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Energy 37 (2012) 103e114

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Energy

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Integrated food, energy and environmental services production as an alternativefor small rural properties in Brazil

Feni Agostinho*, Enrique OrtegaEcological Engineering Laboratory, Food Eng. School, State University of Campinas, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 28 January 2011Received in revised form3 October 2011Accepted 4 October 2011Available online 27 October 2011

Keywords:BrazilEcological rucksackEmbodied energyEmergy accountingEthanolGas emission

* Corresponding author. Faculdade de EngenhariaEstadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Cx. Postal 6121, Cam862, Brazil. Tel.: þ55 19 35214058; fax: þ55 19 35214

E-mail addresses: feniagostinho@gmail.com, feni@

0360-5442/$ e see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.10.003

a b s t r a c t

Energy from sources alternative to fossil fuels is being studied and interest in energy derived fromvegetal biomass is increasing. In Brazil - mainly at Sao Paulo State -, sugarcane ethanol is being inten-sively produced on large-scales, giving rise to social and environmental concerns about its production. Ifethanol production systems are to maintain a balance between economic, social and environmentalaspects, a systemic approach needs to be considered in their assessment. Particularly, human needs otherthan energy must be taken into account. In this sense, the Integrated Food, Energy and EnvironmentalServices Production (IFEES) on small-scale suggests an alternative approach. The aim of this work is toassess, in a multi-criteria way, the energetic-environmental aspects of a common IFEES found in Braziland compare its indices against large-scale ethanol production. For this, embodied energy analysis,emergy accounting, ecological rucksack and gas emission inventory are used as tools. Results show thatIFEES has better overall energetic-environmental indices than large-scale ethanol production. At thesame time, IFEES produces several other by-products than just ethanol (i.e. food, forestry products andenvironmental services), although productivity of large-scale process is 25 times higher than for IFEES, ifonly ethanol is considered.

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1. Introduction

Petroleum, natural gas and coal are responsible for providingalmost 87% of total primary energy consumed worldwide, reducingits natural reserves by levels that will probably become unavailablein the next decade; this phenomenon is called “peak-oil” (Campbelland Laherrére [1]; http://www.peakoil.net). In 2005, the majoreconomies of the world, including the G8 and 5 developing nations(Mexico, India, Brazil, China, and South Africa), along with theUnited Nations, the International Energy Agency, and the EuropeanUnion launched the Global Bioenergy Partnership to discuss waysto promote the sustained use and production of biofuels around theglobe, reflecting growing concerns for finding economically viablesubstitutes for petroleum.

According to the International Energy Agency [2], it is expectedthat biofuel used worldwide for transportation will increase fromthe current 1% to 7% in 2030, which represents an increase from15.5 million to 147 million tons of oil equivalent. Considering that

de Alimentos, Universidadepinas, Sao Paulo CEP 13083-027.fea.unicamp.br (F. Agostinho).

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currently Brazil is responsible for about 33% of ethanol producedworldwide, it certainty plays an important role in supplying thisbiofuel worldwide. Brazilian government intends to expand large-scale ethanol production, mainly in Sao Paulo State due to trop-ical and sub-tropical climatic conditions and existing infrastructure[3]. Additionally, the decades of research, both in production plantswith co-generation and integrated solutions in sugarcane produc-tion, make Brazil an ideal location for continued biofuel production.

Large-scale biofuel production and its expansion are beingcriticized by some researchers (Santa Barbara [4]; Giampietro andMayumi [5]). There are several scientific papers and reportspublished about Brazilian ethanol production and its energetic-environmental indices (Oliveira et al. [6]; Macedo et al. [7];Smeets et al. [8]; Luo et al. [9]; Pereira and Ortega [10]; Walteret al. [11]; Martinelli and Filoso [12]; among others), but all ofthem focused on only one or two aspects of energetic-environmental behavior and they are generally related toembodied energy and/or carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover,large-scale production is considered as an accepted and viablepractice. Only differences in its technological aspects are beingassessed in scientific papers and reports, disregarding the optionof small-scale production.

Global economy is depleting the storages of available resources,making them increasingly scarce. Therefore, according to the Lotka-

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114104

Odum’s Maximum Empower Principle1 [13], rapid resourceconsumption is no longer a winning strategy for survival and mustbe replaced by global system efficiency (i.e., production andconsumption integrated and adapted to use smaller amounts ofdwindling available resources). Increasing the complexity of thesystem, as well as the use of co-products, allows a better perfor-mance and an optimum use of available resources.

Considering all potential social-environmental problems relatedto large-scale ethanol production in Brazil, it is necessary to identifyproduction systems that minimize them and provide more thanenergy, but also food and environmental services. Despite energyissues being considered a crucial point nowadays, humans alsoneed food and environmental services to survive. Moreover, qualityand quantity of labor is an important social issue. In this sense, theIntegrated Food, Energy and Environmental Services (IFEES)production attempts to combine all these issues in a small, family-managed rural property2. It basically involves the use of local rawmaterial and labor to supply local and regional market with a seriesof different products, including energy as solid and liquid fuel, food(grains, vegetables, fruits, coffee, meat and milk) and environ-mental services provided by areas with native vegetation.

Assessing ethanol production systems at different scalesthrough a multi-criteria approach is mandatory to produce highquality economic, social and environmental indicators to beconsidered by stakeholders and decision makers. The objective ofthis work is to assess, through a multi-criteria approach, theenergetic-environmental aspects of an Integrated Food, Energy andEnvironmental Services (IFEES) production in Brazil. Four mainmethodologies are used: Embodied Energy Analysis, EcologicalRucksack, Emergy Accounting and Gas Emission Inventory. Large-scale ethanol production in Brazil is also evaluated by these samemethodologies, making it possible to compare it with IFEES results.

2. Material and methods

2.1. Integrated food, energy and environmental services (IFEES)production

The philosophical idea behind IFEES is that, in a tropical country,biomass should be used as the main energy source instead ofpetroleum, an energy source that is limited and non-renewable, noteasily distributed and a liability to political and military injunc-tions. IFEES is also important to assure the traditional objectives ofagriculture (i.e. food and industrial raw material production).Additionally, IFEESs aim to keep the worker in rural areas to avoidfurther concentration in urban centers (where per capita energydemand is high), preserve areas for environmental services, elim-inate the non-renewable resources dependence of productionsystems, and foster local/regional development. The main charac-teristic of IFEES is its spatial dispersion of resources use, whichleads to a “non-economy of scale” and avoids problems related toenergy and material distribution and worker transportation. Thus,energetic biomass in small-scale could lead to a more democraticprocess through decentralization of technology, revenue andconsequently political power. The concepts of IFEES were originally

1 #1 - Maximum Empower Principle: “In the competition among self-organizingprocesses, network designs that maximize empower will prevail” (Odum [13], p.16); #2 - “In self-organization patterns, systems develop those parts, process, andrelationships that maximize useful empower” (Ulgiati et al. [14], p.1362). Empowerdefinition is the “emergy flow per unit time” (Odum [13], p.13).

2 In Brazil, federal laws classify the standardized area with 30 ha as a smallfamily-managed rural property (called as “modulo rural”) in order to receivespecific economic incentives and to take part in federal projects for ruraldevelopment.

discussed by Mello [15], Vasconcellos [16] and Sachs [17], amongothers.

