Prospective environmental impact assessment and simulation applied to an emerging biowaste-based energy technology in Europe

The energy sector of the European Union (EU) is expected to progress fast towards a fully-fledged dependency on renewable sources. In such a goal-driven approach, a prospective assessment framework is designed to simulate the environmental consequences engendered by the gradual penetration of a novel biowaste-based energy technology in the EU energy production market. This is done by building a dynamic input-output model reflecting the implementation of the technology over time, following future energy scenarios and hypothetical targets for the EU (number of plants operating in 2030 and 2050). Total impacts, calculated for global warming, photochemical oxidation, acidification, eutrophication and human toxicity are calculated for these scenarios, and for a counterfactual scenario, represented by the same economic system operating without opting for such novel technology. The output of the simulation shows that the technology could bring carbon savings of 220–250 Mt CO2eq up to 2050 and significant changes in the economy structure such as a reduction of fossil phosphorus production and corresponding generation of revenues from phosphorus recovery in the order of 100–150 billion €. In a more general fashion and beside the case study, the factors affecting the model output, sources of uncertainty and assumptions are presented in order to appraise scope, applicability and limitations of the proposed assessment framework and to prepare its use in decision making.