The objective of this paper is to evaluate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions impacts of the use of different alternative biofuels in passenger vehicles in Spain in order to meet EU biofuel goals. Different crop production alternatives are analysed, including the possible import of some raw materials. Availability of land for national production of the raw materials is analysed and indirect land use changes and associated GHG emissions are quantified.There are important differences in GHG emissions of biofuels depending on the raw material used and whether this is domestically produced or imported. Ethanol production using imported cereals and FAME production using domestic rapeseed have the highest GHG emissions per kilometre driven. Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) production from sunflower has shown the lowest emissions. When taking into account the results of GHG emissions savings per hectare, these findings are somehow reversed. Production of ethanol and around 12% of FAME can be done domestically. The rest will need to be imported and will cause indirect land use change (ILUC). Therefore, ethanol production will not displace any land, whereas FAME production will displace some amounts of land. Calculated ILUC factors are 29%-34%. The additional GHG emissions due to these indirect land use changes are significant (67%-344% of life cycle GHG emissions).Standalone, the EU biofuel targets can have important benefits for Spain in terms of global warming emissions avoided. However, when considering the impact of land use change effects, these benefits are significantly reduced and can even be negative. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) the fossil energy benefits and avoided global warming emissions have been evaluated for the EU Biofuels goals in Spain. The Biofuels considered are cereal ethanol, biodiesel from residual oils, and from palm, sunflower, soybeans and rapeseed vegetable oils. Our findings are that the source of the cereal and vegetable oil influences the efficacy of the Biofuels and that results greatly depend on whether or not electricity has been produced as co-product in bioethanol plants and that without CHP the energy balance of ethanol is negative with few greenhouse gas offsets.

The objective of the work is to estimate the socio-economic impacts of increasing the installed solar thermal energy power capacity in Spain. Using an input-output (I-O) analysis, this paper estimates the increase in the demand for goods and services as well as in employment derived from solar thermal plants in Spain under two different scenarios: (a) based on two solar thermal power plants currently in operation (with 50 and 17MW of installed capacity); (b) the compliance to the Spanish Renewable Energy Plan (PER) 2005-2010 reaching 500 MW by 2010.Results show that the multiplier effect of the PER is 2.3 and the total employment generated would reach 108,992 equivalent full-time jobs of 1 year of duration. Despite this is an aggregated result, this figure represents 4.5% of current Spanish unemployment.It can be concluded that the socio-economic effect of the PER's solar thermal installed capacity goal would be remarkable. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The objective of this study is to assess the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in the production and use of biofuels in Spain considering different crop production alternatives, including the possible import of raw materials. Avoided GHG emissions due to the substitution of conventional transport fuels with biofuels are then quantified. The studied biofuels are bioethanol from cereal crops and biodiesel from crude vegetable oil and waste vegetable oil. Several blends of these biofuels with gasoline and diesel are also studied.A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of these fuels is carried out. The stakeholders were involved early in the process, setting the scope of the analysis and providing the relevant data.The results shown are GHG emissions in the production and distribution of these fuels. The benefits, in terms of GHG savings, of the adoption of the biofuel introduction objectives at the national and European levels are also quantified.

The Spanish Ministry of Environment has launched forth into a project related to the evaluation of the environmental impacts of biodiesel production in Spain, in order to support its biofuels promotion policies. The objective of this project is to evaluate the environmental impacts of four different fuels composed by biodiesel from several crude vegetable oils and waste vegetable oils in comparison to diesel EN-590 along their whole life cycle, and to identify the opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts. Biodiesel is produced from sunflower oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, and palm oil, and also from waste vegetable oils. The transformation technology is that currently used in the Spanish biodiesel plants.

Although fusion power is being developed because of its large resource base, low environmental impact and high levels of intrinsic safety, it is important to investigate the economics of a future fusion power plant to check that the electricity produced can, in fact, have a market. The direct cost of electricity of a fusion power plant and its key dependencies on the physics and technology assumptions, are calculated, as are the materials requirements. The other important aspect of costs, the external costs which can arise from effects such as pollution, accidents and waste are also given. Fusion is found to offer the prospect of a new energy source with acceptable direct costs and very low external costs. This places fusion in a strong position in a future energy market, especially one in which environmental constraints become increasingly important.

