Life cycle assessment and Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the environmental impact of promoting LNG vehicles

Abstract

•As a novel and alternative type of fuel for heavy-duty trucks, it is very important to assess a broad array of environmental impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG). However, few studies have evaluated comprehensively the environmental impact of LNG as an alternative fuel on human health, ecosystems and resources from a life cycle perspective. In particular, the environmental benefit of promoting LNG vehicles is often complicated and uncertain due to many variable factors, which are also often not given enough attention. This method article describes the use of a combination of life cycle assessment (LCA) and Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the potential environmental benefits of promoting LNG heavy-duty diesel vehicles in Saguenay, a city in Canada. It not only conducts a full-range analysis of environmental impacts, but also considers the impact of joint changes in uncertain factors such as methane emission rates, energy efficiency of engine and the project promotion prospects on the environmental benefits of LNG, making life cycle environmental impact assessment more systematic and comprehensive. The paper provides the details of all the steps used in the method and can be replicated and applied to other similar studies and research settings.•This combined approach provides a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impacts incurred by the promotion of LNG vehicles. Besides, it also provides a certain degree of risk assessment for LNG projects.•This method takes into account the complexity of the joint change of multiple uncertainties, which makes up for the deficiencies of previous studies that only analyze one uncertainty in isolation.•This method takes the development prospect of LNG promoting project as an uncertain factor for environmental benefit assessment.