Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Efficiency and sustainability analysis of biogas and electricity

production from a large-scale biogas project in China: an emergy
evaluation based on LCA
Xiaolong Wang, Yuanquan Chen 1, Peng Sui, Wangsheng Gao*, Feng Qin, Xia Wu,
Jing Xiong
College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Biogas, which plays an important role in energy production and environmental protection, is developing
Received 28 April 2013 at a large-scale in China to accommodate the modernization and fast pace that the Chinese agricultural
Received in revised form sector has experienced over the last decade due to the rapid development of large-scale farms and
25 August 2013
stockbreeding in recent years. This study introduced life cycle assessment (LCA) into emergy evaluation
Accepted 1 September 2013
Available online 11 September 2013
to analyze each production step of a large-scale biogas project in China and to compare the economic and
ecological performance of the biogas production system (BPS) and biogas plus electricity production
system (BEPS) of a project. Our findings indicated that the energy return rate of biogas production system
Keywords:
Emergy evaluation
was lower than that of traditional energy production system currently. Emergy efficiency of the large-
Large-scale biogas project scale biogas project was 77.9e95.6% higher than that of the small-scale biogas project. The emission
Efficiency mitigation intensity was also 125.7e172.7 times higher for the large-scale plant than for the small-scale
Sustainability plant. The sustainability of the large-scale biogas project was 1.16e11.87 times higher than that of other
China renewable energy production systems, but 66.0e74.4% lower than that of the small-scale biogas project
due to an insufficient amount of raw material inputs and the higher cost of equipment investment in
anaerobic fermentation and electricity generation steps. Moreover, the economic and ecological per-
formance of BEPS was worse than that of BPS. We suggested that the sustainability of the large-scale
biogas project would be improved by measures: first, providing a suitable quantity and ratio of raw
materials; second, reducing the equipment investment of fermentation and the generator; third, using
the electricity from the biogas system.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction developed rapidly and globally, and is playing an increasingly

At present, one of the ongoing challenges facing human society
is to continue to provide energy in usable forms such as electricity
and gasoline while fossil fuel reserves are declining, populations
are growing, and concerns about global warming are increasing
(Ciotola et al., 2011; Omer, 2008). Under these circumstances, the
utilization of renewable energy resources has become a global
strategy for sustainable energy use, which is of particular impor-
tance for coping with the increasing stress from the energy crisis
and global warming (Chen and Chen, 2012; Sorda et al., 2010). As an
effective method to generate renewable energy, biogas is being
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ86 1062731163.
E-mail addresses: wshgao@sohu.com, 33629914@qq.com (W. Gao).
1
The author contributed equally to this study.
important role in energy production and environmental protection.
China is one of the world’s largest energy consumers and the
second largest greenhouse gas emitter. China imported 1.63
108 t
of crude oil in 2007, and the country’s dependency on foreign oil
reached to 46.6% in the same year (Zhang et al., 2009). In vast rural
areas of China, the lower efficiency of energy utilization and higher
discharges of agricultural waste have become major local charac-
teristics due to the lower level of agricultural modernization and
social development. For example, China’s poultry and livestock
manure reached about 3.97
109 t in 2007 (Zhang et al., 2009),
while the majority of this was not reasonably used but rather dis-
charged into rivers, resulting in water pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions. Only the manure from pigs, cattle, and sheep discharged
a chemical oxygen demand (COD) amounting to approximately 69
million tons each yearda quantity five times that of industrial
emissions in China (Li et al., 2010). As a large agricultural country,

