Life Cycle Assessment Harmonization
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a major thrust for sustainability analysis at NREL. The laboratory is a leader in the field of life cycle assessment of energy technologies, both renewable and conventional. LCA tracks all material, energy, and pollutant flows across the boundary of the system — from raw material extraction, manufacturing, transport, and construction to operation and end-of-life disposal. This approach can help determine environmental burdens from "cradle to grave," which facilitates comparisons across technologies that have similar outputs.
NREL is conducting original LCAs across a range of electricity generation technologies and fuels, both domestically and internationally. In addition, NREL is leading an exciting new project that aims to review and "harmonize" all existing LCAs on energy technologies to increase their value to the policymaking and research communities.
The goal of the LCA Harmonization project is to reduce the uncertainty around estimates for environmental impacts of renewables and make the information useful to decision-makers in the near term.
NREL analysts have collected LCA literature (with an initial focus on electricity generation technologies), pared it down, and parsed it by technology and other attributes. The analysts are also statistically analyzing published estimates of life cycle burdens.
Environmental stressors being considered include:
- Greenhouse gas emissions (initial focus)
- Water
- Fossil fuel use
- Land use
- Energy balance
- Major materials (e.g., steel, glass, concrete/cement, etc.)
The main objectives of this harmonization project will be to determine the "central tendency" and variability of life cycle environmental burdens based on this analysis of reputable literature. NREL will also create consistent system boundaries for some of the reviewed studies, which will reduce the methodological inconsistencies that can tend to increase variability.
More Information
For more information on life cycle assessment, access the following publications:
"Life Cycle Assessment of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007: Ethanol - Global Warming Potential and Environmental Emissions," (PDF 1.6 MB) by Garvin Heath, David Hsu, Daniel Inman, Andy Aden, and Margaret Mann.
"Life Cycle Assessment of the Use of Jatropha Biodiesel in Indian Locomotives," (PDF 306 KB) by Garvin Heath (NREL) and Michael Whitaker (Symbiotic Engineering).
"Life Cycle Assessment of Thermal Energy Storage: Two-Tank Indirect and Thermocline," (PDF 371 KB) by Garvin Heath, Craig Turchi, John Burkhardt, Chuck Kutscher (NREL); Terese Decker (University of Colorado).
To talk with an analyst about this project, contact Garvin Heath.