It is well known that each region has a different set of rawmaterials and energy availability, i.e. different climate conditions,soil types and social-cultural behavior. Thus, each region can reachits own balance between nature and economic activities - that is,each region has its own carrying capacity. Considering that SaoPaulo State is the focus of this work, all IFEES visited during thisstudy were considering appropriated IFEES characteristics of smallrural properties located in Sao Paulo State. Table 1 shows the twosystems considered as a case study: small-scale (IFEES) and large-scale. For large scale, mean values published by Macedo et al. [7]and Pereira and Ortega [10] were considered.

2.2. Sustainability multi-criteria multi-scale assessment (SUMMA)

The SUMMA approach was proposed by Ulgiati et al. [18] andhas been used in several Life Cycle Assessment studies. The authorschoose to employ a selection of “upstream”3 and “downstream”

methods, which offer complementary points of view on thecomplex issue of environmental impact assessment. Each indi-vidual assessment method is applied according to its own set ofrules. The calculated impact indicators are then interpreted withina comparative framework in which the results of each method areset up against each other. This framework provides a comprehen-sive picture in which conclusions can be drawn.

Using SUMMA as reference, four methods were chosen to beapplied on IFEES (small-scale) and large-scale ethanol production(Fig. 1): (i) Embodied Energy Analysis, (ii) Ecological Rucksack, (iii)Emergy Accounting and (iv) Gas Emission Inventory.

2.2.1. Embodied energy analysisEnergy Analysis is defined by International Federation of Insti-

tutes for Advanced Study (IFIAS) as the process of determining theenergy required directly and indirectly to allow a system to producea specified good or service. According to Franzese et al. [19],embodied energy analysis aims to quantify the availability and useof stocks of fossil fuels, sometimes also referred to as commercialenergy, i.e. fossil fuel and fossil-equivalent energy. Embodiedenergy analysis focuses on fuels and electricity, fertilizers and otherchemicals, machinery, and assets supplied to a process in terms ofthe oil equivalent energy required to produce them. Embodiedenergy analysis is concerned with the depletion of fossil energy,and therefore those process inputs of material and energy that donot require the use of fossil-equivalent resources are not accountedfor. Services provided for free by the environment such as soilbuilding and groundwater recharge, are not accounted for withinembodied energy analysis. Human labor and economic services arealso not included in most evaluations. Embodied energy analysis ispredicated on the concept that only fossil energy can be subject toscarcity, while natural renewable resources are unlimited in avail-ability and therefore they should not be accounted for withinenergy balance [19].

Embodied energy analysis of a product or process is calculatedby summing the raw energy input multiplied by its respectiveenergy intensity factor (see Appendix). The more important finalindicators of this methodology are (i) the total amount of embodiedenergy consumed by the system and (ii) its energy transformationefficiency reflected by EROI index (Energy Return on Investment).

3 The “upstream” methods are concerned with the inputs, and account for thedepletion of environmental resources, while the “downstream” methods areapplied to the output, and look at the environmental consequences of the emissions[18].

Table 1Main characteristics of IFEES and large-scale ethanol production considered in this work.

Characteristic Unit IFEES (small-scale)a Large-scaleb

System location e Sao Paulo State Sao Paulo StateTime period for raw data e 2010 2005e2008Raw data source e Field work: 3 IFEES Dataset: 40 plants

Field work: 1 plantSystem areac ha 35 38,750Sugarcane area ha 2 31,000Ethanol production capacity L/day 65 860,000Sugarcane productivity tonwet/ha 65 87Sugarcane area ha 2 31,000Sugarcane burned before harvesting % 0 69Crushed sugarcane tonwet/day 1 9965Ethanol productivity L/ton 65 86.3Vinasse productiond L/L ethanol 14 10Sugarcane bagassee kg/tonwet sugarcane 350 270Agricultural management e Agroecological Conventional

a Raw data from this work.b Mean values from Macedo et al. [7] and Pereira and Ortega [10].c For large-scale, it was not possible to find information about natural vegetation areas. Brazilian Federal laws establish that 20% of total area of a propertymust be preserved

(it is called as Legal Reserve, LR), added to Permanently Protected Areas (APP, i.e. buffer on rivers, wetlands andwater springs). Thus, in this work it was assumed that total areawith preserved natural vegetation corresponds to 20% of total large-scale area.

d Vinasse is an ethanol production residue. It is a liquid residue with high concentration of organic matter and nutrients that demands high levels of oxygen to be dissolved.Large-scale vinasse is spread in the sugarcane fields, while in IFEES it is supplied directly to cattle.

e Sugarcane bagasse is the biomass residue from crushed sugarcane. For large-scale, sugarcane bagasse contains almost 0% of moisture and it is totally burned to producesteam and electricity. In the IFEES, sugarcane bagasse contents almost 20% of its initial moisture and it is used as food for cattle and also to produce compost.

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114 105

In this work, considering that both agricultural and industrialphases of ethanol production are accounted for, the first index isexpressed as oil equivalent Joules per ha year (Jeq./ha/yr), while theEROI index is obtained by dividing the output energy by theembodied input energy. The EROI index calculation results ina dimensionless value representing the system energy efficiency.Deeper understanding of Embodied Energy Analysis can be foundmainly at Slesser [20] and Herendeen [21].

2.2.2. Ecological rucksackMaterial Flow Analysis (MFA) is defined by Eurostat [22] as

a method that assesses the efficiency of use of materials usinginformation from material flow accounting. MFA helps to identifywaste of natural resources and other materials in the economy thatwould otherwise go unnoticed in conventional economic moni-toring systems. When dealing with the indirect material flows(upstream flows) and disregarding direct material flows (down-stream flows), a subcategory of MFA label is defined as EcologicalRucksack. The Ecological Rucksack method (Schmidt-Bleek [23])aims to evaluate the environmental disturbance associated withthe withdrawal of raw material from their natural ecosystem.According to Eurostat [22], the ecological rucksack can be definedas the total sum of all materials which are not physically included inthe economic output under consideration, but which were neces-sary for production, use, recycling and disposal of indirectmaterials.

In this approach, appropriate rucksack factors (in mass/unit; seeAppendix) are multiplied by each system input, accounting for thetotal amount of abiotic and biotic matter, water, and air that is

Fig. 1. Methods employed in this work to assess t

indirectly required by system under analysis [18]. This method-ology supplies important information related to load on environ-ment caused generally far from system location, showing theamount of abiotic and biotic matter, water, and air consumed toproduce the materials and energy used up by system under anal-ysis. Due to lack of available information about rucksack factor forair category, this present work considered only abiotic, biotic andwater indicators from Ecological Rucksack method.

2.2.3. Emergy accountingEmergy definition is “the available energy of one kind previously

used up directly and indirectly tomake a service or product” (Odum[13], p.7). In accordance to the second law of thermodynamics, eachtransformation process degrades the available potential energy, butthe “quality” of the remaining energy is increased. Energy quality isa crucial point related to Emergy accounting. According to Odum[13], assuming that real wealth can be measured by the workpreviously done to produce something, emergy is considereda scientific measure of real wealth in terms of the energy previouslyrequired to make something, being recognized as a donor sideapproach. Deeper understanding about emergy methodology rulesand meanings can be found mainly at Odum [13] and Brown andUlgiati [24].

For an emergy evaluation, the system under study must first berepresented by a systemic diagram using the symbols proposed byOdum [13]. Subsequently, all raw values of the energy and massflows of system are multiplied by their respective emergy intensityvalues (see Appendix), resulting in flows with the same unit: solaremjoules (seJ). Finally, these flows are used to calculate emergy

he system’s energetic-environmental aspects.