0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245
solving these waste issues has become important to sustain eco-
nomic growth and the harmonious coexistence of humans and the
environment. Therefore, the development of a biogas project will
provide an inevitable option for renewable energy production and
agricultural waste treatment in China.
In recent years, biogas projects have developed rapidly in China.
Reportedly, the quantity of small-scale biogas digesters has
increased from approximately 1.8Eþ9 m3 in 1996 to 1.0Eþ10 m3 in
2007, while the number of large and medium-scale biogas projects
has increased from approximately 1.2Eþ11 m3 in 1996 to
6.0Eþ12 m3 in 2007 (Zhang et al., 2009). The number of biogas
projects has increased rapidly over the last decade due to the
implementation of a series of new policies in China. The rapid
development of biogas also promotes the creation of many sus-
tainable agricultural modes including the “biogas-linked agro-
system (BLAS)” (Chen and Chen, 2012), “Four in One” (Wei et al.,
2009) and “pigebiogasefruit” (Chen et al., 2012), in which
planting and stockbreeding are connected to achieve improved
economic and ecological benefits. In fact, the incorporation of
biogas projects into agricultural systems has at least four advan-
tages: a comparatively clean biogas fuel for electricity and heating;
the disposal of agricultural waste; biogas residue, and slurry to be
used in farmland as fertilizer; and a reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions.
Some scholars have carried out relevant research analyzing
biogas projects and the ecosystem effects using various methods
such as benefitecost economic analysis (Amigun and Blottnitz,
2007; Murphya et al., 2004; Trendewicz and Braun, 2013;
Yoshizaki et al., 2013) and environmental impaction evaluation
(Börjesson and Berglund, 2006, 2007; Patterson et al., 2011; Poeschl
et al., 2012a,b). However, a consensus has not yet been reached
regarding a generally accepted way to describe and determine the
sustainability of such projects, and each method mentioned above
offers a specific insight into “upstream” or “downstream” impacts
of a product or industry (Chen and Chen, 2012; Ulgiati et al., 2006).
Compared to the above-mentioned methods, emergy analysis is an
effective means to analyze biogas projects from the perspective of
economic and ecological benefits. Emergy evaluation was first
developed by Odum in the 1980s, and creatively combines the
fields of energetics and systems ecology. The method addresses the
weakness of traditional energy analysis and expresses different
forms of energy using a common physical basis, namely, solar
emergy. Moreover, it takes into consideration the aspects such as
natural resources, labor and ecosystem services that are generally
left uncalculated by other evaluation methods. Therefore, emergy
theory conceivably can provide valuable information for a better
understanding of the sustainability of a biogas system in a bio-
physical context (Chen and Chen, 2012).
A few previous studies have assessed biogas projects via the
emergy method. These evaluations focused mainly on two aspects,
particularly the evaluation of biogas projects (Ciotola et al., 2011;
Zhou et al., 2010) and the integrated evaluation of sustainable
agricultural modes with biogas as the link, such as in the Four in
One and BLAS modes (Chen and Chen, 2012; Wei et al., 2009). More
of the latter have been performed than the former. Ciotola et al.
(2011) analyzed a small-scale biogas production and electricity
generation system in Costa Rica using the emergy method and
found that the emergy efficiency and sustainability of electricity
generation were lower than those of biogas production. Zhou et al.
(2010) evaluated a biogas project in China, which comprised
200 m3 and 500 m3 biogas projects, and analyzed their market
value and emergy monetary value. Chen and Chen (2012) provided
an overview of the economic and environmental performance of
the BLAS in China by focusing on efficiency, emission mitigation,
and sustainability from a regional perspective. Wei et al. (2009)
235
assessed the efficiency and sustainability of the Four in One
ecological economic system for peach production system (FIOPPS)
in a solar greenhouse in China, in which an 8 m3 biogas project was
utilized as the connection between peach and pig production.
However, after reviewing these published papers, we found that
some problems remain that must be addressed for the comprehen-
sive evaluation of biogas projects in China. First, the studies pub-
lished were all concentrated on small-scale biogas and no evaluation
of large-scale biogas had been conducted. China in particular has
experienced the rapid development of large-scale farms and stock-
breeding in recent years, and biogas projects are gradually devel-
oping at larger scales to accommodate the rapid modernization that
the Chinese agricultural sector has experienced over the last decade.
According to the data reported, the total digester capacity of medium
and large-scale biogas increased from 1.36Eþ05 m3 in 1996 to
7.32Eþ06 m3 in 2010 (Yang et al., 2012). Consequently, analyzing
large-scale biogas projects in China has become necessary using an
emergy evaluation of the economic and ecological aspects. Second,
most of the papers treated the subject biogas project and the agri-
cultural system around it as a whole, and viewed the biogas project
as a mere subsystem (Chen and Chen, 2012; Wei et al., 2009). And a
detailed analysis of each step involved in the process of biogas or
electricity production in terms of emergy consumption and envi-
ronmental pressure had not been conducted. To improve emergy
efficiency and the sustainability of biogas systems in the next stage,
these issues need to be resolved. Third, biogas projects have three
functions from the energy production perspective, including the
production of biogas, organic fertilizer, and electricity. Only one pa-
per to date had compared biogas and the electricity production of
biogas projects (Ciotola et al., 2011); however, a study analyzing the
production results of biogas projects in China remains to be con-
ducted. Presently, the percentage of biogas projects used to generate
electricity in China is only 3% (Chen et al., 2012), which is far lower
than that of developed countries, so comprehensively evaluating
biogas and electricity production is important to further develop
biogas projects in China.
Based on the considerations above, we analyzed a 1000 m3
large-scale biogas project in Jingxian County of North China. Ac-
cording to the existing standards of classifying biogas size, this
plant was considered to be representative of a large-scale biogas
project in China. We evaluated it in terms of life cycle analysis
(LCA), dividing the emergy input of whole progress into four steps
including raw material pretreatment, anaerobic fermentation,
solideliquid separation, and electricity generation. On this basis,
we compared the economic and ecological performance of biogas
and electricity production in this project. According to the results,
we provide discussion on how to improve the efficiency and sus-
tainability of these large-scale biogas projects in China.
2. Method
2.1. Study sites
In this study, we choose to evaluate a 1000 m3 large-scale biogas
project, located on a farm (Jinglong Company) in Jingxian County
(37 58 0 N, 115 990 E) of Hebei Province, China. The area has a
temperate semiarid monsoon climate with mean annual temper-
ature 12.5  C and precipitation of 554 mm. This farm is character-
ized by larger-scale stock raising and crop production. As a
connection between planting and breeding, the large-scale biogas
project on this farm treats manure from pigs to generate biogas,
biogas slurry, biogas residue, and electricity for use on the farm.
According to the objective of this study, the biogas project is viewed
as two systems: one is a biogas production system (BPS) and the
other is a biogas plus electricity production system (BEPS).
236 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245
The biogas project was constructed in 2011, and a detailed
technical flowchart of it is shown in Fig. 1. A total of 3.9 t/day of pig
manure from the farm entered the pretreatment room by ma-
chine, after which the manure was diluted with 22.5 m3/day of
water in the inverse flow of biogas slurry. The treated raw mate-
rials were then transported to the anaerobic fermentation tank,
which uses a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) anaerobic
integration technology. The anaerobic reactor produced an
average of 700 m3 biogas every day. A portion of the biogas was
treated by the dehydrator and desulphurizer and then used in a
120 kW generation set to produce electricity totaling 729 kWh/
day. At the same time, the mixture of biogas slurry and residue
flow from the anaerobic fermentation tank was separated into
biogas slurry and residue by the solideliquid separator, which was
then used as the organic fertilizer for crop production. In light of
the biogas project-adopted CSTR anaerobic integration technol-
ogy, the waste heat produced in the electricity generation was
used to provide the temperature demand of anaerobic fermen-
tation and pretreatment of the raw materials. The biogas project
ran all 365 days of the year.
2.2. Emergy evaluation
Emergy is defined as the quantity of solar energy directly or
indirectly necessary to support a given system and its level of or-
ganization (Odum, 1996). The definition is different from the gen-
eral concept of “energy” representing “the energy memory” or the
total historical energy embodied in any substances (Chen and Chen,
2012). Following the laws of ecology and thermodynamics, energy
flows converge at each lower step to make fewer flows at higher
steps, and the energy hierarchy evolves (Liu and Chen, 2007). As
this occurs, the energy quantity decreases and the energy quality
increases. To reflect the varied hierarchy and quality of different
types of energy in the system, an important parameter named
“transformity” was introduced, which refers to the emergy needed
to obtain 1 joule or gram of a product or service. A higher value of
transformity indicates a higher energy quality and hierarchy, while
all inputs to the system including nature, economics, and infor-
mation can be calculated in terms of solar emjoules (sej) using the
suitable transformities (expressed in sej/J or sej/g) such that
different qualities of energy can be accounted and compared on the
same basis. Presently, emergy evaluation has been widely accepted
as a useful tool for environmental accounting and system evalua-
tion (Lima et al., 2012; Liu and Chen, 2007; Zhang et al., 2012). A
more comprehensive description of the concept, principles, and
applications of the methodology can be found in Odum (1996).
Fig. 1. Technical flow chart of the biogas project.
According to the evaluation procedure developed by Odum
(1996), the first step in emergy evaluation is designing an energy
flow diagram of the system to identify all aspects, their relation-
ships, and categories. In this study, we divided the production
process of BEPS into four steps including raw material treatment,
anaerobic fermentation, solideliquid separation, and electricity
generation based on the life cycle of biogas and electricity pro-
duction, while the production process of BPS was characterized
without the step of electricity generation (Figs. 2 and 3). The second
step is to organize the different inputs in emergy evaluation tables
(Tables 2 and 3) and to convert all components of the system into
emergy by multiplying by transformity factors, which in this study
were mostly derived from previous literatures and relative to the
15.83
1024 sej/year baseline. Therefore, all calculated trans-
formities, beginning with the previously used 9.44
1024 sej/year
standard, were multiplied by 1.68 (Odum et al., 2000). Moreover,
note that in the emergy evaluation, rain and wind are considered to
be coproducts of sunlight, and only the item with the highest value
is accounted for in the total amount of emergy to avoid double
counting (Odum, 1996). The third step is to aggregate all emergy
flows and to analyze the structure of emergy inputs to a system
(Tables 4 and 5). The fourth step is the benefits analysis of the
biogas project (Table 6), and the last step is to calculate emergy
indices to evaluate the system (Table 7). According to the results,
enhancements can be made to improve the system’s development.
The two drawings in Figs. 2 and 3 display the energy system
diagrams of BPS and BEPS, respectively, according to the energy
system symbols suggested by Odum (1996). The chosen system
boundaries and the energy sources driving the processes are shown
in the picture. The energy driving systems are classified into three
aspects according to their source: local renewable energy (R)
shown on the left-hand side of the diagram, local nonrenewable
energy (N) shown in the diagram, and purchased energies (P)
shown on the top, which include nonrenewable purchased energy
(PN) and renewable purchased energy (PR). The yield (Y) is shown
on the right-hand side of the diagram. Some emergy indices were
evaluated according to the classification of energy input. Brief de-
scriptions of the emergy indices are given in Table 1.
2.3. Data source
All of the raw data were surveyed from the biogas project of the
Jinglong Company over the period from June to November 2012. The
emergy of renewable natural resources including solar radiation,
wind, and rainfall, were obtained from the China Meteorological
Data Sharing Service System (http://cdc.cma.gov.cn/home.do;
 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245 237

Fig. 2. Energy flow diagram of the biogas project without electricity generation.

