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Ethanol produced from lignocelluloses is expected to make a major contribution on transportation fuel markets. In this paper, a life cycle assessment was carried out to assess the environmental burdens of ethanol production from wheat straw and its use as ethanol blend fuels. Two ethanol based fuel E15 (a mixture of 15% ethanol and 85% petrol by volume) and E85 (85% ethanol and 15% petrol by volume) were assessed and results were compared to those of conventional petrol (PT) in 1 km driven by an equivalent car. The environmental performance was studied using ReCiPe methodology and includes global warming, ozone depletion, photochemical oxidant formation, acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication, water depletion and fossil depletion. The results show that, compared to petrol, life cycle greenhouse gas emissions are lower for ethanol blends, with a 73% reduction for an E85-fuelled car and 13 …