Some analysts expect a complete shift of the global energy system in the 21st century, away from fossil fuels to either renewable sources or new nuclear technologies [L. Schrattenholzer, A roadmap to a sustainable global energy system, in: Proceedings of the International Energy Workshop, Paris, June, 2004]. Fusion might become a corner stone of the future energy system. The construction and successful operation of ITER is a necessary condition to reach this goal. Within the Socio Economic Research on Fusion (SERF) programme guided by EFDA, a consortium between CIEMAT, TU Graz (TUG), ENEA and IPP open to other European energy and fusion research laboratories has been formed to analyse the possible role of fusion in the future energy system. Using TIMES, a single region global model has been constructed including fusion as an energy option. Background of the model is a detailed bottom-up description of the complete energy system starting from mining process up to the various demand sectors. The model dynamics is determined by an optimisation process, in which total surplus is maximized. The paper will present the first attempts to set-up a single region global model and the first results.

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the agricultural production of wheat and barley grain to be used as a raw material for bioethanol production in Spain is performed. The objective of the work presented is to compare the environmental impact of the production of these two alternative raw materials for the production of bioethanol. This study is carried out in the frame of a higher scope study, a Life Cycle Analysis of alternative fuels for transport launched by the Spanish Ministry of Environment. Results show that wheat cultivation has a smaller impact in every impact category with the exception of the global warming category. Considering only the agricultural production stage, it seems that wheat is more recommendable than barley for bioethanol production, but given that the main objective in the biofuels introduction is the fulfilment of the greenhouse gases reduction commitments, barley is a better option than wheat.

On April 17(th) 2002, Spanish Government formally offered the Vandellos site as a possible European ITER site. In this work main technical site specific characteristics of the site are compared with generic requirements. It is shown that Vandellos site offers a number of technical advantages over the reference design mainly in relation with the geotechnical and seismic assumptions as well as in relation with heat sink, electrical supply and heavy transport topics.

The work performs an assessment of the environmental externalities of SO2 and ozone pollution in an area 270km×200km surrounding the city of Madrid. The study analyses two situations corresponding to different and extreme cases of atmospheric pollution in the area produced in years 1992 and 1995, respectively. Concentrations fields in these years for these pollutants were estimated in the framework of a project financed by the R+D National Programme and reported elsewhere. Aggregated environmental externalities produced in the area were estimated using these concentration fields and applying the ExternE methodology. Environmental effects analysed were those produced in the health of the people living in the area, effects on agricultural crops, and effects on construction materials. Results obtained for SO2 show that environmental externalities produced are very high, especially, those related to the effects on health and materials. Results for ozone show also that important damages are produced, specially those related to public health.

This paper presents an assessment of the installation of a large-scale biomass scheme for production of electricity for distribution via the national grid in Spain. The biomass scheme studied is based on woody biomass (eucalyptus, acacia and poplar) as short rotation crops in arable lands. The site selection process has been carried out with a Geographical Information System (GIS). The criteria applied in the selection, cultivation and location of the plantation as well as the biomass power plants have taken into account environmental aspects and the economic costs, always pursuing the lowest energy cost and environmental impacts. The size of each power plant has been calculated taking into account the annual productivity of biomass and the available surface of arable non-irrigated land. The costs of energy crop production in each area have been calculated as well as the storage and transport costs to supply the power plants. The technologies considered for generating electricity are fluidized bed combustion (FBC) and biomass gasification integrated into a combined cycle (BIGCC). The costs of electricity, considering also the connection costs to the electricity grid, have been calculated for all power plants. Cost figures along the fuel cycle have been obtained and a sensitivity analysis of the most relevant variables has been made. The main conclusion of the analysis is that from an economic and environmental point of view, the scheme proposed is feasible.

Contributing institutions: Akademie für Technikfolgenabschätzung – Stuttgart – Germany Arge Wärmetechnik, Graz, Austria Atominstitut der Österreichen Universitäten Vienna – Austria CEPN / Association EURATOM-CEA France EURATOM/CIEMAT Fusion Association – Madrid – Spain ECN Petten – The Netherlands ENEA – Casaccia – Italy Association EURATOM Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe Germany Association EURATOM Forschungszentrum Jülich – Germany Institut d’Economie Industrielle – Toulouse – France Institut für Risikoforschung – Vienna – Austria Association EURATOM Max-Planck Institut für Plasmaphysik – Garching – Germany Österreiche IIASA Kommission – Vienna – Austria Risø National Laboratory – Roskilde – Denmark Studsvik Eco & Safety AB/ Association EURATOM – NFR Nyköping – Sweden EURATOM/UKAEA Fusion Association – Culham – United Kingdom University Complutense Madrid Spain University of Cagliari – Italy University of Linköping – Sweden University of Sassari – Italy University of Sussex – Brighton – United Kingdom University of Umeå – Sweden VTT Energy / Association EURATOM – TEKES Finland