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114106

indices (Fig. 2) and draw conclusions about energetic-environmental aspects. A brief description of emergy indices usedin this work is given below:

(a) Transformity is defined as “the solar emergy required to makeone J of a service or a product” [13]. It is obtained by the ratio oftotal emergy that was used in a process by the energy yieldedby the process (Tr¼ U/Ep). Transformity is an expression of thequality of the output itself, for the higher the transformity, themore emergy is required to make the product flow.

(b) Renewability (%R ¼ R/U) is the ratio of renewable emergy tototal emergy use. It ranges from 0 to 100%, where higher valuesmean better rating. We considered here a modified renew-ability index (whose acronym is “m-%R”; m-%R ¼ R þ Mr þ Sr/U), in which the partial renewabilities of each input wereconsidered for its calculation, as proposed by Ortega et al. [25].The inclusion of partial renewabilities is an attempt to includethe renewability of each system input; this approach isparticularly appropriate when the system uses materials andlabor from local or regional economy, which could be renew-able or, at least, partially renewable. For instance, the organiccompost produced through local renewable material andenergy (and with low shipping distance to the final users) hasgreater renewability compared to the organic compostproduced far away and dependent of raw material and energyshipped from long distances. Similar approach was made byFelix and Tilley [26], in which emergy inputs were partitionedaccording to combination of their ultimate energy source type,for instance renewable environmental (R), non-renewableenvironmental (N0), non-renewable minerals (Nm), non-petroleum fuels (Nf) and petroleum (Np). Consequently, thispresent study assumed partial renewability values for someinputs; these assumptions were made based on authorsexperience about emergy evaluation of agricultural andindustrial processes in Brazil, and also based on numbersconsidered by Ortega et al. [25], Agostinho et al. [27], Cavalettet al. [28], Agostinho et al. [29], Pereira and Ortega [10], Ortegaet al. [30]. The following values were used: 30% for seedlings,60% for electricity, 90% for wood lumber and 40% for rubber forboth systems (IFEES and large-scale); different values wereconsidered for external labor (30% for large scale against 60%for IFEES) and river water (50% for large scale against 100% forIFEES). For all other items, partial renewability was notconsidered. Through partial renewabilities approach, allemergy input from economy can now be divided into two

Fig. 2. Aggregated diagram and emergy indices used in this work. R: natural renew-able resources; N: natural non-renewable resources; M: materials from economy; S:Services from economy; U: total emergy used by system; Tr: transformity; m-%R:modified renewability index; EYR: emergy yield ratio; EIR: emergy investment ratio;m-ELR: modified environmental loading ratio; “r” and “n” subscript means respec-tively renewable and non-renewable. Based on Brown and Ulgiati [24].

portions (renewable - Mr and Sr - and non-renewable - Mn andSn) and used in the calculation of emergy indices shown onFig. 2. As an example, electricity resource has 60% of renew-ability (Mr) and the remaining 40% of non-renewable (Mn)instead 100% of non-renewability as considered in a classicalemergy evaluation.

(c) Emergy yield ratio (EYR ¼ U/(M þ S)) is the ratio of the totalemergy driving a process to the emergy imported. It isa measure of the system’s ability to explore and make naturalresources available through external economic investment, andreflects the potential contribution of the process to the maineconomy due to exploitation of local resources [24]. Higher EYRvalues mean better rating.

(d) The emergy investment ratio (EIR ¼ F/(R þ N)) is the ratio ofemergy fed back from outside a system to the indigenousemergy inputs (both renewable and non-renewable). Itmeasures the intensity of invested emergy from the externaleconomy [24], assessing the relationship between the non-renewable resources from economy and natural resources.Lower EIR values mean higher efficiency in economic resourceallocation.

(e) Environmental loading ratio (ELR¼ Nþ F/R) is the ratio of non-renewable and imported emergy use to renewable emergy use.It indicates the pressure on the environment produced by thesystem and can be considered as ameasure of ecosystem stress.According to Brown and Ulgiati [24], ELR values lower than 2indicate low impact on the environment; values between 2 and10 mean moderate impact; and values higher than 10 meanlarge impact. As well as for emergy renewability index, weconsidered in this study a modified ELR (whose acronym is “m-ELR”; m-ELR ¼ N þ Mn þ Sn/R þ Mr þ Sr), in which the partialrenewabilities were accounted for.

(f) Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER ¼ U/($USD*emergy-to-dollarratio)) is the ratio of solar emergy of the product sold by themean solar emergy of the money received, in which the solaremergy of the money is the market value of product times themean emergy-to-dollar ratio of the economy (3.3Eþ12 seJ/USDfor Brazil in 2010; see Appendix). The ratio is always expressedrelative to one or the other trading partners and is a measure ofthe relative trade advantage of one partner over the other [24].

Family labor is a complex issue in emergy evaluation. Severalemergy studies on large-scale agriculture consider only a singleoutput and frequently use external labor. In contrast, small, family-managed agricultural systems in Brazil have several outputs anduse family labor within the system boundaries. According toemergy algebra [13], only those flows that cross the systemboundaries are accounted for, resulting in an exclusion of energyfrom internal family labor. Consequently, the system relies onfamily labor for production; if it is assumed that family labor hasa relatively large partial renewability (for instance 60%), thesystem’s emergy renewability index will be lower than it should bewhen family labor is neglected. Nevertheless, the system’s EmergyYield Ratio (EYR) and Emergy Investment Ratio (EIR) will showbetter values when family labor is not accounted for. Thus, theemergy indices were calculated through both approaches, i.e.considering and not considering internal labor.

2.2.4. Gas emission inventoryGas emission inventory provides important information about

global and local emissions. Due to current concerns about globalwarming, this inventory is considered essential in any environ-mental assessment. This work focuses on two categories of emis-sion (Table 2): (i) Indirect gas emissions and (ii) Direct gasemissions. Indirect gas emissions are those related to production of

Table 3Allocation (in %) for ethanol produced at IFEES and large-scale.

System Energy Monetary

Ethanol (IFEES) 5.27 5.03Ethanol (Large-scale) 98.41 98.06

Table 2Emission sources considered in this work.

Emission source IFEES Large-scale

Indirect emissions (globalenvironmental load)Materialsa Considered Considered

Direct emissions (localenvironmental load)Direct diesel burned in engines Considered ConsideredSugarcane burned before harvesting b Not consideredSugarcane bagasse burned toproduce steam and electricity

c Not considered

Sugar fermentation process Not considered Not consideredEmissions from soil due to fertilizer use Not considered Not consideredFermentation of organic manureand cattle metabolism

Not considered d

Land use change Not considered Not considered

a Emissions from material production.b IFEES does not burn sugarcane before harvesting. Large-scale adopts this prac-

tice in 69% of all sugarcane areas.c Instead of burning sugarcane bagasse to produce steam, IFEES uses wood

biomass. This wood biomass was not accounted for here as an emission source.d Large-scale does not produce organic compost and/or cattle. All sugarcane

bagasse is burned to produce steam and electricity.

