scholarly journals How to Conduct Prospective Life Cycle Assessment for Emerging Technologies? A Systematic Review and Methodological Guidance

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Thonemann ◽  
Anna Schulte ◽  
Daniel Maga
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Emerging Technologies ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Novel Technologies ◽  
Stage Of Development

Emerging technologies are expected to contribute to environmental sustainable development. However, throughout the development of novel technologies, it is unknown whether emerging technologies can lead to reduced environmental impacts compared to a potentially displaced mature technology. Additionally, process steps suspected to be environmental hotspots can be improved by process engineers early in the development of the emerging technology. In order to determine the environmental impacts of emerging technologies at an early stage of development, prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) should be performed. However, consistency in prospective LCA methodology is lacking. Therefore, this article develops a framework for a prospective LCA in order to overcome the methodological inconsistencies regarding prospective LCAs. The methodological framework was developed using literature on prospective LCAs of emerging technologies, and therefore, a literature review on prospective LCAs was conducted. We found 44 case studies, four review papers, and 17 papers on methodological guidance. Three main challenges for conducting prospective LCAs are identified: Comparability, data, and uncertainty challenges. The issues in defining the aim, functionality, and system boundaries of the prospective LCAs, as well as problems with specifying LCIA methodologies, comprise the comparability challenge. Data availability, quality, and scaling are issues within the data challenge. Finally, uncertainty exists as an overarching challenge when applying a prospective LCA. These three challenges are especially crucial for the prospective assessment of emerging technologies. However, this review also shows that within the methodological papers and case studies, several approaches exist to tackle these challenges. These approaches were systematically summarized within a framework to give guidance on how to overcome the issues when conducting prospective LCAs of emerging technologies. Accordingly, this framework is useful for LCA practitioners who are analyzing early-stage technologies. Nevertheless, further research is needed to develop appropriate scale-up schemes and to include uncertainty analyses for a more in-depth interpretation of results.

scholarly journals Exergy-Based Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings: Case Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11682
Author(s):  
Martin Nwodo ◽  
Chimay Anumba
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Comparison Of Results ◽  
Sustainability Assessments

The relevance of exergy to the life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings has been studied regarding its potential to solve certain challenges in LCA, such as the characterization and valuation, accuracy of resource use, and interpretation and comparison of results. However, this potential has not been properly investigated using case studies. This study develops an exergy-based LCA method and applies it to three case-study buildings to explore its benefits. The results provide evidence that the theoretical benefits of exergy-based LCA as against a conventional LCA can be achieved. These include characterization and valuation benefits, accuracy, and enabling the comparison of environmental impacts. With the results of the exergy-based LCA method in standard metrics, there is now a mechanism for the competitive benchmarking of building sustainability assessments. It is concluded that the exergy-based life cycle assessment method has the potential to solve the characterization and valuation problems in the conventional life-cycle assessment of buildings, with local and global significance.

ASSESSMENT OF ADDITIVE AND CONVENTIONAL MANUFACTURING: CASE STUDIES FROM THE AEC INDUSTRY

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataša Mrazovic ◽  
Danijel Mocibob ◽  
Michael Lepech ◽  
Martin Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Manufacturing Cost ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Assessment Approach ◽  
Building Components ◽  
Future Work

Given the development of Additive Manufacturing (AM), popularly known as 3D Printing, the coexistence of AM and conventional manufacturing (CM) in AEC will be a reality for the foreseeable future. Case studies on two AM metallic building components demonstrated that AM for building components is technologically feasible but cost-prohibitive today, and, in some cases, has lower environmental impacts than CM. Firstly, a feasibility study was conducted to assess the applicability, time to manufacture, and manufacturing cost of AM vs. CM of specific metallic building components. Secondly, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used to assess environmental impacts of AM and CM for those two cases. The case studies were the first well-documented comparative analyses of AM vs. CM for building components, and they contribute to the emerging "AM-in-AEC" knowledge base with their assessment approach, findings and documented baseline efforts for the analyses. The studies also revealed that AEC practitioners lack a systematic way to rapidly and consistently assess the applicability (A), schedule (S), environmental impacts (E), and cost (C) of AM compared with CM to produce building components. Future work includes formalization of such an ASEC multi-criteria framework and impact assessment of the formalized assessment process on the effort and the consistency of the assessment between different assessors.

Life Cycle Assessment Tool in the Early Stage of Development

2014 ◽  
Vol 655 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Thilo Martens ◽  
Eric Unterberger ◽  
Christian Gebbe ◽  
Gunther Reinhart
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Ecological Impact ◽  
Empirical Formulas ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Production Processes ◽  
The Impact

Life cycle assessment is becoming increasingly important for industry. Like the economic impact the ecological impact is mainly determined in the early stage of development. The challenge in this context is that the impact is difficult to predict, if the product hasn’t been fully designed yet and if the production processes aren’t known. For the economic impact many empirical formulas exist, whereas for the ecological impact such formulas are still missing. Therefore, a life cycle impact assessment tool has been developed which supports the developer during all stages of development.

scholarly journals A Scale-up of Energy-Cycle Analysis on Processing Non-Woven Flax/PLA Tape and Triaxial Glass Fibre Fabric for Composites

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilles Tchana Toffe ◽  
Sikiru Oluwarotimi Ismail ◽  
Diogo Montalvão ◽  
Jason Knight ◽  
Guogang Ren
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Composite Materials ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Glass Fibre ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Processing Condition ◽  
Natural Fibre ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Technical Requirements