The aim of the work was to assess the potential weaknesses and threats of the integration of a biomass power plant proposed in a depressed area of Spain as well as to analyse the inherent strengths and opportunities that such a project could have in economic, technical or environmental terms. For this purpose an analysis of site, biomass resources, problems associated to fuel mix combustion, electricity production and connection were assessed. The socioeconomic (employment, GDP effects or tax revenue impact) and environmental (human health, soil erosion, fertiliser application) outcomes associated with the proposed biomass scheme have been evaluated. Finally, a list of actions to take into account for successful implementation of this proposed project has been defined.

In the White Paper on Renewables, the European Commission has set the goal of achieving a 12% penetration of renewables in the Union by 2010, of which biomass could be the main contributor. Spain is developing a Biomass National Plan to achieve that objective. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to select the sites for and size of possible biomass power plants, which are needed to contribute at least 2% to the current national energetic mix, and to assess the electricity costs.The site selection is carried out by use of a geographic information system, and the direct cost of the electricity as well as the external costs and benefits are assessed. The study describes the species selected for Mediterranean edaphoclimatic conditions in each site and the biomass production cost is included in the electricity cost analysis. Environmental externalities are assessed applying the Extern-E methodology and socio-economic externalities using the Spanish input/output tables. Results of total costs of electricity from biomass an obtained.

There is a growing awareness of the need for clean energy mainly due to concerns over climate change. The EU biofuels directive promotes the use of biuofuels in order to help Europe meet its strategy and commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also for improving the security of energy supply and increasing the use of renewable energy sources that would reduce the dependence on oil imports and would make greater use of indigenous resources. The directive sets a Europe target of 2 % substitution of conventional transport fuels with biofuels by December 2005, and a further 5.75% substitution by December 2010 (on an energy base). Moreover, the European Commission, as part of its Energy Policy for Europe, is committed to encouraging the production and use of biofuels by setting a binding minimum target for biofuels of 10% of vehicle fuel by 2020. The European Commission is also working on changing fuel specifications to allow blends of biofuel higher than 5% (on a volume base). According to the biofuels Directive, the Member States must set their own targets and apply national policies and measures to reach a minimum share for biofuels on their domestic markets. In this context, the Spanish parliament has set also some indicative and binding targets for biofuel introduction by 2008, 2009 and 2010. The objective of this study is to assess the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions of the production and use of biofuels in Spain considering different crop production alternatives including the possible import of the raw materials (rapeseed, soybeans, palm oil, wheat and barley) from different parts of the world. Global warming avoided emissions due to the substitution of conventional transport fuels with biofuels are then quantified. Studied biofuels are bioethanol from cereal crops and biodiesel from crude vegetable oil (rapeseed, soy bean, sunflower, and palm oil) and from waste vegetable oil. Several blends of these biofuels with gasoline and diesel are also studied. It has been carried out the corresponding Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of these fuels that perform equivalent functions. The LCA have been carried out according to the standardized methodology for LCA and the stakeholders have been involved early in the process, setting the scope of the analysis and providing the relevant data. Results shown are the emission of greenhouse gases in the production and distribution of these fuels. The benefits, in terms of GHG savings, of the adoption of the Spanish internal commitments in terms of biofuel introduction and the EU biofuel directive in Spain in 2010, taking into account the forecast of freight transport services and passenger cars evolution and growth, are analysed. Looking towards 2020, further increasing in the share of biofuels has also been considered and the benefits derived of this increase, have been assessed. Several scenarios are studied in order to analyze the effect associated to different ethanol and biodiesel promotion policies.

The biomass use to electricity production presents environmental and socioeconomic advantages compared with fossil fuels power plants. The Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been used to evaluate the environmental loads of a biomass power plant versus natural a gas power plant and a mixed plant using both energy sources, natural gas and biomass, along their whole life cycle. Results show differences in energy use and emissions and provide insight into the sensible points where improvement measures can be undertaken. The study also presents the environmental impacts associated to different electricity systems for local conditions. Special attention was paid to the inventory analysis stage; data from representative Spanish situation as well as bibliographic sources were used.