accessed on 24 April 2012). Equipment, construction, and machinery
used in the biogas project were converted to annual flows based on
their expected life length, which was estimated at 20 years for
equipment and construction, and 10 years for machinery. The ex-
change rate between Chinese renminbi (RMB) and U.S. dollars (USD)
used in the paper was 6.22 in 2012. Data on the energy content of
every material was accounted for using the energy coefficient from
Chen (2011) and the formula from Odum (1996). Moreover, the
benefits of reductions in greenhouse gases from this large-scale
biogas project were estimated based on data from Zhang et al.
(2008). The details of raw data calculation procedures are shown
in the Appendix A.
3. Results
3.1. Analysis of emergy input structure
3.1.1. General analysis for the BPS and BEPS
As shown in Tables 4 and 5, the total emergy input of the BPS
and BEPS were 7.60Eþ17 sej/year and 8.76Eþ17 sej/year, respec-
tively. Local resources accounted for 44.4% and 39.7% of the total
emergy inputs for BPS and BEPS, respectively, and the respective
purchased resources accounted for 55.6% and 61.5%.
The proportions of all resources used to support the operation of
the large-scale biogas project are shown in Fig. 4. The annual
manure input for both BPS and BEPS was 3.27Eþ17 sej and
accounted for 37% and 43%, respectively, of the total emergy inputs,
making up the largest single input. The chemical energy of rain
contributed 1.18Eþ14 sej to both of the two systems and repre-
sented less than 1%. As a nonrenewable resource in the area, the
emergy input from groundwater was 1.03Eþ16 sej and accounted
for 1% of the energy in both BPS and BEPS, and was used to dilute
the solid manure.
Moreover, as shown in Fig. 4, purchased resources were very
important for this large-scale biogas project as it was a kind of
engineering project and needed a large amount of economic
feedback energy to support it. As the only renewable purchased
resource, labor inputs were 6.66Eþ16 sej and 8.84Eþ16 sej and
accounted for 9% and 10% of the inputs to BPS and BEPS, respec-
tively, making up the second highest item of renewable resources.
Additionally, of the nonrenewable purchased resources, equipment
emergy input for the BPS and BEPS contributed 19% and 23%,
respectively, of the total emergy input. Service inputs, including
fees for design and installation, accounted for 10% and 12%,
respectively, of the inputs. Because electric generators and related
devices and services were required for electricity production from
the biogas project, the percentage of equipment and service
emergy inputs for BEPS were higher than those for BPS. Construc-
tion investment was also an important part of the total emergy
input and accounted for 10% of both the BPS and BEPS. In addition,

Fig. 3. Energy flow diagram of the biogas project with electricity generation.
238 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245

Table 1 electricity input contributed 7% of the total emergy input for both
Expression and description of emergy indices. the BPS and BEPS; it was used to power the mixing beater and was
Emergy index Expression Description bought outside the farm. The percentage of machinery and fuel
Emergy monetary Y/EMR It is an expression of the emergy one
used to transport manure into the pretreatment tank was less than
value (EmRMB) receives in the product for each dollar 1%. Also, the percentage of lubricant emergy input, which was
paid for the product. needed for the electricity generator, was also less than 1%.
Emission EM/Y It measures the net emission mitigation
mitigation (EM) for per unit emergy input.
3.1.2. Emergy analysis of all steps for the BPS and BEPS
intensity (EMI)
Transformity (Tr) Y/E It measures how much emergy is taken Renewable resources used in the biogas project were mainly
to produce one unit of output and could composed of manure and labor. For the production process of the
be used to evaluate the emergy BPS, the renewable resources were primarily input in the raw ma-
efficiency of production.
terial pretreatment step for the input of manure, which accounted
Renewability (R%) 100
(R þ PR)/Y It is a ratio of the renewable inputs
divided by the total emergy of the
for 43% of the total emergy input. Consequently, the raw material
system and measures the source of the pretreatment was the cardinal emergy input step and accounted for
main power to drive the system. 62% of the total emergy input. The labor emergy input was similar in
Emergy yield ratio Y/P It is a ratio of total emergy divided by each step and accounted for 3% of the total emergy input. Nonre-
(EYR) the purchased emergy and measures the
newable resources were mainly composed of construction invest-
ability of a process to make available
local resources by investing outside ment, service, equipment investment, and electricity, of which the
resources. emergy inputs of construction investment and service were almost
Environmental (N þ PN)/(R þ PR) It is a ratio of total nonrenewable evenly distributed among the three production steps. The emergy
loading ratio emergy divided by the total renewable inputs of the equipment investment were mainly input in the
(ELR) emergy and measures the impact to the
environment around the system.
anaerobic fermentation step, contributing 18% of the total emergy
Emergy EYR/ELR The index is a ratio of EYR divided by input. Electricity was also input at the raw material pretreatment
sustainability ELR and can be used to evaluate the step and accounted for 7% of the total emergy input.
index (ESI) sustainability of a system. Compared with the pure biogas production of the BPS, elec-
Note: (1) Em$, R%, EYR, and ELR are derived from Odum (1996); (2) ESI is derived tricity production from biogas had an additional step, i.e., the
from Ulgiati and Brown (1998); (3) EMI is derived from Chen and Chen (2012); (4) E electricity generation step. The emergy input of this step was
means the energy yield of each product; (5) EMR is a ratio of all emergy supporting
1.16Eþ17 sej/year and accounted for 13% of the total emergy input
the economy of a country to its GDP.
for the BEPS. An additional 2.17Eþ16 sej/year of renewable inputs
in the form of labor were also required for this step. The emergy
inputs of construction, equipment, and service were required for

Table 2
Emergy analysis table of large-scale biogas project without electricity generation in China.

Item Description Unit Class Raw data Transformity Emergy (sej) EmRMB (yuan) %
(sej/unit)

Raw material pretreatment (a)

1 Sun J R 4.32Eþ12 1 0 0 0
2 Rain, geopotential energy J R 1.48Eþ08 4.70Eþ04 0 0 0
3 Rain, chemical energy J R 3.81Eþ09 3.10Eþ04 1.18Eþ14 6.07Eþ01 <1
4 Wind, kinetic energy J R 1.48Eþ09 2.45Eþ03 0 0 0
5 Manure g R 3.37Eþ09 9.70Eþ07 3.27Eþ17 1.68Eþ05 43
6 Groundwater J N 4.02Eþ10 2.55Eþ05 1.03Eþ16 5.27Eþ03 1
7 Fuel for machinery J PN 1.61Eþ10 1.11Eþ05 1.78Eþ15 9.16Eþ02 <1
8 Machinery $ PN 7.50Eþ00 1.21Eþ13 9.08Eþ13 4.67Eþ01 <1
9 Labor J PR 3.06Eþ09 7.56Eþ06 2.32Eþ16 1.19Eþ04 3
10 Electricity J PN 2.06Eþ11 2.69Eþ05 5.55Eþ16 2.85Eþ04 7
11 Construction investment $ PN 1.91Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.31Eþ16 1.19Eþ04 3
12 Equipment investment $ PN 5.87Eþ02 1.21Eþ13 7.10Eþ15 3.65Eþ03 1
13 Service $ PN 2.09Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.53Eþ16 1.30Eþ04 3
Total for raw material pretreatment 4.73Eþ17 2.43Eþ05 62
Anaerobic fermentation (b)
14 Labor J PR 2.87Eþ09 7.56Eþ06 2.17Eþ16 1.12Eþ04 3
15 Desulfurizer kg PN 3.51Eþ02 3.08Eþ12 1.08Eþ15 5.56Eþ02 <1
16 Construction investment $ PN 2.47Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.98Eþ16 1.53Eþ04 4
17 Equipment investment $ PN 1.11Eþ04 1.21Eþ13 1.35Eþ17 6.94Eþ04 18
18 Service $ PN 2.09Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.53Eþ16 1.30Eþ04 3
Total for anaerobic fermentation 2.13Eþ17 1.09Eþ05 28
Y1 Biogas 7.72Eþ12 8.88Eþ04 6.86Eþ17 3.53Eþ05 90
Solideliquid separation (c)
19 Labor J PR 2.87Eþ09 7.56Eþ06 2.17Eþ16 1.12Eþ04 3
20 Construction investment $ PN 1.85Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.24Eþ16 1.15Eþ04 3
21 Equipment investment $ PN 3.62Eþ02 1.21Eþ13 4.38Eþ15 2.25Eþ03 1
22 Service $ PN 2.09Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.53Eþ16 1.30Eþ04 3
Total for solideliquid separation 7.37Eþ16 3.79Eþ04 10
Y2 Biogas slurry 4.23Eþ10 1.80Eþ07 7.60Eþ17 3.91Eþ05 100
Y3 Biogas residue 2.29Eþ12 3.32Eþ05 7.60Eþ17 3.91Eþ05 100
EM 1.32Eþ09g

Transformity references for respective row number: (1)e(4), (7) (10) Odum (1996); (5) Ciotola et al. (2011); (6) Bastianoni and Marchettini (2000); (9), (14), (19) Brandt-
Williams (2002); (15) Zhou et al. (2010); the others Hu et al. (2010).
 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245 239

Table 3
Emergy analysis table of large-scale biogas project with electricity generation in China.

