scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Italian Electricity Scenarios to 2030

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 3852
Author(s):  
Alessia Gargiulo ◽  
Maria Leonor Carvalho ◽  
Pierpaolo Girardi
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Strategic Objectives ◽  
Environmental Profile ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Current Scenario ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
Photovoltaic Technologies ◽  
Business As Usual

The study presents a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Italian electricity scenarios, devised in the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (INECP). A fully representative LCA of the national electricity system was carried out, taking into consideration a great number of different power plant typologies for current (2016 and 2017) and future (2030) electricity mixes. The study confirms that LCA can be a powerful tool for supporting energy planning and strategies assessment. Indeed the results put in evidence not only the improvement of the environmental profile from the current to the future mix (the impacts decrease from 2016 to 2030 due to the transition towards renewables, mainly wind and photovoltaic), but also underline the difference between two scenarios at 2030 (being the scenario that includes the strategic objectives of the INECP to 2030 the one showing best environmental profile), providing an evaluation of the effect of different energy policies. For example, in the INECP scenario CO2 eq/kWh is 46% lower than current scenario and 37% lower than business as usual scenario for 2030. Moreover, considering different impact categories allowed to identify potential environmental trade-offs. The results suggest also the need of future insight on data related to photovoltaic technologies and materials and their future development.

scholarly journals The evolution of life cycle assessment in European policies over three decades

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serenella Sala ◽  
Andrea Martino Amadei ◽  
Antoine Beylot ◽  
Fulvio Ardente
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Life Cycle Thinking ◽  
Environmental Footprint ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Policy Domain ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Purpose Life cycle thinking (LCT) and life cycle assessment (LCA) are increasingly considered pivotal concept and method for supporting sustainable transitions. LCA plays a relevant role in decision support, for the ambition of a holistic coverage of environmental dimensions and for the identification of hotspots, possible trade-offs, and burden shifting among life cycle stages or impact categories. These features are also relevant when the decision support is needed in policy domain. With a focus on EU policies, the present study explores the evolution and implementation of life cycle concepts and approaches over three decades. Methods Adopting an historical perspective, a review of current European Union (EU) legal acts and communications explicitly mentioning LCT, LCA, life cycle costing (LCC), and environmental footprint (the European Product and Organisation Environmental Footprint PEF/OEF) is performed, considering the timeframe from 1990 to 2020. The documents are categorised by year and according to their types (e.g. regulations, directives, communications) and based on the covered sectors (e.g. waste, energy, buildings). Documents for which life cycle concepts and approaches had a crucial role are identified, and a shortlist of these legal acts and communications is derived. Results and discussion Over the years, LCT and life cycle approaches have been increasingly mentioned in policy. From the Ecolabel Regulation of 1992, to the Green Deal in 2019, life cycle considerations are of particular interest in the EU. The present work analysed a total of 159 policies and 167 communications. While in some sectors (e.g. products, vehicles, and waste) life cycle concepts and approaches have been adopted with higher levels of prescriptiveness, implementation in other sectors (e.g. food and agriculture) is only at a preliminary stage. Moreover, life cycle (especially LCT) is frequently addressed and cited only as a general concept and in a rather generic manner. Additionally, more stringent and rigorous methods (LCA, PEF/OEF) are commonly cited only in view of future policy developments, even if a more mature interest in lifecycle is evident in recent policies. Conclusion The EU has been a frontrunner in the implementation of LCT/LCA in policies. However, despite a growing trend in this implementation, the development of new stringent and mandatory requirements related to life cycle is still relatively limited. In fact, there are still issues to be solved in the interface between science and policy making (such as verification and market surveillance) to ensure a wider implementation of LCT and LCA.

scholarly journals Environmental profile evaluations of piezoelectric polymers using life cycle assessment

2018 ◽  
Vol 154 ◽  
pp. 012017 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Parvez Mahmud ◽  
Nazmul Huda ◽  
Shahjadi Hisan Farjana ◽  
Candace Lang
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Piezoelectric Polymers ◽  
Environmental Profile

P&G: Providing Sustainable Innovative Products through LCA Worldwide

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raveesh Agarwal ◽  
Monica Thiel
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Product Portfolio ◽  
Environmentally Sustainable ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The World ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Innovative Products ◽  
Owned Company

Procter and Gamble (P&G) is a publicly owned company which touches the lives of about four billion people around the world with its product portfolio. P&G is committed to improving people’s everyday life by making products more environmentally sustainable. To understand how P&G can make products more environmentally sustainable, the present case focuses on the scientific approach called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) adopted by P&G to deliver sustainable innovations without trade-offs in performance or value of the products.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Oyster Farming in the Po Delta, Northern Italy

Resources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamburini ◽  
Fano ◽  
Castaldelli ◽  
Turolla
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Seed Production ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Current Scenario ◽  
Po Delta ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Aquaculture Production

