Monte Carlo analysis of life cycle energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission for biodiesel production from trap grease

Trap grease is an environmental burden and its management has been costly and ineffective. Utilizing trap grease as a feedstock for biodiesel has the potential to reduce the cost of waste removal and biofuel production. This study presents a life cycle analysis to evaluate the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission from the trap grease-to-biodiesel production process. It was shown that utilizing the solids in the trap grease for anaerobic digestion (AD) was crucial in reducing both energy consumption and GHG emissions. Monte Carlo simulation revealed significant variation in both the life cycle energy consumption and GHG emission, which was caused by the uncertainties within several key variables. The result of the sensitivity analysis indicated that trap grease has the potential to be a more energy efficient and low-GHG-emission feedstock under certain conditions, as compared with the current common feedstocks (e.g. soybean and algae).