Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment Research Articles

Cellulose nanofibre films as a substitute for plastic packaging: A comparative environmental life cycle assessment

Accumulation of synthetic food packaging in the natural environment has increased considerably in last few decades, posing serious concerns to human and aquatic life. Hence, substituting synthetic packaging with biobased packaging is one viable option. Cellulose nanofibres can easily be transformed into films, which could be a suitable alternative for petroleum-derived packaging. However, production of these films consumes a significant amount of energy as compared with the synthetic packaging. The main contributors for this high energy consumption are associated with the treatment of pulp, production of fibres and drying of films. This study analyzes the environmental impacts (in terms of energy and water) of spray deposited cellulose nanofibre films and its key drivers through an attributional cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment. Different scenarios were formulated and studied in terms of waste feedstock choice, solid content, forming composite of cellulose nanofibres, and location (Australia, China, Germany, Great Britain and United States of America). The results indicate that the environmental impacts of spray deposited cellulose nanofibre films based on a baseline scenario for a large-scale production were still higher as compared with petroleum-based synthetic packaging. However, establishing a recommended scenario from the studied scenarios could lower the environmental impacts significantly (two to five times) in comparison to synthetic food packaging. This life cycle assessment model has the potential to support the reduction of the environmental impact of the studied green chemistry option and to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable packaging.

A comparative environmental life cycle assessment of road asphalt pavement solutions made up of artificial aggregates

The construction and maintenance of road pavements entail detrimental impacts on the consumption of resources and damage to the natural environment but also make up an opportunity for the large-scale application of circular economy principles and innovative waste valorisation paths. The present study focuses on developing a comprehensive procedure to evaluate the technical and environmental sustainability of replacing high percentage of limestone aggregates with artificial aggregates from municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) into hot or cold recycled asphalt mixtures for asphalt pavements.The technical feasibility of the designed mixtures was investigated in terms of the main physical and mechanical properties of both the raw materials and the asphalt mixtures with content of artificial aggregates or sand in the range 25–40 % by mass. The environmental feasibility of the asphalt mixtures was evaluated through the SEM-EDS technique, the analysis of the eluate of the leaching test and the ecotoxicity for living organisms.Afterwards, the life cycle assessment (LCA) was applied to detect the critical spots of the life cycle of 1 m2 of a 6 cm-thick binder layer with high percentage of artificial aggregates or sand built and maintained through 30 years analysis period according to 18 impact category indicators.The main results show that, recycling the artificial aggregates into hot asphalt mixtures has on average a negligible effect on the overall environmental performance of the life cycle, and appears to be detrimental only for the consumption of fossil resources due to the higher optimum bitumen content. Looking at the results for cold mixes, the introduction of the artificial aggregates has an effect on the predicted durability of the asphalt layers, which is maximized in the case of coarse artificial aggregates. Consequent environmental benefits regard the global warming potential, fossil resource scarcity and freshwater eutrophication indicators.

Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of partition walls: Innovative prefabricated systems vs conventional construction

Prefabrication is increasingly recognized as an alternative to conventional on-site construction, offering potential environmental benefits. However, these benefits are context-specific, requiring precise studies for optimal solutions. This paper presents the life-cycle environmental performance of an innovative prefabricated interior partition wall and benchmarks it against a conventional system, providing a replicable model for other novel partition walls. Detailed data collected directly from direct sources were utilized to conduct a cradle-to-gate with options Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), presenting a conveniently described method that can be widely replicated in the construction sector. The adapted LCA method presented in this study contributes to sustainable construction, providing a straightforward and robust approach to assessing the environmental impacts of innovative partition walls compared to conventional walls. For the specific scenario studied, the life-cycle impact assessment results generally indicate a superior environmental performance of the innovative prefabricated interior partition wall compared to the conventional system, resulting in impact reductions ranging from 10 to 60% across evaluated categories. For both systems, the production of materials plays a predominant role in the impact contributions. Furthermore, exploring alternative scenarios yielded significant environmental benefits, particularly in cases considering higher incorporation of recycled materials. Therefore, the direct comparison of the environmental performance of innovative partition walls against traditional solutions emerges as an environmentally sustainable path in the short and medium term. This aligns with the ongoing progress towards decarbonizing the building sector, not only in choosing more environmentally friendly solutions but also in improving the environmental performance of products through assertive changes.

