Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Alternative Fuels for Western Australia’s Transport Sector

Najmul Hoque,Wahidul Biswas,Ian Howard,Ilyas Mazhar

doi:10.3390/atmos10070398

Abstract

Alternative fuels for the transport sector are being emphasized due to energy security and environmental issues. Possible alternative fuel options need to be assessed to realize their potential to alleviate environmental burdens before policy formulations. Western Australia (WA) is dominated by private cars, accounting for around 72% vehicles with 87% of those using imported gasoline, and resulting in approximately 14% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector. There is an urgent need for WA to consider alternative transport fuels not only to reduce the environmental burden but also to avoid future energy security consequences. This study assesses the environmental life cycle assessment (ELCA) of transport fuel options suitable for WA. The study revealed that ethanol (E65), electric (EV) and plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV) options can decrease global warming potential (GWP) by 40%, 29% and 14%, respectively, when compared to gasoline. The EV and PHEV also performed better than gasoline in the fossil fuel depletion (FFD) and water consumption (WC) impact categories. Gasoline, however, demonstrated better environmental performance in all the impact categories compared to hydrogen and that was mainly due to the high electricity requirement during the production of hydrogen. The use of platinum in hydrogen fuel cells and carbon fibre in the hydrogen tank for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV) and Li-ion battery for EVs are the most important sources of environmental impacts. The findings of the study would aid the energy planners and decision makers in carrying out a comparative environmental assessment of the locally-sourced alternative fuels for WA.

Highlights

Rising population coupled with intensive industrialization is increasing the demand for conventional fuels, which in turn results in the increase of exploitation of scarce natural resources and environmental degradation
This study aims at the environmental life cycle assessment of alternative transport fuel options for Western Australia
Namely global warming potential (GWP), fossil fuel depletion (FFD), water consumption (WC) and land use were considered based on their necessity that was established through the literature review and expert surveys

Summary

Introduction

Rising population coupled with intensive industrialization is increasing the demand for conventional fuels, which in turn results in the increase of exploitation of scarce natural resources and environmental degradation. As a consequence, increasing consumption of natural resources and intensifying environmental impacts are becoming more serious concerns globally [1]. Fossil fuels comprise around 80% of the global primary energy consumption, 58% of which is consumed by the transport sector alone [2]. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), 95% of transportation energy originates from fossil fuel that causes 14% of total greenhouse gases (GHG) [3]. The consumption of energy in WA is growing at around 5% per annum [5]. During 2016–2017, 1179.5 PJ of energy was consumed in WA. Among the total energy consumption in WA, 97% is currently sourced from fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) [6]. WA’s transport sector alone consumed 251PJ of energy (19%) which

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