Carbon and nitrogen trade-offs in biomass energy production

This contribution provides an overview of carbon (CFs) and nitrogen footprints (NFs) concerning their measures and impacts on the ecosystem and human health. The adversarial relationship between them is illustrated by the three biomass energy production applications, which substitute fossil energy production applications: (i) domestic wood combustion where different fossil energy sources (natural gas, coal, and fuel oil) are supplemented, (ii) bioethanol production from corn grain via the dry-grind process, where petrol is supplemented, and (iii) rape methyl ester production from rape seed oil via catalytic trans-esterification, where diesel is supplemented. The life cycle assessment is applied to assess the CFs and NFs resulting from different energy production applications from 'cradle-to-grave' span. The results highlighted that all biomass-derived energy generations have lower CFs and higher NFs whilst, on the other hand, fossil energies have higher CFs and lower NFs.