Oysters represent an important portion of the world’s total aquaculture production. In recent years, in Italy, oyster farming has progressively increased its role in the economic growth of the aquaculture sector and still has great potential for growth. As in any other production, oyster farming generates environmental impacts over an oyster’s life cycle, due to material, energy, fuel, and water use. The aim of this work was to carry out a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) of 1 kg of fresh oysters of commercial size produced in the Po delta area, northern Italy. Two scenarios were considered. The current scenario provides for oyster seed purchasing from France and transport to Italy, whereas the alternative scenario includes in situ seed production in order to realize a complete local and traceable supply chain. Eco-indicator® 99-H and ReCiPe® midpoint (H) v.1.12 were used to perform the impact assessments. The overall impacts of the two scenarios were very similar and indicated that the main hotspots were the fattening and prefattening phases of farming, which were common in both scenarios. Focusing the analysis on the first stages, transport from France had a greater impact than did local seed production, emphasizing the importance of a short supply chain in aquaculture production.

scholarly journals Adjustment of the Life Cycle Inventory in Life Cycle Assessment for the Flexible Integration into Energy Systems Analysis

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 4437
Author(s):  
Thomas Betten ◽  
Shivenes Shammugam ◽  
Roberta Graf
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Double Counting ◽  
Energy Technologies ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Energy Systems Analysis ◽  
The Difference

With an increasing share of renewable energy technologies in our energy systems, the integration of not only direct emission (from the use phase), but also the total life cycle emissions (including emissions during resource extraction, production, etc.) becomes more important in order to draw meaningful conclusions from Energy Systems Analysis (ESA). While the benefit of integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) into ESA is acknowledged, methodologically sound integration lacks resonance in practice, partly because the dimension of the implications is not yet fully understood. This study proposes an easy-to-implement procedure for the integration of LCA results in ESA based on existing theoretical approaches. The need for a methodologically sound integration, including the avoidance of double counting of emissions, is demonstrated on the use case of Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell photovoltaic technology. The difference in Global Warming Potential of 19% between direct and LCA based emissions shows the significance for the integration of the total emissions into energy systems analysis and the potential double counting of 75% of the life cycle emissions for the use case supports the need for avoidance of double counting.

scholarly journals Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment of an Innovative Bio-Based Material in Construction: A Case Study of a Phase Change Material Panel

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Heidari ◽  
Damien Mathis ◽  
Pierre Blanchet ◽  
Ben Amor
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Phase Change ◽  
Phase Change Material ◽  
Product Life Cycle ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Data Intensive ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Change Material

Research Highlights: This is the first study that analyzes the environmental performance of wood-based phase change material (PCM) panels. Background and Objectives: Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a powerful environmental management tool. However, a full LCA, especially during the early design phase of a product, is far too time and data intensive for industrial companies to conduct during their production and consumption processes. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for simpler methods to demonstrate a company’s resource efficiency potential without being data or time intensive. The goal of this study is to investigate the suitability of streamlined LCA (SLCA) tools and methods used in the building material industry, and to assess their robustness in the case study of a wood-based PCM panel. Materials and Methods: The Bilan Produit tool was selected as the SLCA tool and a matrix LCA was selected as the most commonly used SLCA method. A specific case study of a wood-based PCM panel was selected with a focus on its application in building construction in the province of Québec. Results: As a semi-quantitative LCA method, the matrix LCA provided a quick screening of the product life cycle and its hotspot stages, i.e., life cycle stages with high impact. However, the results of the full LCA and SLCA tools were quantitative and based on scientific databases. The use of the PCM panel and heating energy had the highest environmental impacts as compared to other inputs. The results of the full LCA and SLCA also identified energy consumption as a hotspot. Insufficient material or processes in the SLCA databases was one of the reasons for the difference between the results of the SLCA and full LCA. Conclusions: The examined SLCA methods provided proper explanations for the bio-based material in construction, but several limitations still exist, and the methods should be improved to make them more robust when implemented in such a specific sector.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Forest-Based Products: A Review

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 4722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamalakanta Sahoo ◽  
Richard Bergman ◽  
Sevda Alanya-Rosenbaum ◽  
Hongmei Gu ◽  
Shaobo Liang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
Sustainable Forest Management ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Building Products ◽  
Trade Offs

Climate change, environmental degradation, and limited resources are motivations for sustainable forest management. Forests, the most abundant renewable resource on earth, used to make a wide variety of forest-based products for human consumption. To provide a scientific measure of a product’s sustainability and environmental performance, the life cycle assessment (LCA) method is used. This article provides a comprehensive review of environmental performances of forest-based products including traditional building products, emerging (mass-timber) building products and nanomaterials using attributional LCA. Across the supply chain, the product manufacturing life-cycle stage tends to have the largest environmental impacts. However, forest management activities and logistics tend to have the greatest economic impact. In addition, environmental trade-offs exist when regulating emissions as indicated by the latest traditional wood building product LCAs. Interpretation of these LCA results can guide new product development using biomaterials, future (mass) building systems and policy-making on mitigating climate change. Key challenges include handling of uncertainties in the supply chain and complex interactions of environment, material conversion, resource use for product production and quantifying the emissions released.

Prospects of life cycle assessment of renewable energy from solar photovoltaic technologies: A review

2018 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 11-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norasikin Ahmad Ludin ◽  
Nur Ifthitah Mustafa ◽  
Marlia M. Hanafiah ◽  
Mohd Adib Ibrahim ◽  
Mohd Asri Mat Teridi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Solar Photovoltaic ◽  
Photovoltaic Technologies
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