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114 107

materials used up by the system; those emissions are generallylocated far from the system, but nevertheless cause global envi-ronmental load. To estimate the indirect emissions, all materialsused up by the system were converted into their oil equivalentsthen multiplied by the emission factors provided by the UnitedStates Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) [31]. Direct gasemissions are those caused by local material and fuel combustion.To estimate the direct gas emissions, only diesel fuel burned inengines was accounted for. The emission factors for combustion intractors from USEPA [31] were considered. Both direct and indirectgas emissions supply information about total CO, NOx, PM10(particles with 10 mm or less), SO2, CH4, N2O and CO2 released intothe atmosphere. Additionally, global warming and acidificationpotential were estimated using the Jensen et al. [32] approach. Asshown in Table 2, important emission sources were not considereddue to the lack of emission factors data.

2.2.5. Allocation approachWhen performing a life cycle assessment of a complex system, it

may not be possible to handle all the environmental impacts andoutputs inside the system boundaries. This can be solved either byexpanding the system boundaries to include all the inputs andoutputs or by allocating the relevant environmental impacts to thestudied system. The system under analysis in this present work(IFESS) is not a simple inputeoutput process, thus an appropriateallocation approach is mandatory to charge each output with itsenvironmental impact. Malça and Freire [33] argue that the choiceand justification of allocation procedures is a major issue for lifecycle assessment, especially since they can have a significantinfluence on subsequent results. Moreover, it is important torecognize that there is no single allocation procedure that isappropriate for any system, and different allocation methodsshould be explored in order to understand their effect on theresults. Jensen et al. [32] recommends the following order of allo-cation procedures: (i) avoiding it; (ii) using physical units (asenergy, mass and exergy - defined as the potential energy capableof doing work and being degraded in the process); (iii) usingmonetary values. Ulgiati [34] argues that nutritional value could beused in allocation for food products, but in the absence of bettercriteria, monetary values could be used as well. The same authoremphasizes that the introduction of monetary values results insubjectivity that could influence the accuracy of results. However,

monetary values represent the only option for allocation whenenergy, exergy, mass and nutritional values cannot be used.

For instance, a large-scale ethanol plant’s outputs may beethanol, sugar and electricity. Recognizing that electricity cannot bemeasured in mass units, allocation by mass was disregarded toallow a comparison between IFEES and large-scale systems. Exergywas also disregarded because exergy intensities for food arescarcely available. Nutrient value was disregarded as well, becausenutrient value can only be allocated to food and there is more thanonly food being produced. Thus, energy and monetary units wereconsidered in the allocation procedure (Table 3). It can be observedthat allocation percentages for ethanol do not change expressivelyfrom one allocation approach to another. Energy production is themost significant output of these systems. Consequently, onlyenergy units were considered in the current study.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Characteristics of the IFEES and large-scale ethanol production

Fig. 3 shows the systemic diagram of the IFEES considered in thiswork. First and foremost the complexity of this system must beappreciated. There are different land uses (natural capital, treeplantation, sugarcane, pasture, horticulture, annual culture,orchard and coffee) and several internal feedbacks of material andenergy flows. Moreover, several outputs are produced instead ofjust one (wood as solid fuel, wood for construction, trees forlandscaping, ethanol, organic manure, meat, milk, grains, fruits andvegetables). The system uses local labor to manage its activities. Insmall-scale systems, family and external (but local) labor aresynonymous of good quality labor, i.e. it does not produce all thesocial problems related to large-scale ethanol production (see forinstance Martinelli and Filoso [12] and Alves et al. [35]). Small-scaleagricultural production generally maintains large areas withpreserved natural vegetation (natural capital) that are responsiblefor production of several environmental services used up withinthe system boundaries and also exported to the surroundingregion. At the same time, it is recognized that all human-dominatedsystems of any scale produce negative externalities, but due toecological agricultural management, small-scale systems produceless negative externalities than large-scale ones.

We believe that small landowners that obey the environmentallaw and family farming legal dispositions (i.e. properties with lessthan 30 ha in Sao Paulo State) should receive economic incentivesfor the environmental services produced in their areas. In the caseof medium and large-scale production systems (i.e. larger than30 ha), developed areas that are larger than environmental lawpermits should be reduced in size, replacing developed land withnative vegetation. Moreover, none economic incentives should beallocated to those production systems. The argument is that large-scale Brazilian farmers are already benefitted from the so-called“economy of scale”, that in many cases causes social exclusionand environmental resource depletion. Both large and small farmowners should be taxed for the negative externalities they produce.

Table 4 shows all input and output of IFEES and large-scaleethanol production systems. Considering the inputs, the maindifferences are related to: high use of water, seedlings,

Fig. 3. Systemic diagram of Integrated Food, Energy and Environmental Services (IFEES) production.

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114108

agrochemicals and diesel fuel by large-scale; IFEES uses electricityproduced outside of its system boundaries, large amounts of wood,and concrete. Considered as an important social indicator, thenumber of labor hours for IFEES is much greater than large-scale(302 h/ha/yr against 86 h/ha/yr). Another important aspect is that80% of total IFEES’s labor hours come from internal storage repre-sented by family labor, which can be considered with highsustainability (low dependence of non-renewable energy). Forlarge-scale,100% of labor comes from outside of system boundaries,and usually this is supported by large quantity of non-renewableenergy (i.e. transport and all infrastructure of a large city).

Concerning the output, large-scale systems produce 6000 L/ha/yr of ethanol and 25 GWh/yr of electricity, while IFEES producesonly 241 L/ha/yr of ethanol. On the other hand, IFEES annuallyproduces 4.8 tons of food, 0.6 tons wood and 4.8 tons of organicmanure per ha, while large-scale systems do not produce theseitems. Moreover, a 35-ha IFEES with 12 ha of native forest produces1440 m3/ha/yr of water and could convert 11.6 tons of CO2 per haannually in vegetal biomass through its preserved natural vegeta-tion areas; large-scale systems produce 840 m3/ha/yr of water andcould annually convert 6.7 tons of CO2 per ha. CO2 absorption isonly possible in the case of ecological management of naturalvegetation areas; see footnote on Table 4 for details. Only areas withnatural vegetation were considered for environmental servicesestimation, disregarding other areas that also produce the same

environmental services as sugarcane, crops and pasture, amongothers, even though they display lower production than naturalvegetation areas.

Diversity in production and its quantity in mass units are goodindicators, but alone they are not enough to decide what produc-tion system should be adopted. Due to that, in the next topics, theenergetic-environmental indices are discussed through theSUMMA approach, supplying essential indicators that should betaken into account simultaneously with the production outputindicators.

3.2. Energetic-environmental assessment

3.2.1. Energetic-environmental impact by overall systemsTable 5 shows the overall systems rating calculated from the

SUMMA approach. All of them are discussed separately below.

3.2.1.1. Embodied energy index. Energy efficiency can usually bedefined as a ratio between the energy produced by a system and theenergy used to produce that quantity of energy, i.e. output/inputrelationship. Thus, energy efficiency measures the system’scapacity to transform one kind of energy into another, in whichhigh values means high efficiency. Energy efficiency is representedby the Energy Return on Investment (EROI) index in embodiedenergy analysis. Table 5 shows that the overall energy efficiency

Table 4Raw data for IFEES and large-scale ethanol production.