Comparative Feasibility and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Cotton Stalks Gasification and Pyrolysis

In a circular economy, significant emphasis is given to the energetic valorization of agricultural byproducts. Cotton stalks are suitable as a feedstock for the production of bioenergy due to their high energy content. This study’s main focal areas are the economic viability and environmental implications of a system that can gasify or pyrolyze 25,500 tons of cotton stalk annually. To learn more about how gasification and pyrolysis affect the environment, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted. This analysis evaluates the whole value chain and covers all stages of the cotton supply chain from cradle to gate, including production, harvest, transportation, and utilization. According to the findings, both systems exhibit economic viability, generating sizable profits and having quick payback times. However, despite its larger initial expenditure of EUR 2.74 million, the pyrolysis unit ends up being the better option because it has a payback period of 1.58 years, a return on investment (ROI) of 58% and a net present value (NPV) of EUR 21.5 million. Gasification is still an economically attractive alternative with a lower initial investment (EUR 1.81 million), despite having a lower ROI (36%) and NPV (EUR 10.52 million), as well as a longer payback period (2.41 years). However, the environmental implications of the gasification option are generally higher than those of pyrolysis. The impacts of gasification on fossil depletion (FDP) were estimated to be 5.7 million kg oil eq., compared to 5.3 million kg oil eq. for pyrolysis. Similarly, gasification resulted in 41.55 million kg U235 eq. and pyrolysis in 41.5 million kg U235 eq. related to impacts on ionizing radiation (IRP_HE). Other impact categories that emerge as the most important are freshwater eutrophication (FEP) and marine eutrophication (MEP).

A comparative environmental Life Cycle Assessment study of hydrogen fuel, electricity and diesel fuel for public buses

Hydrogen fuel and electricity are energy carriers viewed as promising alternatives for the modernization and decarbonization of public bus transportation fleets. In order to choose development pathways that will lead transportation systems toward a sustainable future, the authors developed an environmental model based on the Life Cycle Assessment approach. The model tested the impact of energy carrier consumption during driving as well as the electricity origin employed to power electric buses and produce hydrogen. Energy sources such as wind, solar, waste and grid electricity were investigated. The scope of the study included the life cycles of the energy carrier and the necessary infrastructure. The results were presented from two perspectives: the total environmental impact and global warming potential. In order to create a roadmap, an original method for choosing sustainable development pathways was prepared. It was shown that the modernization of conventional bus fleets using hydrogen and electrical pathways can provide significant environmental benefits from both perspectives, but especially in terms of global warming potential. It was emphasized that attention should be paid to the use of low- and zero-emission energy sources, because their impact often strongly influenced the final environmental judgment. The energy carrier consumption also had a strong impact on the results obtained, and that is why efforts should be made to reduce it. In addition, it was confirmed that hydrogen and electricity production systems based on electricity generated by a waste-to-energy plant could be an environmentally reasonable dual solution for both sustainable waste management and meeting transport needs.

Comparative environmental and economic life cycle assessment of phytoremediation of dredged sediment using Arundo Donax, integrated with biomass to bioenergy valorization chain

