While life cycle assessment is concerned with the environmental impact of a given
processing system, it is often used, as by Lardon et al. (2009) to
prove or disprove the usefulness of a given bio-energy approach.
An (often partial) first law of thermodynamics energy balance is
developed along the LCA results, essentially asking the question
‘‘How many joules are used to produce one joule of the target
fuel?” This can be deceiving since it only takes in account the quantity
(first law of thermodynamics) but not the quality of energy