Item Unit IFEES Large-scale

Inputs

Sun kWh/m2/day 5.00 5.00Rain m3/m2/yr 1.40 1.40Wind m/s 4.70 4.70Water from rivera kg/ha/yr 687.14 110,519.23Soil loss kg soil/ha/yr 5000.00 11,900.00Concrete kg/ha/yr 53.34 1.15Steel kg/ha/yr 7.37 9.62Copper (heat transfer)b kg/ha/yr 0.05 0.05Wood lumber kg/ha/yr 36.20 e

Rubber (tractor tire) kg/ha/yr 0.48 2.51Plastic (PVC pipeline) kg/ha/yr 0.16 e

Clay brick and tile kg/ha/yr 9.52 e

Electricity kWh/yr 8000.00 e

Calcareous dolomitec kg/ha/yr 62.40 760.00Nitrogen kg/ha/yr 3.20 76.00Phosphorus kg/ha/yr 7.46 42.00Potassium kg/ha/yr 5.60 115.00Urea kg/ha/yr 4.80 e

Diesel L/ha/yr 40.82 230.00Seeds kg/ha/yr 1.63 e

Seedlings kg/ha/yr 139.00 2800.00Steer (calf; meat) kg/ha/yr 13.71 e

Package (polyethylene) kg/ha/yr 5.71 e

Herbicide kg/ha/yr e 2.20Insecticide kg/ha/yr e 0.16External labor e e

Permanent h/ha/yr 60.34 25.46Provisoryd h/ha/yr e 61.29

Family labor h/ha/yr 241.37 e

Servicese USD/ha/yr 66.30 577.00

OutputEthanol L/ha/yr 241 6006Electricityf kWh/yr e 24,812,400FoodGrains kg/ha/yr 379 e

Vegetables kg/ha/yr 1023 e

Fruits kg/ha/yr 3090 e

Coffee kg/ha/yr 154 e

Meat kg/ha/yr 50 e

Milk kg/ha/yr 83 e

Forestry (construction andlandscaping)

kg/ha/yr 640 e

Compost (organic manure) kg/ha/yr 4867 e

Environmental ServicesWater infiltrationg Lwater/ha/yr 1,440,000 840,000Potential carbon dioxideabsorbedh

kgCO2/ha/yr 11,615 6776

Large-scale data from Macedo et al. [7] and Pereira and Ortega [10]; material consumption was divided by 30 years-lifetime; ethanol density of 0.8 kg/L.a Water consumption for large-scale is 18.4 L water/L ethanol or 1.6 m3 water/ton crushed sugarcane [10]. It includes only industrial phase, because sugarcane irrigation in

Sao Paulo State is used only in special cases due to excellent climate conditions.b For large-scale it was estimated as 0.5% of its total steel used.c Macedo et al. [7] used a value of 1900 kg/ha, but it is not clear if this value is annual or for five years period of sugarcane. Due to that, other references were used and the

following value was adopted: 1900 kg/ha at the first year cut and 1900 kg/ha at the third year cut. Thus, the annual value obtained is 760 kg/ha/yr.d Provisory workers for sugarcane harvest season (270 workdays/year). These workers are generally related to several social problems that were not discussed in this

present work.e Services include public and private services and also negative externalities of 230 USD/ha/yr for large-scale and 60 USD/ha/yr for small-scale in accordance to Pretty et al.

[36].f Electricity produced and exported of 9.2 kWh/ton sugarcane [7].g Rainfall of 1.4 m3/m2/yr; IFEES has 7 ha of Legal Reserve (LR) and 5 ha of Permanent Protection Areas (PPA), both occupiedwith natural vegetation; assuming a hydrological

balance in which 30% of rainfall in natural vegetation is percolated into the soil. For large-scale it was assumed that 20% of its total area is taken by natural vegetation, whichcorresponds to 7,750 ha.

h The current Brazilian environmental legislation considers that Legal Reserve (LR) and Environmental Protection Areas (APP) (both described in footnote of Table 1) can beusedonlywith the purpose to assure the environmental services production, i.e. nowadays agriculture and/or resource extractionpractices are totally forbidden inAPP areas, butsome of those practices are possible in LR areas if there is a sustainability management contract with the Brazilian Institute of Natural Environment and Renewable NaturalResources (IBAMA); that contract is called as “Contrato de Averbação”, granted only to small family-farms in Sao Paulo State. Thus, those areas with natural vegetation will beable to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere up towhen vegetation is still young, until its 50the100th birthday (it depends on the biome). After that, the natural biome is consideredbalanced and it is no more able to absorb CO2 (at least at the same ratio than before). If a sustainable use of LR and APP were allowed by Brazilian legislation (i.e. concerningsustainable extraction of old trees to be used in non-burning process of biomass as construction for instance), the net CO2 absorbed in those areaswill increase andwill not reachsteady-state absorption atmoderate to long time periods. It was not possible to obtain average values for the age of natural vegetationwithin systems studied here, so it was notpossible to quantify updated values for 2010. Thus, we used the term “potential carbon dioxide absorbed” to represent CO2 absorption by LR and APP areas “if” a sustainablemanagement in those areas were allowed. For this, a Net Primary Productivity for a tropical forest of 925 gC/m2/yr from Amthor [37] was considered.

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114 109

Table 5Embodied energy, emergy accounting and gas emission indicesa.

Methodologies and their indices Unit IFEES (this work) Large-scale (this work) Large-scale (referenceb)

Total energy output J/ha.yr 1.09Eþ11 2.11Eþ11 1.48Eþ11Embodied EnergyEROI - Energy Return on Investment e 13.22 6.70 8.20Gross energy requirement MJeq.oil/ha.yr 8.23Eþ03 3.15Eþ04 1.80Eþ04

Emergy AccountingTr - Transformity seJ/J 60,300 46,800 48,804m-%R - Renewabilityc % 55 26 31m-%R - Renewabilityc,d e 33 26 31EYR - Emergy Yield Ratio e 1.72 1.56 1.57EYR - Emergy Yield Ratiod e 2.33 1.56 1.57EIR - Emergy Investment Ratio e 1.38 1.78 e

EIR - Emergy Investment Ratiod e 0.75 1.78 e

m-ELR e Environmental Loading Ratioc e 0.82 2.87 2.23EER e Emergy Exchange Ratio e 0.93 1.09 0.68U e Total emergy seJ/ha.yr 6.57Eþ15 9.87Eþ15 7.22Eþ15

Gas EmissionGlobal warming potential kg CO2-eq./ha/yr 1644.40 14,075.59 e

Acidification potential kg SO2-eq./ha/yr 2.95 59.42 e

a Observation: These indices correspond to the systems as a whole, not for one output alone.b Pereira and Ortega [10].c Considering partial renewability of each system’s input.d Without accounting for internal labor.

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114110

(EROI) for IFEES is 13 while for large-scale is just 6.7, indicatingbetter efficiency for IFEES; it means that 13 units of energy are“produced” for each unit used up by IFEES systems. It sounds oddfor a system to create energy because it goes against the thermo-dynamic laws (1st law: energy cannot be created), but embodiedenergy analysis allows this kind of result because its algebra doesnot include the energy provided by nature.

IFEES is about 2 times more efficient than large-scale, but itmust be highlighted that this efficiency reflects all energy output,including ethanol, food, forestry products and compost.

3.2.1.2. Emergy indices. All emergy indices calculated for large-scale systems in this work were close to the values found by Per-eira and Ortega [10] and observed in Table 5. It shows that theoverall emergy efficiency (higher transformities represent lowsystem efficiency) is better for large-scale than small-scale (large-scale 46,000 seJ/J versus IFEES 60,000 seJ/J); for a simple compar-ison, the transformity for fossil fuels is about 29,000 seJ/J, greenfood, grains and staples with 112,000 seJ/J and protein foods with2,500,000 seJ/J [38].