The economic and environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) was integrated into a laboratory-based experiment to evaluate the feasibility and sustainability of phytoremediation of chloride-rich marine dredged sediment, using perennial reed Arundo Donax along with biomass valorization. As a prerequisite for life cycle assessments, a baseline mathematical model was developed to estimate the yields of biomass to bioenergy valorization chain including the estimation of biomass yield per m3 sediment, bioenergy yields from valorization schemes, expected green electricity yield, and the phytoremediation time frame. This mathematical model was applied to develop a parametric life cycle inventory for two scenarios of sediment phytoremediation separately or integrated with biomass valorization, for LCA and further sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. Comparative LCA unveiled that the cost and environmental impacts of annual phytoremediation of 1m3 sediment alone or integrated with biomass valorization are much inferior to the corresponding sediment landfill as the inevitable alternative approach for sediment management. With the chloride bioaccumulation capacity of 9940 mg per kg dry biomass of A. donax, the phytoremediation of sediment with chloride concentration higher than 1650 mg/kg may not be achievable in a realistic time frame. Due to the importance of considering sediment depth and the effectiveness of the plant rooting system in estimating the performance of phytoremediation and the time frame, the volume of sediment (1m3) is a more appropriate functional unit than the surface area (ha) for LCA studies of phytoremediation. In addition, considering the volume of sediment as a functional unit retains comparability to other valorization scenarios such as sediment incorporation in cementitious matrices and management scenarios such as landfill, which are generally expressed on a volume or mass basis. Integrating biomass-derived bioenergy production into phytoremediation could offer local and global benefits in terms of economy and environment mainly due to carbon sequestration and avoiding fossil-based fuels.

Evaluating the use of mucilage from opuntia ficus-indica as a bio-additive in production of sustainable concrete

The global demand for a sustainable and environmentally responsible economy, has called for incorporation of aspects of sustainability into infrastructure materials. Being the most globally consumed primary construction material, concrete’s strength and durability enhancement using green approaches is pivotal to sustainability of the built environment. Production of chemical admixtures is high energy consuming and environmentally taxing, thus the need for bio-available sustainable substitutes and/or supplements. This paper presents findings of an experimental and environmental impact evaluation, conducted on Normal Strength Concrete (NSC) mixtures dosed with Opuntia ficus-indica mucilage (Ofim) by mass-replacement of the mixing water. ASTM compliant tests for consistency, strength, and durability performance were conducted at standard time intervals up to 56 days, while the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy were employed for concrete micro-characterization. The study explored the interaction between the natural bio-additive and synthetic commercial admixture. A comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (E-LCA) was also conducted to assess resource use efficiency and quantify the environmental impacts of Ofim-modified concrete relative to conventional concrete. Test results showed that the use of Ofim led to slight increase in the compressive strength and elastic modulus, in addition to a pronounced impact on durability of concrete, resulting in reduced fluid ingress by up to 39%, a lowered decrease in K-values by 14%, and an increase in the freeze–thaw resistance with high retention of Relative Dynamic Modulus of Elasticity (RDME) in the Ofim-modified mix relative to the control mix. A 15% mixing-water mass-replacement resulted in an average reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 9.6%. Hence, even if the improvement in the mechanical performance is not substantial, a reduction in GHG emissions scales up as the concrete industry is huge and tremendously contributes to climate change through embodied carbon.

Comparative environmental life cycle assessment and operating cost analysis of long-range hydrogen and biofuel fueled transport aircraft

The aviation industry is currently experiencing a social shift in the attitude towards flying due to the increasing awareness of the impact on climate change. This has led governments and industries to set emissions targets, although their achievement for long-range flights is subject to an ongoing debate. Among promising candidates are hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels such as biofuel. To provide a meaningful ecological and economic assessment, an environmental life cycle assessment method supplemented by a direct operating cost analysis has been developed and is described in this paper. A wide-body transport aircraft (A330 class) serves as a reference design for developing conceptual aircraft designs with a planned entry-into-service in 2040 powered by liquid hydrogen or drop-in biofuels (based on algae, produced with oil-rich biomass (BtL) or hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) processes). Due to the large demand for assumptions, the ecological and economic assessment results have to be interpreted as benchmarks. The results for long-range aircraft show that based on the current fuel and energy production methods both hydrogen and biofuel as aviation fuel are more harmful (have a higher environmental impact) than conventional aircraft. For hydrogen aircraft, an increase in energy consumption of 2.87% leads to an increased environmental impact of 14.8%. Due to the high energy demand for biofuel production, its environmental impact increases by 548% (BtL) and 238% (HVO). Nevertheless, for a future scenario based on electrolysis as a hydrogen production process and on renewable energy to generate electricity, both hydrogen and biofuel-powered aircraft are less harmful when compared to the reference aircraft. The environmental impact reduces by 59.5% (hydrogen), 35.8% (BtL), and 112% (HVO). However, the introduction of the new propellants involves a high direct operating cost penalty of 10.8% for hydrogen and 108% for both biofuels.

