Loading...
Citations
Altmetric:
Date
2026-02
Abstract
Ireland faces significant pressure to decarbonise different sectors of its economy. Irish agriculture, as one of the highest emitting sectors, faces a particular challenge to reduce emissions associated with its vast grassland and livestock sector. “Green biorefining” is an emerging field of the bioeconomy in which grassland can be efficiently converted, among other applications, into ruminant forage (press cake), with the co-production of leaf protein concentrate (LPC) for monogastric feed, and brown juice residues for biogas production.
This thesis builds on ongoing technical research and development by investigating the environmental impacts of green biorefinery scenarios in an Irish context. Firstly, a detailed literature review was undertaken on the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) across different biorefinery studies to understand approaches in dealing with key methodological decisions which arise. The thesis then conducted an attributional LCA study to assess the environmental performance of grass-based LPC as an alternative pig feed ingredient to soyabean meal (SBM) finding that LPC had an improved environmental performance including a 57-85% lower Climate Change footprint when compared to SBM, which varied depending on selected feedstock (perennial rye-grass v/s grass clover) and processing parameters (conventional v/s disruptive maceration pre-treatments). A further prospective consequential LCA study of grassland agri-bioeconomy scenarios found that scenarios involving integrated green biorefining with anaerobic digestion pathways offered significant climate mitigation potential per hectare of grassland compared to a baseline traditional beef farm.
In conclusion, green biorefineries could represent a key strategy for climate mitigation in Ireland, while enhancing feed and energy resilience and creating new diversification opportunities. The results will be a big asset to support policymakers, and academic and industry stakeholders in considering the role of bioeconomy as a mitigation pathway in Ireland’s most abundant land use sector.
Supervisor
Description
Peer-reviewed
Publisher
University of Limerick
Citation
Collections
Files
ULRR Identifiers
Funding code
Funding Information
Sustainable Development Goals
External Link
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International