Renewability index shows high renewability for IFEES (55%)compared to large-scale systems (26%), indicating strong sustain-ability for IFEES and an unsustainable scenario for large-scalesystems. Pereira and Ortega [10] obtained an m-%R of 31% fora Brazilian ethanol plant. Brazilian’s agrochemical agriculture hasm-%R ranging from 20 to 42% while ecological management valuesrange from 56 to 73% [27,39,40]. Since non-renewable resources(derived from petroleum andmineral ores) are the driving forces ofcurrent large-scale ethanol production, their depletion over thenext decades will be a great challenge for large-scale production.

EYR shows better values for IFEES, because about 43% (EYR of2.33) of its total emergy comes from external economic resources,while for large-scale systems, this percentage is about 64% (EYR of1.56). This shows that the dependency on economic resources ishigh for large-scale systems; on the other hand, IFEES do not have ashigh value as large-scale systems. In addition to the dependence ofexternal economic resources, EYR also shows the potential contri-bution to the economy due to the exploitation of local resources: forlarge-scale, this means that about 1.56 times more emergy becomeavailable to society by each emergy invested from economy, whilefor IFEES this number is about 2.33. We must be aware that theseEYR values can only be considered a positive aspect if the modified

renewability index (m-%R) reach values closer to those obtained byecological agricultural management. Thus, a value of 2.33 found forIFEES can be considered as “good” value, because it has an m-%R of55% making it able to supply renewable energy to the economy; onthe other hand, an m-%R of 26% obtained by large-scale show thatthe majority of emergy supplied to the economy comes from non-renewable resources. For comparison, EYR values ranging from1.34 to2.17 are typical for agrochemical Brazilian’s agriculture,whileecological management has values from 2.24 to 3.69 [27,39,40];Pereira and Ortega [10] obtained an EYR of 1.57 for an ethanol plantin Brazil. An increase of renewable inputs is extremely importantbecause high use of renewable resources will be advantageous ina future scenario of lesser oil availability. Production systems basedonnon-renewable resourceswill not be able to competewith otherscharacterized by low oil dependence and greater contribution ofrenewable resources.

Focusing on EIR, IFEES has better value (0.75) compared to large-scale systems (1.78), indicating that for each unit of energy fromnature used up by IFEES, 0.75 units of energy are necessary from theeconomy. This relationship for large-scale systems is 1:1.78, indi-cating high dependence on economic resources. Brazilian’s agro-chemical agriculture has values ranging from 0.85 to 2.95, while foran ecological management, EIR ranges from 0.37 to 0.80 [27,39,40].The use of ecological management is necessary to increase thesystem’s ability to use local renewable resources with low externalinvestment.

According to a previous definition by Brown and Ulgiati [24],ELR results in Table 5 shows a low load (stress) on environmentcaused by small-scale (0.82) due to transformation activity, whilelarge-scale causes moderate load (2.87). It must be noted that thisload is a reflection of the systems dependency on non-renewableresources and does not represent the direct environmentalimpact caused at downstream. For a simple comparison, m-ELRvalues ranging from 1.40 to 4.18 are typical for agrochemical-dependent Brazilian agriculture, while ecological managementhas values from 0.37 to 0.84 [27,39,40].

The EER value of 0.93 obtained by IFEES indicates that it isreceiving more emergy when selling products than total emergyused up to produce them. On the other hand, large-scale systemswith an EER of 1.09 are deliveringmore emergy than they receive inthe trade operation. According to Odum [13] (see also Cuadra andRydberg [41]), EER value could be used as a parameter to assess the

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114 111

market price of any good or service. In order to reach a balance (i.e.inwhich all emergy delivered to consumer are being paying back toproducer), the EER value should be unity.

3.2.1.3. Gas emission indices. Globalwarming (or greenhouseeffect)is the effect of increasing temperature in the lower atmosphere. Thelower atmosphere is normally heated by incoming radiation fromtheouteratmosphere.Apart of the radiation is normally reflectedbythe soil surface but the carbondioxide andother “greenhouse” gasesin the atmosphere reflect the radiation back to Earth resulting in thegreenhouse effect, i.e. an increase of temperature in the loweratmosphere to a level above normal. There is no way to say whatquantity of greenhouses gases released will increase the Earth’stemperature to a determined degree, but Global Warming Potentialis important to show the quantity of greenhouses gases released byproduction systems; this index is considered as an environmentalparameter by decision makers. Table 5 shows that IFEES systemreleases 1600 kgCO2-eq./ha/yr while the large-scale system releases14,000 kgCO2-eq./ha/yr, i.e. the large-scale system has globalwarming potentials about 9 times higher than IFEES.

Acidification is caused by the release of protons in terrestrial oraquatic ecosystems. In the terrestrial ecosystem the effects are seenas inefficient growth and, as a final consequence, dieback in soft-wood forests (e.g. spruce). Similar to global warming potential, it isnot possible to establish a relation between the quantity of releasedgases and their acidification impact; nevertheless, acidificationpotential is another important index for environmental assess-ments. Table 5 shows an acidification potential for IFEES of 3 kgSO2-

eq./ha/yr while the large-scale system has a value of 59 kgSO2-eq./ha/yr, i.e. the large-scale system has an acidification potential about 20times greater than IFEES.

3.2.2. Energetic-environmental impact of sugarcane ethanolproduction

In contrast to the previous section where all system outputswere accounted for to show system rating, now only the ethanoloutput is considered. For this assessment, an allocation procedurein energy units (Table 6) was considered.

Table 6Environmental impact indices per unit of ethanola.

Methodologies and their indices Unit

Embodied energyEnergy intensity MJ/kgEtOHEnergy return on investment (EROI) e

Ecological RucksackAbiotic material consumption kg abiotic/kgEtOHBiotic material consumption kg biotic/kgEtOHWater consumption kg water/kgEtOH

Emergy accountingSpecific emergy (with L&S)b seJ/gEtOHSpecific emergy (without L&S) seJ/gEtOHTransformity (with L&S) seJ/JEtOHTransformity (without L&S) seJ/JEtOH

Gas emissionHydrocarbonsc released g hydr./tonEtOH

Carbon monoxide released g CO/tonEtOH

Nitrogen oxide released g NOx/tonEtOH

Particulate matter released g PM10/tonEtOH

Sulfur dioxide released g SO2/tonEtOH

Methane released g CH4/tonEtOH

Nitrous oxide released g N2O/tonEtOH

Carbon dioxide released g CO2/tonEtOH

Global warming potential kg CO2-eq./tonEtOH

Acidification potential g SO2-eq./tonEtOH

a Allocation in energy units.b L&S means Labor and Services.c Assuming CH2 as a basic hydrocarbon.

The embodied energy required to produce 1 kg of ethanol(1 kg ¼ 1.25 L) by the large-scale system (4.43 MJ) is about 2 timesgreater than IFEES (2.24 MJ), showing better energy efficiency forIFEES. This is reflected by the EROI index- for each Joule consumedby IFEES, 13.2 J of ethanol are “produced; ” for the large-scalesystem, this relationship is 1 J consumed for every 6.7 J of ethanol“produced.” Some EROI values for Brazilian ethanol productionfound in literature are 3.7 [6], 9.3 [7], 9.0 [8] and about 8.2 [10].

