Different locations: Data inputs & ouputs

This is, unfortunately, something that was never straightforward to do in 4.03a and prior. GHGenius 5.0 and subsequent releases have made it easier to accomplish.

The general strategy that I use when I have to do this are that all values are taken from AC, but very carefully. When I suggest to zero out energy inputs, I usually retain something like 0.001L of natural gas. The model does not always handle zero energy or zero transportation distances well.

The reason for this strategy is that it is one of the simplest ways of taking into account that oil into biodiesel is never one to one. You'll notice as you go through run 1 that most of the cells in column AC are some factor times the cells in AB.

Run 1 (Alberta): For this run, input all of your appropriate inputs for crushing and transportation. Then zero out all of the energy and chemical inputs for vegetable oil esterification, this is done on both Input and Alt Fuel Prod sheets. Enter the biodiesel yield on the Input sheet.

From this all of the fuel production value should just be crushing. You can take AC11:AC18 from this stage. You can ALSO take part of AC19. Zero out the part of the equation that is Coprods!J158.

Run 2 (BC): For this run, input all of your biodiesel production inputs and transportation values, but zero out the crushing energy and chemicals.

From this you can get the fuel dispensing, distribution and storage, and the esterification portion of fuel production. You will also need to take part of AC19, just the Coprods!J158 part that you zeroed out in the first run.

This is also the point where you would grab the exhaust emissions number.

At this point you can add everything together and get your final result.

Don will add more, but a couple things jump out at me.

The first is to be careful with your units. I see in that image that fuel dispensing, distribution, and production appear to still be g/GJ while coproducts appear to be g/MJ for your second run. When doing a CI I generally don't do any conversion from g/GJ to g/MJ until the very end so the work is easier to go back and check in the model.

The other thing that jumps out at me is the fuel production in your oil production run. Every cell should have the same ratio of AC to AB. From this I would expect about 7.3g/MJ for oil production. My first guess as to what to check would be the chemical inputs for biodiesel production on Alt Fuel Prod.

For canola oil there are two main differences between regions.

The first is that the electricity CI can vary a large amount and the difference between BC and Alberta is about as large as you can get with the BC grid being dominated by hydropower and Alberta still having a predominately thermal grid with coal and natural gas.

The second is that N2O emissions from crop production are regionalized in GHGenius at the Provincial level. These emissions are much lower in Alberta than they are in BC due to the differences in climate (mostly the precipitation).

I hope this helps.

Don O'Connor

Column AB gives the results per GJ of canola oil. There is a small energy loss going from canola oil to canola biodiesel. When the biodiesel yield is entered into the model it will scale the emissions for canola oil production to give the results per GJ of biodiesel.

Regards
Don O'Connor