In the drive towards a sustainable bio-economy, a growing interest exists in the development of composite materials using renewable natural resources. This paper explores the life cycle assessment of processing of Flax fibre reinforced polylactic acid (PLA), with a comparison of glass fibre triaxial fabric in the production process. The use of hydrocarbon fossil resources and synthetic fibres, such as glass and carbon, have caused severe environmental impacts in their entire life cycles. Whereas, Flax/PLA is one of the cornerstones for the sustainable economic growth of natural fibre composites. In this study, the manufacturing processes for the production of Flax/PLA tape and triaxial glass fibre were evaluated through a gate-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA). The assessment was based on an input-output model to estimate energy demand and environmental impacts. The quality of the natural hybrid composite produced and cost-effectiveness of their LCA was dependent on their roving processing speeds and temperature applied to both the Flax/PLA tape and triaxial glass fabrics during processing. The optimum processing condition was found to be at a maximum of 4 m/min at a constant temperature of 170 °C. In contrast, the optimum for normal triaxial glass fibre production was at a slower speed of 1 m/min using a roving glass fibre laminating machine. The results showed that when the Flax and PLA were combined to produce new composite material in the form of a flax/PLA tape, energy consumption was 0.25 MJ/kg, which is lower than the 0.8 MJ/kg used for glass fibre fabric process. Flax/PLA tape and glass fibre fabric composites have a carbon footprint equivalent to 0.036 kg CO2 and 0.11 kg CO2, respectively, under the same manufacturing conditions. These are within the technical requirements in the composites industry. The manufacturing process adopted to transform Flax/PLA into a similar tape composite was considerably quicker than that of woven glass fibre fabric for composite tape. This work elucidated the relationship of the energy consumptions of the two materials processes by using a standard LCA analytical methodology. The outcomes supported an alternative option for replacement of some conventional composite materials for the automotive industry. Most importantly, the natural fibre composite production is shown to result in an economic benefit and reduced environmental impact.

scholarly journals Non-linearity in the Life Cycle Assessment of Scalable and Emerging Technologies

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Pizzol ◽  
Romain Sacchi ◽  
Susanne Köhler ◽  
Annika Anderson Erjavec
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Emerging Technologies ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Product System ◽  
Linear Relationships ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
The Impact

Given a fixed product system model, with the current computational framework of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) the potential environmental impacts associated to demanding one thousand units of a product will be one thousand times larger than what results from demanding 1 unit only – a linear relationship. However, due to economies of scale, industrial synergies, efficiency gains, and system design, activities at different scales will perform differently in terms of life cycle impact – in a non-linear way. This study addresses the issue of using the linear framework of LCA to study scalable and emerging technologies, by looking at different examples where technology scale up reflects non-linearly on the impact of a product. First, a computer simulation applied to an entire database is used to quantitatively estimate the effect of assuming activities in a product system are subject to improvements in efficiency. This provides a theoretical but indicative idea of how much uncertainty can be introduced by non-linear relationships between input values and results at the database level. Then the non-linear relations between the environmental burden per tkm of transport on one end, and the cargo mass and range autonomy on the other end is highlighted using a parametrized LCA model for heavy goods vehicles combined with learning scenarios that reflect different load factors and improvement in battery technology. Finally, a last example explores the case of activities related to the mining of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, an emerging technology, and how the impact of scaling the Bitcoin mining production is affected non-linearly by factors such as increase in mining efficiency and geographical distribution of miners. The paper concludes by discussing the relation between non-linearity and uncertainty and by providing recommendations for accounting for non-linearity in prospective LCA studies.

scholarly journals Combining Biomass Gasification and Solid Oxid Fuel Cell for Heat and Power Generation: An Early-Stage Life Cycle Assessment

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Moretti ◽  
Blanca Corona ◽  
Viola Rühlin ◽  
Thomas Götz ◽  
Martin Junginger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Power Systems ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
High Efficiency ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Biomass Gasification ◽  
Environmental Benefits

Biomass-fueled combined heat and power systems (CHPs) can potentially offer environmental benefits compared to conventional separate production technologies. This study presents the first environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) of a novel high-efficiency bio-based power (HBP) technology, which combines biomass gasification with a 199 kW solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) to produce heat and electricity. The aim is to identify the main sources of environmental impacts and to assess the potential environmental performance compared to benchmark technologies. The use of various biomass fuels and alternative allocation methods were scrutinized. The LCA results reveal that most of the environmental impacts of the energy supplied with the HBP technology are caused by the production of the biomass fuel. This contribution is higher for pelletized than for chipped biomass. Overall, HBP technology shows better environmental performance than heat from natural gas and electricity from the German/European grid. When comparing the HBP technology with the biomass-fueled ORC technology, the former offers significant benefits in terms of particulate matter (about 22 times lower), photochemical ozone formation (11 times lower), acidification (8 times lower) and terrestrial eutrophication (about 26 times lower). The environmental performance was not affected by the allocation parameter (exergy or economic) used. However, the tested substitution approaches showed to be inadequate to model multiple environmental impacts of CHP plants under the investigated context and goal.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment for Emerging Technologies: Case Studies for Photovoltaic and Wind Power (11 pp)

2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Jungbluth ◽  
Christian Bauer ◽  
Roberto Dones ◽  
Rolf Frischknecht
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Wind Power ◽  
Emerging Technologies
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