Item Description Unit Class Raw data Transformity Emergy (sej) EmRMB (yuan) %
(sej/unit)

Raw material pretreatment (a)

1 Sun J R 4.32Eþ12 1 0 0 0
2 Rain, geopotential energy J R 1.48Eþ08 4.70Eþ04 0 0 0
3 Rain, chemical energy J R 3.81Eþ09 3.10Eþ04 1.18Eþ14 6.07Eþ01 <1
4 Wind, kinetic energy J R 1.48Eþ09 2.45Eþ03 0 0 0
5 Manure g R 3.37Eþ09 9.70Eþ07 3.27Eþ17 1.68Eþ05 37
6 Groundwater J N 4.02Eþ10 2.55Eþ05 1.03Eþ16 5.27Eþ03 1
7 Fuel for machinery J PN 1.61Eþ10 1.11Eþ05 1.78Eþ15 9.16Eþ02 <1
8 Machinery $ PN 7.50Eþ00 1.21Eþ13 9.08Eþ13 4.67Eþ01 <1
9 Labor J PR 3.06Eþ09 7.56Eþ06 2.32Eþ16 1.19Eþ04 3
10 Electricity J PN 2.06Eþ11 2.69Eþ05 5.55Eþ16 2.85Eþ04 6
11 Construction investment $ PN 1.91Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.31Eþ16 1.19Eþ04 3
12 Equipment investment $ PN 5.87Eþ02 1.21Eþ13 7.10Eþ15 3.65Eþ03 1
13 Service $ PN 2.09Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.53Eþ16 1.30Eþ04 3
Total for raw material pretreatment 4.73Eþ17 2.43Eþ05 54
Anaerobic fermentation (b)
14 Labor J PR 2.87Eþ09 7.56Eþ06 2.17Eþ16 1.12Eþ04 2
15 Desulfurizer kg PN 3.51Eþ02 3.08Eþ12 1.08Eþ15 5.56Eþ02 <1
16 Construction investment $ PN 2.47Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.98Eþ16 1.53Eþ04 3
17 Equipment investment $ PN 1.11Eþ04 1.21Eþ13 1.35Eþ17 6.94Eþ04 15
18 Service $ PN 2.09Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.53Eþ16 1.30Eþ04 3
Total for anaerobic fermentation 2.13Eþ17 1.09Eþ05 24
Y1 Biogas 5.34Eþ12 1.28Eþ05 6.86Eþ17 3.53Eþ05 78
Solideliquid separation (c)
19 Labor J PR 2.87Eþ09 7.56Eþ06 2.17Eþ16 1.12Eþ04 2
20 Construction investment $ PN 1.85Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.24Eþ16 1.15Eþ04 3
21 Equipment investment $ PN 3.62Eþ02 1.21Eþ13 4.38Eþ15 2.25Eþ03 <1
22 Service $ PN 2.09Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.53Eþ16 1.30Eþ04 3
Total for solideliquid separation 7.37Eþ16 3.79Eþ04 8
Y2 Biogas slurry 4.23Eþ10 1.80Eþ07 7.60Eþ17 3.91Eþ05 87
Y3 Biogas residue 2.29Eþ12 3.32Eþ05 7.60Eþ17 3.91Eþ05 87
Electricity generation (d)
23 Lubricant J PN 1.99Eþ09 1.11Eþ05 2.20Eþ14 1.13Eþ02 <1
24 Labor J PR 2.87Eþ09 7.56Eþ06 2.17Eþ16 1.12Eþ04 2
25 Construction investment $ PN 1.01Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 1.22Eþ16 6.27Eþ03 1
26 Equipment investment $ PN 4.70Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 5.69Eþ16 2.93Eþ04 6
27 Service $ PN 2.09Eþ03 1.21Eþ13 2.53Eþ16 1.30Eþ04 3
Total for electricity generation 1.16Eþ17 5.98Eþ04 13
Y4 Electricity 3.33Eþ12 2.63Eþ05 8.76Eþ17 4.50Eþ05 100
EM 1.11Eþ09g

Transformity references for respective row number: (1)e(4), (7) (10) (23) Odum (1996); (5) Ciotola et al. (2011); (6) Bastianoni and Marchettini (2000); (9), (14), (19) (24)
Brandt-Williams (2002); (15) Zhou et al. (2010); the others Hu et al. (2010).

electricity generation. Note that equipment emergy was the pri-
mary input of this step, accounting for 6% of the total emergy
input. The other three production steps for BEPS had the same
allocation of resources as BPS with the only difference being a
changed percentage due to the total emergy input being higher in
the former.
3.2. Emergy output analysis
The outputs of the biogas project were biogas, biogas slurry,
biogas residue, and electricity. BPS required 7.76Eþ17 sej/year,
while BEPS required 8.76Eþ17 sej/year. The large-scale biogas
project could produce 4.23Eþ10 J biogas slurry and 2.29Eþ12 J
biogas residue each year with resulting transformities of
1.80Eþ07 sej/J and 3.32Eþ05 sej/J, respectively. Moreover, since
the biogas had not been fully used to generate electricity,
5.34Eþ12 J of biogas remained to be produced every year for BEPS
with a calculated transformity of 1.28Eþ05 sej/J, while the amount
of biogas from BPS was 7.72Eþ12 J with a calculated transformity
of 8.88Eþ04 sej/J. At the same time, the 120 kW generator pro-
duced 3.33Eþ12 J/year electricity with a transformity of
2.63Eþ05 sej/J.
3.3. Economic and ecological economic benefits
Results from the detailed economic and ecological economic
benefits analysis of the BPS and BEPS systems are shown in Table 6.
Table 5
Emergy input structure of the BPS and BEPS.

Item Expression Percentage (%)

Table 4
Ratio of local resource to total (RB þ NB)/YB 44.4
Aggregate emergy flows of the BPS and BEPS.
emergy in BPS
Emergy flows (sej/year) BPS BEPS Ratio of local resource to total (RE þ NE)/YE 39.7
emergy in BEPS
Local renewable resource (R) 3.27Eþ17 3.27Eþ17 Ratio of purchased resource to total PB/YB 55.6
Local non-renewable resource (N) 1.03Eþ16 1.03Eþ16 emergy in BPS
Total purchased resource (P) 4.23Eþ17 5.39Eþ17 Ratio of purchased resource to total PE/YE 61.5
Renewable emergy (R) 3.94Eþ17 4.15Eþ17 emergy in BEPS
Non-renewable emergy (N) 3.66Eþ17 4.61Eþ17
Total emergy (Y) 7.60Eþ17 8.76Eþ17 Note: the subscript “B” means biogas production and the “E” means biogas plus
electricity production.
240 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245

Table 6
Benefits analysis of the biogas project.

Item Market value (yuan) EmRMB (yuan)

BPS BEPS BPS BEPS

Biogas 6.65Eþ05 4.60Eþ05 3.53Eþ05 3.53Eþ05

Biogas slurry 4.05Eþ05 4.05Eþ05 3.91Eþ05 3.91Eþ05
Biogas residue 2.61Eþ05 2.61Eþ05 3.91Eþ05 3.91Eþ05
Electricity / 2.13Eþ05 / 4.50Eþ05
Total cost 2.09Eþ05 2.69Eþ05 3.91Eþ05 4.50Eþ05
Total sale 1.33Eþ06 1.34Eþ06 3.91Eþ05 4.50Eþ05
Net benefit 1.12Eþ06 1.07Eþ06 / /

Note: “/”means that the system has not this item.

