Effects of tillage technology on energetic efficiency of rapeseed plantation for biofuel production

Biofuel production, as well as any other production processes, involves a number of conversion steps each of those is connected with unavoidable consumption of energy. Since biofuels are intended to replace fossil fuels it is important that the sum of energy inputs into subsequent technological steps does not exceed the energy output from the system. Basing on theoretical model derived recently by present authors, energy require-ments for several agricultural technologies are computed, and used for estimation of energetic efficiency of rapeseed plantations dedicated for biodiesel fuel production. The effects of technological choices on energetic efficiency of plantations are demonstrated basing on numerical compu-tations performed using realistic data.