Ecological Rucksackmethod shows a huge advantage for ethanolproduced by IFEES compared to large-scale. For 1 kg of ethanolproduced by IFEES, 1.50 kg of abiotic material (non-organic mate-rial), 0.11 kg of biotic material (organic material) and 29.80 kg ofwater are necessary. For large-scale systems, 4.91 kg of abioticmaterial (non-organic material), 0.24 kg of biotic material (organicmaterial) and 350 kg ofwater are necessary. The largest difference isrelated to water consumption, in which the large-scale system usesabout 12 times more water to produce 1 kg of ethanol than IFEES.

Specific emergy index shows that the large-scale system isabout 24 times more efficient than IFEES if only ethanol is takeninto account because to produce 1 g of ethanol 1.41Eþ9 seJ arenecessary in the large-scale system. In IFEES, 3.40Eþ10 seJ arenecessary. However, these numbers are misleading. IFEES producesseveral products in addition to ethanol. Considering that emergyevaluation does not allow an allocation procedure, the energycontent in ethanol produced was divided by total emergy used byIFEES, resulting in low efficiency. On the other hand, the large-scalesystem produces basically ethanol, and thus all inputs are used upto produce only ethanol. A fair comparison should be madecomparing the small-scale system producing only ethanol to large-scale ethanol production.

In reference to gas emissions, ethanol produced by IFEES hasbetter indices when compared to the large-scale system (Table 6).The large-scale system releases large amounts of gases to produceone ton of ethanol. The main differences are in CH4, CO, and PM10emissions, in which the large-scale system releases 5,000, 164, and54 times more than IFEES, respectively. Another important point isthat about 1000 times more CO2 per mass of ethanol is released byboth systems when compared to the other gases released.

IFEES Large-scale Large/IFEES ratio

2.24 4.43 1.9813.22 6.70 0.51

1.50 4.91 3.270.11 0.24 2.1829.80 350.42 11.76

3.40Eþ10 1.41Eþ09 0.042.16Eþ10 1.05Eþ09 0.041.15Eþ06 4.76Eþ04 0.047.28Eþ05 3.54Eþ04 0.04

54.46 228.38 4.19817.06 134,060.86 164.08790.71 9756.12 12.34520.95 28,339.24 54.40109.57 3583.26 32.702.77 14,120.38 5097.6113.64 372.24 27.29442,856.01 1,684,051.03 3.80448.46 2882.67 6.43805.39 12,168.65 15.11

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114112

3.2.3. General discussionFirstly, it is important to highlight that both assessed systems

are not similar: while the large-scale (LE) aims to exclusivelyproduce ethanol fuel, IFEES has a different paradigm of develop-ment, in which it aims a diversified production at small-scale(including energy, food and environmental services).

The LE system is able to make about twice more energyavailable than the IFEES (Table 5; 2.11E11 J/ha/yr against 1.09E11 J/ha/yr respectively) by not considering environmental servicesproduction; this energy is the total energy output and not onlyethanol’s (Table 4 shows all outputs for both systems). Trans-formity values indicate that the LE system is about 30% moreefficient than IFEES (Table 5; 46,800 seJ/J against 60,300 seJ/Jrespectively). Any human-made system at small-scale will hardlyreach the same productivity levels found in LE systems (thischaracteristic is recognized as “economy of scale”), but thisproductivity is due to high dependence on non-renewableresources and resulted in an emergy renewability index of 26%for the LE studied system. The IFEES obtained a renewability of55%. Defining “renewable” resource as that can be replaced bynew natural growth within human-lifetime period, then the valueof 26% shows that the LE system’s output production could not beconsidered renewable. Which system should be promoted bypolitical decisions: the LE with high emergy efficiency but lowrenewability, or the IFEES with low emergy efficiency but highrenewability? A combination of the two?

The energetic-environmental indicators considered in this workshowed better values for IFEES (Tables 5 and 6) by not consideringTransformity index. On the other hand, considering a hypotheticalscenario in which the current 5.5 million hectares of sugarcane inSao Paulo Statewere entirely replaced by IFEES production systems,Table 7 shows that the amount of ethanol that could be producedby IFEES is 25 times lesser than the large-scale process. This indi-cates that 25 timesmore landwould be needed than the current 5.5million hectares currently occupied by sugarcane in Sao Paulo Stateto supply the current demand for ethanol. Is there available land forthis? Or should this level of ethanol dependence be reduced glob-ally and locally in order to livewithin the limits of the available landto produce ethanol in small scale? On the other hand, IFEES wouldproduce about 26 million tons of food and 3.5 million tons offorestry products, while large-scale has zero production for theseoutputs. Moreover, IFEES would produce an additional 3.3 trillionliters of water, absorb 27 million tons of CO2 and create 1.2 billionlocal job hours. Should food, environmental services production,and human labor be considered as important as energy in politicaldiscussions?

Agricultural land is not only limited in area, but is intended toprovide food and ecosystem services for the population by Brazilian

Table 7Outputs for large-scale and IFEES systems considering the current 5.5 millions ofhectares with sugarcane in Sao Paulo State.

Output Unit/yr Large-scale Scenario “if” IFEES

Ethanol billion L 33.03 1.32Electricity G Wh 25 e

Grains million ton e 2.08Vegetables million ton e 5.63Fruits million ton e 17.00Coffee million ton e 0.85Meat million ton e 0.27Milk million ton e 0.46Wood forestry million ton e 3.52Compost million ton e 26.77Water percolated trillion L 4.62 7.92CO2 absorbed million ton 37.27 63.88Labor billion hours 0.48 1.66

law. Currently, sugarcane monoculture expansion eliminates smalland medium multi-crop rural farms and results in a decrease ofdiversified food production and environmental services (Mendonçaand Rosset [42]; Jonasse [43]; Martinelli and Filoso [12]; Hall et al.[44]). It may be argued that low productivity pasture lands couldimprove their productivity (from 1 to 2 cattle per hectare) andsupply areas for sugarcane expansion, thus ethanol production willtake part of pasture land and will not affect the small-scale multi-crop areas [45]. This theory is not being applied in practice, becausethe monetary cost for soil recovery is high. Consequently, it is moreprofitable to rent small agricultural areas or to buy lands that werebeing used to produce other commodities such as soybean andorange [35]. Nevertheless, sugarcane expansion is occupying thebest lands, with better climate conditions, soil types, waterresources available, low declivity, and location (i.e., close to ethanolplants and urban centers) [35]; it is evident that there is a compe-tition of agricultural area between small-scale multi-crop proper-ties and sugarcane monoculture.

In Sao Paulo State, people who live in rural areas nearbysugarcane monocultures are being negatively affected (socially,economically and environmentally; Mendonça and Rosset [42];Alves et al. [35]). Notwithstanding this, in the Northeast of SaoPaulo State the sugarcane expanded enormously in recent yearsand new expansions are being projected in Sao Paulo and thesurrounding states [3], and now this kind of system is promoted inother Latin American countries and Africa.

The primary aim of this study is to compare the energetic-environmental aspects of small-scale and large-scale ethanolproduction, inwhich a newproductionmodel (IFEES) is proposed toproduce more than just energy. Santa Barbara [4], Giampietro andMayumi [5], Odum and Odum [46], Alves et al. [35], among othersdiscuss the sociopolitical issues surrounding ethanol production.

Any man-made process causes some load on the environment.Consequently, the carrying capacity of Earth is much less than onehundred years ago [47]; thus, today’s environmental load must becarefully controlled and reduced. Society needs food, environ-mental services and energy to survive, and the processes chosen toproduce them must strive for sustainability and assessed througha multi-criteria approach in which economic, social, and environ-mental issues are taken into account. EROI index and/or the amountof CO2 released to atmosphere are not enough to make decisionsabout which productive system should be encouraged by govern-ment. A systemic view is mandatory! In the future, the multi-criteria approach should include sociopolitical and cultural issuesthat were not considered in this study.

