Life-cycle analysis

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Bioenergy > Sustainability > Tools > Life-cycle analysis/Life-cycle assessment (LCA)

Timothy Searchinger debates the potential environmental impacts of biofuels in Washington, D.C. in 2009.

Life-cycle analysis or assesment (LCA) is a scientific method to record environmental (but also increasingly including social) impacts "from cradle to grave", i.e. from production to final disposal / recycling. Also known as "well to wheel" for transport fuels or "field to wheel" for biofuels.

• Two of the most used types of life cycle assessment for bioenergy are those used to determine net-energy and net greenhouse gas emissions. In order to investigate the environmental impacts of bioenergy and biofuels it is absolutely necessary to account for several other problems as acidicication, nutrification, land occupation, water use or toxicological effects of fertilizers and pesiticides.

Summary

LCA aims to calculate the environmental impact of a good, a process or a service "from cradle to grave". The impact includes all relevant environmental aspects such as cumulative energy demand, climatic change, acidification, nutrification, land occupation, photochemical oxidation, ecotoxicity, human health, etc.. After quantifying the energy and substances flows occuring at each step of the product/service life cycle (Life Cycle Inventory or LCI), the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) transpose these flows into a potential impact, as per the main damage categories (as listed above). The results are mainly used in comparative approaches, in order to compare several scenarios ending with the same functional unit. For instance, the functional unit "transporting one person on one kilometer" can be used to compare several types of transport.

Origin

Method

1. Goal and Scope Definition
2. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI)
3. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA)

Outputs and Implementation

Events

2009

• 10-11 June 2009, Washington, D.C., USA: Workshop on Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Analysis for the Proposed Revisions to the National Renewable Fuels Standard Program. Also available by webmeeting. (Themes: life-cycle analysis, renewable fuels standards)

2008

• 17 November 2008, Zurich, Switzerland: 36th discussion forum on Life Cycle Assessment of Future Biofuels. (Theme: life cycle analysis, second-generation biofuel)

News

• Lawsuit: LCFS violates US Constitution, 4 January 2010 by Todd J. Guerrero in Ethanol Producer Magazine: "In a case that will be closely watched throughout the country, Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association recently filed suit in federal district court alleging that California’s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) violates the federal Constitution."
  • "Adopted by the California Air Resources Board in 2009, the LCFS is intended to reduce California greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by reducing the carbon intensity of transportation fuels used in California by an average of 10 percent by the year 2020. Carbon intensity is a measure of the direct and indirect GHG emissions associated with each step of a fuel’s full life cycle – the 'well-to-wheels' for fossil fuels and 'seed-to-wheels' for biofuels."
  • "For corn ethanol, indirect land use changes are a significant source of additional GHG emissions....Given the LCFS’ requirement of reduced carbon intensity, it’s not difficult to see that corn ethanol will be severely disadvantaged in California."[1]

• Impacts of Global Biofuel Boom Remain Murky, 16 October 2009 by Scientific American: A U.N. Environment Programme "report concludes that so-called lifecycle assessments must go beyond calculating greenhouse gas emissions and consider how agricultural production of feedstocks affect the acidification and nutrient loading of waterways."
  • "'From a representative sample of [lifecycle] studies on biofuels, less than one third presented results for acidification and eutrophication, and only a few for toxicity potential (either human toxicity or eco-toxicity, or both), summer smog, ozone depletion or abiotic resource depletion potential, and none on biodiversity,' it adds."
  • "The study is the second major report this month calling for greater research on the environmental effects of producing ethanol and other renewable transportation fuels.
  • "A Government Accountability Office report released Oct. 2 said Congress should require U.S. EPA to consider a wider range of environmental effects when deciding which fuels are eligible under the federal biofuels use mandate."[2]

• EPA's peer review of indirect land use criticized, 7 August 2009 by Feedstuffs: "Today the Environmental Protection Agency released its peer review of the renewable fuel standards lifecycle analysis."
  • "House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) said the review panel expressed concern about using incomplete and unreliable models to indirect land use changes and indicated they didn't have enough time to review this 'convoluted and complicated proposal.'"
  • "Ethanol groups said the agency 'stacked the deck against biofuels' in its peer review process. The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) criticized EPA for selecting 'peers' who have been vocal opponents of biofuels or who have released studies later called into question".[3]

• The hidden costs of biofuels, 9 January 2008, Editorial by Environmental Research Web, reports on an environmental life-cycle assessment study by EMPA (Switzerland) that finds "that not all biofuels can reduce environmental impacts compared to those from fossil fuels."
  • "Of the 26 biofuels examined, 13 reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50%. These included biofuels made from liquid manure, biodiesel made from waste cooking oil, methanol and methane from wood, and bioethanol from domestic biomass (grass, wood, sugar beets or whey), Brazilian sugar cane and Chinese sorghum. At worst, the emissions from Brazilian soy biodiesel were slightly higher than those from petrol."[4]

Publications

• Carbon payback times for crop-based biofuel expansion in the tropics: the effects of changing yield and technology by Holly K Gibbs, Matt Johnston, Jonathan A Foley, Tracey Holloway, Chad Monfreda, Navin Ramankutty and David Zaks. Environmental Research Letters, 3, 034001. July 2008

• Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Products: Environmental Assessment of Biofuels - Executive Summary by Rainer Zah, Heinz Böni, Marcel Gauch, Roland Hischier, Martin Lehmann & Patrick Wäger (translated by Thomas Ruddy); EMPA, Switzerland, 22 May 2007. The report examines the result of life-cycle analysis of both the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts for a range of biofuels, including ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, and biogas, made from a range feedstocks. The report shows that there is a trade-offs between greenhouse gas benefits and environmental impacts, mainly due to the effects of intensified agriculture.

• Life-Cycle Assessment Of Net Greenhouse-Gas Flux For Bioenergy Cropping Systems by Paul R. Adler, Stephen J. Del Grosso, and William J. Parton, Ecological Applications, 17(3), 2007, pp. 675-691.

• Comparison of Transport Fuels: Final Report (EV45A/2/F3C) to the Australian Greenhouse Office on the Stage 2 study of Life-cycle Emissions Analysis of Alternative Fuels for Heavy Vehicles by By Tom Beer, Tim Grant, Geoff Morgan, Jack Lapszewicz, Peter Anyon, Jim Edwards, Peter Nelson, Harry Watson & David Williams; CSIRO in association with The University of Melbourne, the Centre for Design at RMIT, Parsons Australia Pty Ltd and Southern Cross Institute of Health Research, January 2006.

• Life Cycle Assessment of Vehicle Fuels and Technologies by Dr Ben Lane; Ecolane Transport Consultancy on behalf of London Borough of Camden, March 2006.

• Life Cycle Inventory of Biodiesel and Petroleum Diesel for Use in an Urban Bus by U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Energy Final Report, May 1998.

• Life cycle assessment of using biomass-to-liquid fuels

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