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24 Aug 2010
Unit:
LEI
 At the request of the European Commission, the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment has carried out a study into the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of biofuel crops. Each EU member state has had to carry out a similar type of study.
The study includes a list of Dutch provinces specifying the typical greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of agricultural crops used for biofuels. The Dutch list has been prepared for grain maize, winter rape, sugar beets and winter wheat.
Parameters
For this study, LEI worked together with PRI and PPO-agv to collect, calculate and present relevant parameter values in the report titled 'Dutch energy crops; Parameters to calculate greenhouse gas emissions in 2011'. This makes it possible to calculate the emissions over the entire chain of bio-energy production.
The following parameters were collected for each crop, region and soil type: crop acreages, yield of main and accessory product, quantity of seed used for sowing, amounts of nutrients added as N, P, K and CaO, quantities of crop protection agents (kg of active compound) used, fuel consumption and N2O emissions from the soil.
Emissions
Based on the above, the ‘Agentschap NL’ calculated the emissions of greenhouse gases. The calculations show that the typical greenhouse gas emission for grain maize, winter rape and sugar beets is less than the standard values in all the provinces.
For winter wheat, this is true only in the province of Limburg. In the other provinces, the emissions resulting from this crop exceed the standard value. This means that for winter wheat grown in the Netherlands, with the exception of the province of Limburg, a calculation of greenhouse gas emissions must be carried out for this crop if it is to be used for the production of biofuels. This is not necessary for the other three crops.
Report 2010-050 Dutch energy crops; Parameters to calculate greenhouse gas emissions in 2011
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