Global assessments and guidelines for sustainable liquid biofuel production in developing countries

Feb 2012

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) needs to set clear policies and priorities for future work and funding of biofuel-related projects while providing guidance to countries interest-ed in developing this sector. UN agencies in collaboration with scientific institutions worldwide address issues such as life-cycle energy and greenhouse gas balances, eco-nomics, social/food security, non-GHG environmental impacts, fuel and vehicle compati-bility as well as competing stationary applications of biofuels, scale-up impacts and ad-vanced (next generation) biofuels. The GEF has funded the Targeted Research Project with the overall goal to identify and assess sustainable systems for the production of liquid biofuels in developing countries, both for transport and stationary applications. The results are documented in a 170 page main report, 240 pages of appendices, the GEF Biofuel Greenhouse Gas Calculator (an easy-to-use spread sheet tool) and a database on non-GHG emissions, and resource impacts. In order to facilitate access to the information, this Guidance Document summa-rizes the major points GEF biofuel project screening. It has two goals: (a) to advise the GEF in screening liquid biofuel project applications, and (b) to guide GEF project appli-cants to prepare their applications in a comprehensive manner, providing all necessary information. Candidate projects submitted to the GEF will be evaluated by means of detailed calcula-tions that take into account the biofuels pathways, settings and local conditions of the pro-ject. A prerequisite is that sufficient data of high quality is available in the project pro-posals submitted to the GEF. The Targeted Research Project report contains default val-ues that facilitate an evaluation the compilation of results for other biofuels. If insufficient data is available, then the data for the 74 biofuels pathways and settings can be used as proxy benchmarks.

By: IFEU, UNEP, UNIDO

 
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