In general, the BPS system produced 3.69Eþ05 m3/year biogas as

fuel to supply the energy demand of households, and produced
8.11Eþ06 kg/year of biogas slurry and 1.30Eþ06 kg/year of biogas
residue, which was used as an organic fertilizer on farm crops. The
sale prices of biogas, biogas slurry, and residue were respectively
1.8 yuan/m3, 0.2 yuan/kg, and 0.05 yuan/kg. Calculated at these
prices, the total sale of market value in BPS was 1.33Eþ06 yuan/year
and the net benefit was 1.12Eþ06 yuan/year. The ecological eco-
nomic benefit of the BPS, expressed as the emergy monetary value,
was 4.77Eþ05 yuan/year.
For BEPS, 2.6Eþ05 m3/year of biogas was produced to supply
households and 2.6Eþ05 kWh electricity was generated for use on
the farm. Calculating the price of electricity at 0.8 yuan/kWh, the
sale of electricity was valued at 2.13Eþ05 yuan/year. Additionally,
the amounts of biogas slurry and residue were the same as for BPS.
Therefore, the total sale of the market value in BEPS was
1.34Eþ06 yuan/year. The net benefit was calculated as
1.07Eþ06 yuan/year, declining 4.5% compared to the BPS. The
ecological economic benefit of the BEPS expressed by the emergy
monetary value was 5.37Eþ05 yuan/year.