4. Conclusion

Considering the methodologies and assumptions of this work,the follow conclusions can be drawn:

(a) Concerning the energy-environmental aspects for a system asa whole, the Integrated Food, Energy and EnvironmentalServices (IFEES) unit is better than the large-scale system:IFEES has a higher renewability index (m-%R of 55% versus26%); provides higher amount of emergy to economy (2.33versus 1.56 for EYR); has a lower dependence on economicresources (0.75 versus 1.78 for EIR); has a lower environmentalload (m-ELR of 0.82 versus 2.87); has a higher energy return oninvestment (13.2 versus 6.7); has a lower global warmingpotential (1600 versus 14,000 kgCO2-eq./ha/yr) and loweracidification potential (3 versus 59 kgSO2-eq./ha/yr). On theother hand, the large-scale has better emergy efficiency(47,000 seJ/J) than IFEES (60,000 seJ/J).

F. Agostinho, E. Ortega / Energy 37 (2012) 103e114 113

(b) Concerning the energy-environmental aspects per mass ofsugarcane ethanol produced, IFEES performs better than thelarge-scale system: IFEES has less invested energy (2.24 versus4.43 MJ/kgEtOH); less abiotic matter consumed (1.50 versus4.91 kg/kgEtOH); less biotic matter consumed (0.11 and 0.24 kg/kgEtOH); less demand for water (30 versus 350 kg/kgEtOH); lesshydrocarbons, CO, NOx, PM10, SO2, CH4, N2O and CO2 released,resulting in a smaller global warming potential (450 versus2900 kgCO2-eq./tonEtOH); and smaller acidification potential(800 versus 12,000 gSO2-eq./tonEtOH).

The energetic-environmental advantage of IFEES is evidentwhen compared to large-scale ethanol production. Good environ-mental indices are recognized as an essential issue for a moresustainable production system, but social and economic issues arealso important and must be taken into account; these issues werenot addressed in this work.

In addition to ethanol, IFEES produces food, forestry products,compost and environmental services. Landowners with small-scale

Item Emergy accountinga Unit Ref. Embodied Energyb Unit Ref. Ecological Rucksack Unit Ref.

Abiotic Biotic Water

1. Sun 1.00E00 seJ/J [13] e e e e e e e e

2. Rain 3.10E04 seJ/J [48] e e e e e e e e

3. Wind 2.45E03 seJ/J [48] e e e e e e e e

4. Water 6.89E04 seJ/J [24] e e e e e e e e

5. Soil loss 1.24E05 seJ/J [49] e e e 0.66 0.04 0.30 kg/kg d6. Concrete 2.42E12 seJ/kg [50] 160 kgeq/ton [54] 1.33 0.00 3.40 kg/kg [57]7. Steel 3.78E12 seJ/kg [24] 1000 kgeq/ton [54] 9.32 0.00 81.90 kg/kg [57]8. Cooper 3.36E12 seJ/kg [24] 1500 kgeq/ton [54] 170.07 0.00 236.39 kg/kg [57]9. Wood lumber 1.47E12 seJ/kg [50] 390 kgeq/ton [54] 0.68 4.72 9.40 kg/kg [57]10. Rubber 7.22E12 seJ/kg [51] 2040 kgeq/ton [55] 5.70 0.00 146.00 kg/kg e11. Plastic (PVC) 1.08E13 seJ/kg [50] 3000 kgeq/ton [54] 3.33 0.00 176.60 kg/kg [57]12. Clay brick and tile 3.89E12 seJ/kg [50] 100 kgeq/ton [54] 2.11 0.00 5.70 kg/kg [57]13. Electricity 1.12E05 seJ/J [24] 250 kgeq/MWh [54] 4.70 0.00 83.10 kg/kWh [57]14. Lime 1.68E12 seJ/kg [24] 220 kgeq/ton [55] 1.44 0.00 5.60 kg/kg [57]15. Nitrogen 7.28E12 seJ/kg [41] 1440 kgeq/ton [56] 1.10 0.00 0.00 kg/kg [39]16. Phosphorus 5.67E12 seJ/kg [49] 260 kgeq/ton [56] 7.36 0.00 50.60 kg/kg [57]17. Potassium 1.85E12 seJ/kg [13] 160 kgeq/ton [56] 11.32 0.00 10.60 kg/kg [57]18. Urea 7.28E12 seJ/kg [41] 860 kgeq/ton [54] 3.45 0.00 44.60 kg/kg [57]19. Diesel 1.11E05 seJ/J [24] 1580 kgeq/ton [56] 1.36 0.00 9.70 kg/kg [57]20. Seeds 5.88E07 seJ/kg [24] 340 kgeq/ton [54] 4.62 0.24 606.00 kg/kg [39]21. Seedlings 1.70E11 seJ/kg c 38 kgeq/ton c 4.62 0.24 606.00 kg/kg f22. Steer (calf; meat) 4.85E13 seJ/kg [49] 240 kgeq/ton [54] e e e e g23. Package (polyethylene) 1.50E12 seJ/kg [52] 3000 kgeq/ton [54] 2.12 0.00 162.10 kg/kg [57]24. Herbicide 2.49E13 seJ/kg [24] 5670 kgeq/ton [56] 1.10 0.00 0.00 kg/kg [39]25. Insecticide 2.49E13 seJ/kg [24] 4740 kgeq/ton [56] 1.10 0.00 0.00 kg/kg h26. Labor 3.30E12 seJ/USD [53] e e e e e e e e

Brazil’s emergy per money ratio 3.30E12 seJ/USD [53] e e e e e e e e

a Emergy intensity values accounting for labor and services for human-made processes. Emergy baseline of 15.83Eþ24 seJ/yr from Brown and Ulgiati [24].b eq. ¼ equivalent oil; 1 toneq. ¼ 42 GJ [54].c Estimated.d Assuming a soil with 4% of organic matter, 30% of water and 66% of inorganic matter.e Assumed as synthetic rubber from WICEE [57].f Assumed as seeds.g Not considered due to lack of intensity factor.h Assumed as herbicide from Cavalet and Ortega [39].

agricultural systems that obey the environmental law and familyfarming legal dispositions should receive economic incentives forthe environmental services produced in their areas. On the otherhand, large-scale systems produce high amounts of ethanol andelectricity. If the current large-scale ethanol production were to bereplaced by IFEES, it would require 25 times the current areaoccupied by sugarcane in Sao Paulo State; but if large-scale ethanolproduction remains, about 26 million tons of food, 3.5 million tonsof forestry products, part of environmental services (3.3 trillionLiter of water and 27 million tons of CO2 absorbed) and jobs

(1.2 billion hours) produced by IFEES will be not available and couldresult in social and environmental concerns.

Decision-makersmust consider costs andbenefits for local society,the government, the local ecosystem, and the biosphere in addition tothe benefits of the landowner when developing policy. All thesestakeholders must be represented in the decision-making process.

Acknowledgements

Feni Agostinho is grateful to Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa doEstado de São Paulo (FAPESP, process number 2009/51705-9) forgranting the Post-Doctoral scholarship that helped make this workpossible. Special thanks to BrandonWinfrey for his work on Englishlanguage revision and to four anonymous reviewers for valuablesuggestions and comments.

Appendix. Intensity factors used in this work.

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