Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Process Systems Engineering (PSE ASIA) 25 - 27 June 2013, Kuala Lumpur. Future of Biofuel in Malaysia: Dynamic LCA Approach C. Hafizan a , Z. Z. Noor a , S. Norhayati a a Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia Abstract In Malaysia, biofuels such as palm biodiesel has been produced from palm oil. The production of biofuel causes more impacts to other existing impacts such as Acidification and Eutrophication even though the combustion emission from biofuel has been proven more environmental friendly. In order to assess the sustainability of biofuel, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been widely used for the measurement of environmental burden from the fuel application. Four scenarios have been considered to investigate the dynamic LCA impact based from the Malaysia’s energy mix composition variation. For this purpose, LCA software package GaBi5 was used as a supporting tool to model the biodiesel plant, which is the basis for life cycle inventory and impacts assessment. A typical base-catalyzed transesterification plant was selected to represent Malaysia’s condition. The LCA results were analysed with regard to climate change potential. The data for the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) for biodiesel plant is compiled based from various LCA’s literatures and Ecoinvent database. The functional unit used in the system is based on 1 kg biodiesel produce. This paper investigates a dynamic approach towards the LCA of renewable energy technologies. The results showed that the impacts would likely to increase in the future if the percentage of fossil fuel in the energy mix for the biofuel process, particularly coal, keeps increasing. However, the implementations of fuel blending within diesel and biodiesel will inherently reduce the environmental impacts from the usage of diesel alone, and indirectly will reduce the dependent of fossil fuel. Keywords: Biofuel, Biodiesel, Dynamic Life Cycle Assessment, Energy References A. Z. Abdullah, B. Salamatinia, H. Mootabadi, and M. Bhatia, (2009), Current Status and Policies on Biodiesel Industry in Malaysia as the World’s Leading Producer of Palm Oil, ENERGY POLICY, 37, 5440–5448. A. Demirbas, (2008) Biofuels Sources, Biofuel Policy, Biofuel Economy And Global Biofuel Projections, ENERGY CONVERSION AND MANAGEMENT, 49, 2106-2116. M. Brander, R. Tipper, C. Hutchison, and G. Davis, (2008) Consequential and Attributional Approaches to LCA: a Guide to Policy Makers with Specific Reference to Greenhouse Gas LCA of Biofuels, Ecometrica Press. E. S. Nwe, A. Adhitya, I. Halim, and R. Srinivasan, (2010) Green Supply Chain Design and Operation by Integrating LCA and Dynamic Simulation, 20th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering, ESCAPE20, 109-114. H. Hou, P. Zhang, X. Yuan, and Y. Zheng, (2011) Life Cycle Assessment of Biodiesel from Soybean, Jatropha and Microalgae in China Conditions, RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS, 15, 5081–5091. K. F. Yee, K. T. Tan, A. Z. Abdullah, and K. T. Lee, (2009). Life Cycle Assessment Of Palm Biodiesel : Revealing Facts And Benefits For Sustainability, APPLIED ENERGY, 86, 5189-5196. M. Pehnt, (2006) Dynamic Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Renewable Energy Technologies. RENEWABLE ENERGY. 31, 55–71. T. H. Oh, S. Y. Pang, and S. C. Chua, (2010) Energy Policy and Alternative Energy in Malaysia: Issues and Challenges for Sustainable Growth, RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS, 14, 1241-1252. T. Searchinger, R. Heimlich, R. A. Houghton, F. Dong, A. Elobeid, J. Fabiosa, S. Tokgoz, and T. Yu, (2008) Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change Science, SCIENCE, 319, 1238-1240. S. B. Hansen, S. I. Olsen, and U. Zaini. Greenhouse Gas Reductions through Enhanced Use of Residues in the Life Cycle of Malaysian Palm Oil Derived Biodiesel. BIORESOURCE TECHNOLOGY. 104, 358–366. PE International, (2006). GaBi 4 database, http://db.ecoinvent.org Thestar, 2013 B10 mandate to address biodiesel woes, http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/ story.asp?file=/2013/2/23/business/12742691 [Retrived on 29 march 2013 at 11 p.m] OECD/FAO (2012), “Biofuels”, in OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2012, OECD Publishing. APERC (Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre), 2006. APEC energy demand and supply outlook 2006. Tokyo.