiesel production: a case study for Poland.

The European Commission proposed amendments to the Directive 98/70/EC and Directive 2009/28/EC, which call for the inclusion of indirect changes in land use (iLUC) to the estimated volume of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within the life cycle of transportation biofuels. The paper investigates possible emissions reductions in the life cycle of biodiesel (FAME) according to six scenarios with special focus on iLUC. Including iLUC for rapeseed biodiesel production in Poland results in GHG emission reduction lower than the required 50% starting from January 2017. However, in some rapeseed growing regions, at least 50% emission threshold can be achieved when reduced tillage (malopolskie, opolskie, pomorskie and zachodniopomorskie) or no-tillage (malopolskie, opolskie, podkarpackie, pomorskie, śląskie and zachodniopomorskie) is applied. All these regions are located in temperate moist climate region, which is combined with higher level of soil organic carbon sequestration compared to dry climate.It was estimated that when including iLUC in the calculations of greenhouse gas emissions, the agricultural sector in Poland can produce 548 thousand ton of rapeseed, which meets the Directive 2009/28/EC sustainability criteria (50% GHG emission reductions), under the condition that improvement of agricultural management (soil carbon accumulation) will occur. This production can supply 202 thousand tons of FAME, which would amount to 33% of transport fuel from renewable energy sources by 2020, according to National Renewable Energy Action Plan. After 2020, the additional amount of transportation fuels required by the Directive 2009/28/EC will have to be derived from another biofuels or renewable energy sources.