3.4. Emergy-based indices Fig. 4. Resource input structure of the biogas project.

Six emergy indices were calculated for BPS and BEPS (Table 7).
The transformity was 7.56Eþ04 sej/J for BPS and 7.97Eþ04 sej/J for 4. Discussion
BEPS according to the suggested approach to evaluate the system
with coproduction (Bastianoni and Marchettini, 2000). The differ- 4.1. Comparison between the large-scale biogas project and other
ence between them was due to a large number of purchased re- energy production systems
sources input into the electricity generation step of BEPS. The EMI
of BPS (17.37) was higher than that of BEPS (12.67), and the results 4.1.1. Transformity
showed that BPS had a superior emission reduction benefit. The Transformity is the ratio of total emergy required by the system
EYR values of BPS and BEPS were 1.80 and 1.63, respectively, indi- to the energy of each product. It is an effective measure to evaluate
cating that the former could use local resources more efficiently. the emergy efficiency of production (Brown and Ulgiati, 2004): the
Moreover, the value of R% declined from 51.80 to 47.40, and the ELR higher the transformity, the lower the emergy efficiency of pro-
increased from 0.93 to 1.11 for BPS and BEPS, respectively, showing duction. The transformity values of biogas for the BPS and BEPS
that electricity generation raised the environmental pressure of the were 8.88Eþ04 sej/J and 1.28Eþ05 sej/J, respectively, which were
biogas project. The ESI value of BEPS (1.47) was lower than that of 95.6% and 93.7% lower, respectively, than that of the FIOPPS system
BPS (1.93), indicating that the sustainability of the biogas project (2.04Eþ06 sej/J) (Wei et al., 2009) and 93.0% and 89.8%, respec-
decreased due to electricity generation. tively, lower than that of the BLAS system (1.26 þ 06 sej/J) (Chen
and Chen, 2012). These results demonstrated that the emergy ef-
ficiency of biogas production from the large-scale biogas project
Table 7 was higher than that of the small-scale project.
Emergy-based indices for the BPS and BEPS.
The transformity of electricity production from biogas for BEPS
BPS BEPS (2.63Eþ05 sej/J) was 83.5% lower than that of the small-scale
Tr (sej/J) 7.56Eþ04 7.97Eþ04 agricultural digesters in EARTH University in Costa Rica
EMI (g/1010sej) 17.37 12.67 (1.59Eþ06 sej/J) (Ciotola et al., 2011) and 77.9% lower than that of a
R% (%) 51.80 47.40 dairy farm in Italy (1.19Eþ06 sej/J) (Bastianoni and Marchettini,
EYR 1.80 1.63 2000). This means that the emergy efficiency of electricity pro-
ELR 0.93 1.11
ESI 1.93 1.47
duction from the large-scale biogas project was higher than that of
the small-scale project. However, compared with the electricity
 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245
production from solar (8.92Eþ04 sej/J) (Paoli et al., 2008) and coal
power plants (1.60Eþ05 sej/J) (Odum, 1996), the efficiency of
electricity from biogas was lower, which means that the electricity
production from solar and coal power plants had a higher “energy
return on investment” than the present biogas project. We should,
however, consider that the electricity produced from biogas in this
paper did not use all of the biogas produced from the project. As
3.33Eþ12 J electricity was generated from 1.14Eþ05 m3 of biogas in
this project every year, we could simulate the result when all of the
biogas from the project was used to generate electricity; the result
was that 1.08Eþ13 J electricity was generated from 3.70Eþ05 m3
biogas with a calculated transformity of 8.13Eþ04 sej/J. This value
was lower than electricity from the coal power plant and from solar.
In particular, the electricity from biogas addressed the problem of
CO2 emissions caused by electricity from a coal power plant.
Moreover, we should note that the biogas project represents a
system that produces co-products such as biogas slurry and res-
idue, in addition to energy production from biogas and electricity,
giving it additional benefits over other systems of energy produc-
tion. In this study, as shown in Table 7, the transformity values of
BPS and BEPS were 7.56Eþ04 sej/J and 7.97Eþ04 sej/J, respectively,
which were calculated by a new approach proposed by Bastianoni
and Marchettini (2000). According to their approach, transformity
was calculated by summing all of the energies of all outputs of
coproduction and then by dividing the total emergy required by the
system (Cavalett et al., 2006). Because the biogas slurry and residue
were used as organic fertilizer and indirectly reduced the con-
sumption of the fossil fuel energy traditionally needed to produce
chemical fertilizers, the efficiency of energy production by the
biogas project was far higher than that of other energy production
systems from a macroscopic standpoint. In addition, the trans-
formity values of the coproducts in this study were lower than the
ones found by Zhou et al. (2010) (2.28Eþ05 sej/J) and Wei et al.
(2009) (2.06Eþ05 sej/J) but higher than those reported by Ciotola
et al. (2011) (5.09Eþ04 sej/J), indicating that the efficiency of the
large-scale biogas project had improved over small-scale projects
in China and but was less efficient than a similar plant in the United
States. Visibly, the technical level of the biogas project from the
United States was better than China’s present technology.
4.1.2. Emission mitigation intensity (EMI)
Many studies have reported on the benefits of greenhouse gas
reduction from current biogas projects (Rehl and Müller, 2013;
Zhang et al., 2008). However, the relationship between energy ef-
ficiency and emission mitigation has not been considered widely. In
this study, we introduced the new index (EMI) from Chen and Chen
(2012) to evaluate the emission mitigation intensity per unit of
emergy input for a large-scale biogas project in China. The results
gave an EMI value 17.37 g/1010sej for BPS and 12.67 g/1010sej for
BEPS, which were 172.7 and 125.7 times higher, respectively, than
the small-scale biogas projects in China (0.10 g/1010sej) (Chen and
Chen, 2012). This indicated that the large-scale biogas project had
greater reduction benefits in terms of greenhouse gases per unit
emergy input. Note that the EMI value calculated in the study only
considered the circumstances of substituting coal, crop straw, and
firewood with biogas to heat as well as the electricity from a coal
power plant to that from biogas. If we further considered the
reduction benefits from manure disposal and organic fertilizer on
the farm, the EMI values would be higher, and the question should
be studied further with emergy analysis and LCA in the future.
4.1.3. Renewability (R%)
The R% values of the BPS (51.80) and BEPS (47.40) were 1.61 and
1.39 times higher, respectively, than that of ethanol production
from wheat in China (19.81) and 3.58 and 3.19 times higher,
241
respectively, than that of ethanol production from corn in Italy
(11.31) (Dong et al., 2008), indicating that the operation of the
large-scale biogas project relies on more renewable resources when
compared with the two ethanol production systems. Although
these were all renewable energy production systems, we concluded
that producing biogas as alternative energy may be more sustain-
able than ethanol production according to our results. However, the
values were 33.8% and 39.5% lower, respectively, than those re-
ported in the literature by Wei et al. (2009) (78.29), and 21.5% and
28.2% lower, respectively, than the values reported by Ciotola et al.
(2011) (66.00). These results showed that the nonrenewable
resource used by the large-scale biogas project was higher than
that of small-scale projects in that the investment and operating
costs of the former were much higher than those of the latter. For
example, the 1000 m3 biogas project evaluated here received an
investment of 6.48Eþ05 dollars, in which the 49.63% of cost came
from the support of government funding. Undoubtedly, the cost of
larger-scale biogas projects is very high and thus we also believe
that the development of large-scale biogas projects still requires
government support.
4.1.4. Emergy yield ratio (EYR)
The EYR index is very useful in analyzing energy production and
exploitation. In general, primary energy sources, such as crude oil,
coal, and natural gas, show values of EYR greater than 5 (Cavalett
et al., 2006). Thus the EYR values for the BPS (1.80) and BEPS
(1.63) were lower than those of other energy sources, indicating
that the performance of renewable energy production from the
biogas project was not better than these traditional industries of
energy production in exploiting local resource and contributing to
economic development. Note, however, that as nonrenewable re-
sources such as oil and natural gas become scarcer, the remaining
amounts become increasingly more expensive and more energy
must be used for discovery and extraction (Ciotola et al., 2011; Hall
et al., 2008). Since the 1973 energy crisis, the EYR value has
declined, perhaps 1e2% per year (Odum, 1996). In addition, elec-
tricity production besides the biogas exists for the BEPS and it was a
relative high-quality energy compared with most fuels. Generating
electricity from fuels used up inputs from the economy so that
electricity had a lower EYR value, about 2.5, such as that of the
electricity from a coal power plant in Texas, USA, at 2.2 (Odum,
1996). Therefore, the performance of the electricity from biogas
would inevitably be better than that from coal in the future
considering the exacerbation of the global energy crisis, although
the EYR of electricity from biogas was lower than that from tradi-
tional power plants currently.
4.1.5. Environmental loading ratio (ELR)
In general, the ELR values of around 2 or less are indicative of
relatively low environmental impacts (Cavalett et al., 2006). In this
study, the ELR of BPS (0.93) and BEPS (1.11) were less than 2,
indicating that the renewable energy produced from the biogas
project had almost no deleterious effects on the environment. In
contrast to the ELR of bioethanol from wheat in China (4.05) and
from corn in Italy (7.84) (Dong et al., 2008), the renewable energy
production from biogas had lower impacts to the environment.
However, the value was higher than that from Wei et al. (2009)
(0.28) and from Zhou et al. (2010) (0.15), indicating that the
large-scale biogas project had more environmental impacts than
small-scale biogas projects in China. Two possible reasons exist.
The construction and operation of the large-scale biogas project
needed more nonrenewable resources; moreover, we used the
monetary investment of construction, equipment, and service to
calculate their solar emergy input in the paper, thus these input
items were all regarded as nonrenewable resources. In fact, these
242 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245
kinds of inputs contained the renewable portion. If these inputs
were separated into different materials including two parts of
renewable and nonrenewable resources, the ELR value of the large
biogas project would be reduced.
4.1.6. Emergy sustainability index (ESI)
The sustainability of an energy system is an important consid-
eration for renewable energy production systems because the
feasibility of these systems depends on them being more sustain-
able than other alternatives. In this study, the ESI values for the BPS
and BEPS were 1.93 and 1.47, respectively. By some examples,
Ulgiati and Brown (1998) indicated that systems had vigor and
potential for development when the ESI value is between 1 and 10.
According to these results, the large-scale biogas project had po-
tential for development, and the sustainabilities of the BPS and
BEPS were also 5.23 and 1.16 times higher, respectively, than bio-
ethanol production from wheat in China (0.31), and 11.87 and 8.8
times higher, respectively, than that from corn in Italy (0.15) (Dong
et al., 2008). However, the ESI values of the BPS and BEPS were
66.4% and 74.4% lower, respectively, than that of FIOPPS (5.74) in
China (Wei et al., 2009) and 66.0% and 74.1% lower, respectively,
than biogas production (5.67) at EARTH University in Costa Rica
(Ciotola et al., 2011).
4.2. Comparison between biogas and electricity production from
biogas
The transformity and emergy indices for the BPS and BEPS
showed that the change from biogas to electricity production
resulted in a reduction in the emergy efficiency and sustainability
of the system. While this was likely due to the use of nonrenewable
resources in the step of electricity generation, the reason was
perhaps that the energy loss in terms of heat was aggravated 30% in
the process of electricity production for the extension of the pro-
duction chain according to the study by Jeong et al. (2009). The
result was also consistent with the study of Ciotola et al. (2011),
indicating that the ecological performance of electricity generation
from biogas was indeed worse than that of biogas production,
whether it was large-scale or small-scale and in China or the United
States.
However, we could not simply conclude that the production of
biogas is not a worthwhile form of electricity generation from
biogas according to the result above. First, electricity is a kind of
energy with high-quality and diverse functions such as lighting and
fuel for motor vehicles, which can obviously not be replaced by
low-quality energy such as biogas. In this study, the large-scale
biogas project was able to provide electricity for the milking of
cows using machines on this farm. Thus, the electricity generation
from biogas was very useful for the farm as it decreased the energy
input outside the farm and increased the self-sufficiency capacity of
system. Second, anaerobic fermentation is a temperature-
dependent process, and constant temperature is a necessary con-
dition for the yield of biogas. The large-scale biogas project with
electricity generation was able to use the waste heat from elec-
tricity generation to satisfy the temperature demand of the raw
material pretreatment and anaerobic fermentation steps as well as
to reduce the demand for coal in heating and the direct emissions of
greenhouse gases. Especially in the north of China, biogas projects
generally stop operations or become heated by coal in winter. The
biogas project with electricity generation can work under the
condition of nonrenewable resource reduction and ensure the
continuous production of renewable energy and disposal of agri-
cultural waste year-round.
From the perspective of economic benefit, the net benefits of
electricity generation from biogas were lower than those from
biogas production, mainly due to the price of biogas presently being
1.25 times higher than that of electricity. This situation has resulted
because China has not yet formulated a mandatory bill for the
purchase of the electricity from renewable resources, and power
companies using various pretexts have refused to buy electricity
from biogas with the higher price. This is also why few biogas
projects for power generation currently exist in China. In contrast,
the benefits from electricity generation have become the main in-
come of biogas projects in developed countries.
4.3. The measures of improvement
According to the analysis and discussion above, we discovered
that the large-scale biogas project in China still had some short-
comings in terms of the sustainability of the system compared to
small-scale projects at present. In particular, the sustainability of
biogas declined when the step of electricity generation was added
into the biogas project. Nevertheless, we considered that the
ecological performance of this biogas project would be improved
by some measures of energy regulation according to the analysis of
each step of biogas production above.
For the large-scale biogas project, the primary factor influencing
the sustainability of the system was the quantity of raw materials
inputted in the pretreatment step. Theoretically, the ability of the
large-scale biogas project to dispose of waste is better than that of
the small-scale biogas project due largely to the bigger pool ca-
pacity and the faster reaction speed. In this study, however, the
amount of disposed manure of the 1000 m3 biogas project was
1.42Eþ06 kg/year and was smaller than that of the 700 m3 biogas
project in Zhou et al. (2010), in which the amount of solid manure
was only 6.07Eþ06 kg/year. Obviously, the amount of disposed
manure from the biogas project in this study was not operating at
an optimal capacity. Therefore, if we estimated the theoretical
amount of disposed manure of the 1000 m3 biogas project ac-
cording to the ratio of the disposed manure amount to the volume
of the 700 m3 biogas project, we would have concluded the theo-
retical quantity to be 8.67Eþ06 kg/year. To simulate the emergy
evaluation result of the biogas project with the estimated value, we
used the relative emergy index with an ESI value of 5.20 for BEPS.
Comparing the index in the study (ESI ¼ 1.47), the measure
improved the sustainability of the biogas project 2.54 times.
Consequently, raising the amount of raw material input would be
an effective measure for improving sustainability of the biogas
project according to a suitable capacity to dispose of agricultural
waste.
Moreover, some experts have reported that anaerobic fermen-
tation with mixed materials was conducive to the stability of gas
production (Chen et al., 2010; Li et al., 2011). Currently, the raw
material fermented in China is mainly manure from different ani-
mals. The raw material fermented in this study was all pig manure.
If the farm contributed different materials to the biogas project, the
emergy efficiency would be improved to some extent.
The amount of nonrenewable resources input into the system
affected the system’s sustainability as well. For the large-scale
biogas project in this study, the emergy input of equipment was
undoubtedly the most primary nonrenewable resource and greatly
affected the sustainability of the system. The anaerobic fermenta-
tion and electricity generation were the main steps with inputs, and
the technical complexity of these two steps led to these results.
Therefore, a key measure for the sustainability of the system would
be to regulate the equipment investment in these two steps. The
CSTR anaerobic integration technology adopted in this study is
widely used in the world at present and the investment of the CSTR
reactor reached 1.85Eþ05 dollars, which accounted for 28.5% of the
total investment in this biogas project. If the price of a reactor
 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245
declined with the development of relative technology in the future
in China, then the direct or indirect emergy input of equipment in
the fermentation step would be reduced and hence improve the
sustainability of large-scale biogas projects in China. Also, the
expensive generator resulted in the enhancement of emergy input
in the electricity generation step for the BEPS. Lansing et al. (2008)
reported that a 15 kW generator would cost $25,000 less than a
40 kW generator and would perform more efficiently than the
larger generator for the relatively small amount of daily biogas
produced (Ciotola et al., 2011; Lansing et al., 2008). Therefore,
choosing a more appropriately sized generator according to the
demand of the farm is important, which would be helpful for the
emergy efficiency and sustainability of BEPS.
Last but not the least, electricity in the pretreatment step of this
biogas project was also a primary input of nonrenewable resources.
If the consumption of electricity resulting from the coal power
plant in this step could be replaced by the power resulting from
electricity generation of the biogas project itself, then the ESI value
of the system would be 2.95 by simulation and calculation, and the
sustainability of BEPS would be improved by 19.9% compared to the
present ESI (2.46).
4.4. The game between the state and factories on large-scale biogas
projects in China
Compared with small-scale biogas projects, large-scale biogas
projects have a higher capacity to treat agricultural waste and
produce renewable energy. However, the “energy return” of the
biogas project is lower than that of traditional energy such as coal,
natural gas and petroleum. Rather, the costs of biogas and elec-
tricity from biogas are higher than that of traditional energy and
demand higher investments and technology of large-scale biogas
production. Therefore, farmers do not have incentives to use the
biogas as fuel and electric power enterprises have not been willing
to purchase the electricity from biogas. This situation further re-
sults in the waste of large amounts of renewable energy and the
weak incentives of factories to generate electricity from biogas.
Many factories are not willing to build large-scale biogas projects if
they will not get subsidized by the state. In fact, the relationship
between the state and factories on the development of large-scale
biogas project in China can be described with the prisoner’s
dilemma. The game promises a defecting individual the highest
fitness if facing a cooperator (Perc and Szolnoki, 2010). Because the
cost of government and the investment of factories both will be
reduced if they do not cooperate to develop the large-scale biogas
project in China. In the short term, this will possibly be good for the
state and factories.
In the long term, however, biogas and electricity from biogas, as
the renewable energy, play important roles in regulating the energy
structure in China. According to the demand and plan of the
“Renewable Energy Law” and relevant polices in China, the per-
centage of non-fossil energy should be 15% in energy consumption
by 2020. Consequently, the interest in renewable energy such as
biogas and electricity from biogas between the state and factories
has not reached a consensus. To some content, it is a public goods
game between the Chinese government and factories as well.
At present, many papers have studied the question of the public
goods game with evolutionary games, concerning which factors
contribute to unfavorable outcomes (Santos et al., 2008; Brede and De
Vries, 2010; Perc et al., 2013). Dercole et al. (2013) used models to
show that over-punishing was not necessary to fix cooperation in
voluntary public goods games. Yang et al. (2013) indicated that if
group quality was appropriate for recommendation, cooperation and
recommendation could simultaneously emerge. Choi and Ahn (2013)
also showed that the level of cooperation was indistinguishable
243
between the punishment and reward treatments when group
membership did not change but the reward treatment showed
stronger endgame effects and that punishment was much more
effective than reward when group membership changed randomly
between rounds. Visibly, the appropriate punishment, reward and
recommendation are the three effective methods to promote the
cooperation between the state and factories and to resolve the
dilemma of the large-scale biogas project development in China.
For the state, the key point of cooperation is that whether the
government can provide rational policies and laws to improve
the price of renewable energy and promote factories to build
large-scale biogas projects. At the same time, the state should
also encourage farmers to use renewable energy by providing
allowances as well. Moreover, to strengthen the punishment of
discharge of agricultural waste will also promote factories to
develop biogas. By cooperating with factories to develop the
large-scale biogas project, the national energy structure will be
improved and the environmental pressure will be reduced in
China. Also, cooperation can help factories to avoid punishments,
to extend the industrial chain and to increase benefits from
renewable energy production. The cooperation between the two
sides on large-scale biogas projects will protect national energy
security and the sustainability of economic development. It
causes the state and factories to both acquire more interest and
to adopt “coevolution” as well.
5. Conclusion
With the energy crisis going worse and globe warming at
alarming rate, it seems inevitable to ascertain a renewable and
clean energy production systems. Biogas projects are indispensable
part of such systems. In the current study, the concept of LCA was
introduced into the emergy evaluation to analyze the economic and
ecological performance of a large-scale biogas project in China. We
evaluated the efficiency and sustainability of the large-scale project
and factors affecting the performance of the system were recorded.
The result indicated that the large-scale biogas project was a
renewable energy source with improved emergy efficiency and
sustainability. Nevertheless, the “energy return” of biogas and
electricity from biogas production systems was lower than the
traditional coal and natural gas power plants at present, but un-
doubtedly, it would show more advantages in the future due to the
increasingly exhausting fossil energy. Our study findings edged the
biogas system over traditional energy sources in terms of the total
energy yield plus indirect energy conservation after noting the
biogas co-products, namely, biogas slurry and residue. Moreover,
the sustainability of biogas system is higher than that of other
renewable energy such as ethanol from corn.
Our research data showed that large scale biogas project had
better emergy efficiency and emission mitigation intensity; how-
ever, its sustainability was lower than that of small-scale biogas. We
concluded that the principal factors affecting the sustainability of
the large-scale biogas project were the scarcity of raw material in
the pretreatment step and the involvement of costly equipment in
the anaerobic fermentation and electricity generation steps.
Therefore, we suggested that three measures on the basis of our
findings possibly solved the problem. Firstly, an appropriate
amount and ratio of raw material would be helpful in improving the
sustainability of the large-scale biogas project making it cost
worthy. Secondly, the sustainability of the system would be
ameliorated by using the electricity from the biogas system. Finally,
the development of technology and the reduction of the equipment
investment of fermentation and the generator in China would
enhance the efficiency and sustainability of large-scale biogas
projects.
244 X. Wang et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 65 (2014) 234e245
On this basis, we compared the performance of biogas and
electricity production of this project. The study indicated that the
economic and ecological benefit of electricity generation from
biogas was indeed meagre than current biogas production. How-
ever, electricity is a kind of high-quality energy which has diverse
functions, and the waste heat from electricity generation can be
used to satisfy the temperature demand of the operation of biogas
project in winter. Therefore, whether or not the conversion from
biogas to electricity needs to be decided based on the demand of
the system.
In a nutshell, biogas project in China is turning toward large-
scale projects to accommodate agricultural modernization. The
development of large-scale biogas projects is in fact a public goods
game between the Chinese government and factories. The coop-
eration between these two sides will play a crucial role in national
energy security, environmental protection, and the factories’
development. With the increased demand of renewable energy and
the development of large-scale farms, large-scale biogas projects
will play a leading role in China. Consequently, a broad prospect
exists for the development of large-scale biogas projects in China.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the National Key Technology R&D
Program of the People’s Republic of China (Project numbers
2011BAD16B15 and 2012BAD14B03). We thank anonymous re-
viewers and editors for very helpful comments and suggestion of
the manuscript.
Appendix A
Calculations and references to Table 3.
There are no calculations about the raw data in Table 2 as the
each input item of first three steps of it are the same to the ones in
Table 3. And all “land area” in the Appendix A corresponds to the
area where the large-scale biogas project are placed.
a. Raw material pretreatment
1. Sun: Isolation ¼ 5.06Eþ9 J/m2/year. Albedo ¼ 20% (Hu et al.,
2010). Land area ¼ 1067 m2. Energy (J) ¼ 5.06Eþ9 J/m2/
year
(1e20%)
1067 m2 ¼ 4.32Eþ12 J/year.
2. Rain, geopotential energy: Average elevation ¼ 19.55 m. Land
area ¼ 1067 m2. Rainfall ¼ 723 mm/year.
Conversion ¼ 1000 kg/m3. Gravity ¼ 9.8 m/s2. Energy
(J) ¼ 19.55 m
0.723 m/year
1067 m2
1000 kg/m3
9.8 m/
s2 ¼ 1.48Eþ08 J/year.
3. Rain, chemical potential energy: Land area ¼ 1067 m2.
Rainfall ¼ 723 mm/year. Conversion ¼ 1000 kg/m3. Gibbs free
energy ¼ 4900 J/kg. Energy (J) ¼ 0.723 m
1067 m2
1000 kg/
m3
4900 J/kg ¼ 3.81Eþ09 J/year.
4. Wind, kinetic energy: Land area ¼ 1067 m2. Atmosphere
layer ¼ 1000 m. Air density ¼ 103 kg/m3. Wind speed ¼ 2.5 m/s
(Wei et al., 2009). Energy (J) ¼ 1000 m
1067 m2
103 kg/
m3
2.5 m/s ¼ 1.48Eþ09 J/year.
5. Manure: Average quantity ¼ 3.37Eþ9 g/year.
6. Groundwater: Average quantity ¼ 8.21Eþ06 m3/year.
Conversion ¼ 1000 kg/m3. Gibbs free energy ¼ 4900 J/kg. En-
ergy (J) ¼ 8.21Eþ06 m3/year
1000 kg/m3
4900 J/
kg ¼ 4.02Eþ10 J/year.
7. Fuel for machinery: Average quantity ¼ 3.65Eþ02 kg/year.
Conversion ¼ 4.40Eþ07 J/kg (Chen, 2011). Energy
(J) ¼ 3.65Eþ02 kg/year
4.40Eþ07 J/kg ¼ 1.61Eþ10 J/year.
8. Machinery: Average quantity ¼ 7.50 $/year.
9. Labor: Average quantity ¼ 2.43Eþ02 days/year. Daily working
time is 8 h. Conversion ¼ 1.26Eþ07 J/day (Chen, 2011). Energy
(J) ¼ 2.43Eþ02 days/year
1.26Eþ07 J/day ¼ 3.06Eþ09 J/year.
10. Electricity: Average quantity ¼ 1.65Eþ04 kWh/year.
Conversion ¼ 1.25Eþ07 J/kWh (Chen, 2011). Energy
(J) ¼ 1.65Eþ04 kWh/year
1.25Eþ07 J/kWh ¼ 2.06Eþ11 J/year.
11. Construction investment: Average quantity ¼ 1.91Eþ03 $/year.
12. Equipment investment: Average quantity ¼ 5.87Eþ02 $/year.
13. Service: Average quantity ¼ 2.09Eþ03 $/year.
b Anaerobic fermentation
14. Labor: Average quantity ¼ 2.28Eþ02 days/year. Daily working
time is 8 h. Conversion ¼ 1.26Eþ07 J/day (Chen, 2011). Energy
(J) ¼ 2.28Eþ02 days/year
1.26Eþ07 J/day ¼ 2.87Eþ09 J/year.
15. Desulfurizer: Average quantity ¼ 3.51Eþ02 kg/year.
16. Construction investment: Average quantity ¼ 2.47Eþ03 $/year.
17. Equipment investment: Average quantity ¼ 1.11Eþ04 $/year.
18. Service: Average quantity ¼ 2.09Eþ03 $/year.
c Solideliquid separation
19. Labor: Average quantity ¼ 2.28Eþ02 days/year. Daily working
time is 8 h. Conversion ¼ 1.26Eþ07 J/day (Chen, 2011). Energy
(J) ¼ 2.28Eþ02 days/year
1.26Eþ07 J/day ¼ 2.87Eþ09 J/year.
20. Construction investment: Average quantity ¼ 1.85Eþ03 $/year.
21. Equipment investment: Average quantity ¼ 3.62Eþ02 $/year.
22. Service: Average quantity ¼ 2.09Eþ03 $/year.
d Electricity generation
23. Lubricant: Average quantity ¼ 4.51Eþ01 kg/year.
Conversion ¼ 4.40Eþ07 J/kg (Chen, 2011). Energy
(J) ¼ 4.51Eþ01 kg/year
4.40Eþ07 J/kg ¼ 1.99Eþ09 J/year.
24. Labor: Average quantity ¼ 2.28Eþ02 days/year. Daily working
time is 8 h. Conversion ¼ 1.26Eþ07 J/day (Chen, 2011). Energy
(J) ¼ 2.28Eþ02 days/year
1.26Eþ07 J/day ¼ 2.87Eþ09 J/year.
25. Construction investment: Average quantity ¼ 1.01Eþ03 $/year.
26. Equipment investment: Average quantity ¼ 4.70Eþ03 $/year.
27. Service: Average quantity ¼ 2.09Eþ03 $/year.
EM:
The amount of biogas to generate electricity from large-scale
biogas project was 1.53Eþ07 m3 in 2005, reducing emissions of
CO2 2.66Eþ07 kg; and 3.25Eþ08 m3 biogas was used to heat,
reducing emissions of CO2 1.16Eþ09 kg (Zhang et al., 2008).
Estimating based on the data: The amount of emission mitiga-
tion of CO2 for electricity generation from biogas was 2.66Eþ07 kg/
1.53Eþ07 m3 ¼ 1.74 kg/m3; the amount of emission mitigation of
CO2 for heat from biogas was 1.16Eþ09 kg/3.25Eþ08 m3 ¼ 3.57 kg/
m3. Therefore, the amount of emission mitigation of CO2 for BPS
was 369562.5 m3/year
3.57 kg/m3 ¼ 1.32Eþ09 g/year. The
amount of emission mitigation of CO2 for BEPS was 255500 m3/
year
3.57 kg/m3 þ 11,4062.5 m3/year
1.74 kg/m3 ¼ 1.11Eþ09 g/
year.
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