Novel short-term national strategies to promote the use of renewable hydrogen in road transport: A life cycle assessment of passenger car fleets partially fuelled with hydrogen

This work presents an energy analysis combined with a comparative environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) of eight different passenger car fleets that use renewable hydrogen and a conventional fuel (natural gas or gasoline) under the same total energy input and the same hydrogen-to-mixture energy ratio. The fleets under comparison involve vehicles that use the two fuels separately or in a mixture. Using Italy as an illustrative country, this research work aims to help policy-makers implement well-supported strategies to promote the use of hydrogen in road transport in the short term. The proposed strategies achieve a carbon footprint reduction between 7 % and 35 % with respect to their conventional fleet benchmark. Within the current context, the results suggest the energy and environmental suitability of using hydrogen blends as short-term solutions, involving vehicles that require minor modifications with respect to current compressed natural gas vehicles and gasoline vehicles, while paving the way for pure hydrogen mobility.

A comparative environmental life cycle assessment of rice straw-based bioenergy projects in China

Bioenergy is a promising solution for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation. However, the emissions resulting from the different production stages must be quantified and evaluated. The life cycle assessment (LCA) method was used to compare and quantify the environmental burdens of three rice straw (RS) utilization scenarios for producing biogas, briquette fuel, and syngas. To our knowledge, this is the first study that applies the LCA approach to assess these three bioenergy scenarios in a single study where the main goal was to determine the most sustainable option. A total of 10 mid-point impact categories were investigated. The results indicated that the three scenarios achieved net positive energy and net negative GHG balances. The briquette fuel scenarios had the highest net energy balance (11,115 MJ/tonne dry RS), while the syngas scenario had the highest net GHG (−2,315 kg CO2-eq./tonne dry RS). Moreover, the syngas scenario was the most beneficial to the environment, achieving negative results in 9 out of the 10 impact categories; the largest was marine ecotoxicity (−853,897 kg 1,4-DB-eq./tonne dry RS). The biogas scenario achieved emission savings in 3 out of the 10 categories. Although the briquette fuel scenario had no negative values in the 10 categories, its overall contribution to environmental burdens was relatively low. Overall, the order of the three scenarios in terms of the most sustainable option is syngas > briquette fuel > biogas.

Comparative environmental and economic life cycle assessment of dry and wet anaerobic digestion for treating food waste and biogas digestate

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has proven to be a promising option for food waste (FW) management, due to the significant potential of recovering energy from waste. In this study, the environmental and economic impacts of six scenarios for FW and biogas digestate management in Shenzhen, China, were evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) analysis. GaBi model was employed to perform LCA on the basis of CML 2001 methodology, while LCC analysis was conducted using net present value to evaluate the economic efficiency. Results showed that dry AD coupled with biogas digestate incineration not only exhibited the best net environmental benefits with the reduction of 195 kg CO2 per ton of FW, but also appeared to be the most economically feasible option with the lowest LCC (446.223 thousand CNY). With respect to the FW treatment technology, dry AD scenarios exhibited better environmental benefits associated with global warming, human toxicity, marine aquatic ecotoxicity and photochemical ozone creation potential, compared to those in wet AD. Regarding post treatment for biogas digestate, incineration appeared to be the best option compared to the landfill and compost. Moreover, sensitivity analysis indicated that dry AD coupled with biogas digestate incineration exhibited least vulnerable to the change in biogas production environmentally. The outcomes of this study will contribute to developing the optimal FW management strategy for mitigating the environmental and economic impacts in terms of both environmental and economic sustainability.

Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of conventional energy storage system and innovative thermal energy storage system

As policies have been implemented globally to limit the production of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and the effects of climate change, the generation of electricity by renewable technologies has started to increase. The development of sustainable energy storage solutions has also become more important. The continued use of conventional chemical batteries presents environmental issues such as heavy metal pollution and the use of unsustainable resources. An environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been conducted to analyse the environmental impact of an innovative Thermal Battery (TB) and was compared with the impact of a Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery (LIPB) using a “cradle-to-gate” approach to establish the system boundaries. The study used the findings from existing literature to determine the environmental impact of the LIPB. The life cycle inventory for the TB was constructed based on a model and available literature. In this regard, the two products were compared on 10 impact categories, and the results indicated that the TB performed better in 8 categories on average. The highest impact observed from the TB was in terrestrial ecotoxicity, where it emitted above 7000 times more than the LIPB, amounting to approximately 0.0153 after normalisation. The highest normalised environmental load in the study was indicated to be in the category of marine ecotoxicity by the LIPB at 0.27, which was significantly higher than any load for the TB. Overall, the results obtained are encouraging for the TB, but it is recommended that a field study is completed to verify the assumptions made in this paper and to achieve a better comparability with studies conducted similarly.

Sustainability Assessment of Combined Animal Fodder and Fuel Production from Microalgal Biomass.

We present a comparative environmental and social life cycle assessment (ELCA and SLCA) of algal fuel and fodder co-production (AF + fodder) versus algal fuel and energy co-production (AF + energy). Our ELCA results indicate that fodder co-production offers an advantage in the following categories: climate change (biogenic land use and land use change total), ecotoxicity, marine eutrophication, ionizing radiation, photochemical ozone creation, and land use. By contrast, the AF + energy system yields lower impacts in the other 11 out of 19 Environmental Footprint impact categories. Only AF + fodder offers greenhouse gas reduction compared to petroleum diesel (−25%). Our SLCA results indicate that AF + fodder yields lower impacts in the following categories: fair salaries, forced labor, gender wage gap, health expenditure, unemployment, and violation of employment laws and regulations. AF + energy performs favorably in the other three out of nine social indicators. We conclude that the choice of co-products has a strong influence on the sustainability of algal fuel production. Despite this, none of the compared systems are found to yield a consistent advantage in the environmental or social dimension. It is, therefore, not possible to recommend a co-production strategy without weighing environmental and social issues.

Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of orange peel waste in present productive chains

Agriculture has become an essential sector in the economic growth of developing countries. Although food production at a large scale is the primary purpose, the residues are in some cases not fully exploited, representing environmental problems. The biorefinery concept has gained strength for developing sustainable agriculture communities based on the integral utilization of the raw materials from agriculture or agribusiness. The environmental impact of the productive chain related to any product or group of biorefinery products must be assessed to understand the possible processing effects. This evaluation allows defining the most polluting stages, which can be improved by implementing different process alternatives. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the global environmental impact of different scenarios related to the orange peel waste (OPW) production, disposition, and valorization. Four scenarios were evaluated considering the life cycle assessment approach. These scenarios were, (i) Orange juice production with OPW landfilling, and (ii) Orange juice production and OPW valorization under the low complexity biorefinery context (iii) Orange juice production and OPW valorization under the medium complexity biorefinery context and (iv) Orange juice production and OPW valorization under the high complexity biorefinery context. Then, a sensitivity analysis was carried out considering mass and economic allocations. The environmental assessment results demonstrated that the agronomic stage has the highest contribution in the total orange processing chain. On the other hand, the scenario with the highest environmental impact was associated with the OPW disposal in landfills. The use of OPW to obtain added-value products was more environmentally friendly. This work allows concluding the environmental advantages of the valorization for agro-industrial residues through biorefineries.

A Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of the Combustion of Ammonia/Methane Fuels in a Tangential Swirl Burner

Ammonia has been proposed as a replacement for fossil fuels. Like hydrogen, emissions from the combustion of ammonia are carbon-free. Unlike hydrogen, ammonia is more energy dense, less explosive, and there exists extensive experience in its distribution. However, ammonia has a low flame speed and combustion emits nitrogen oxides. Ammonia is produced via the Haber-Bosch process which consumes large amounts of fossil fuels and requires high temperatures and pressures. A life cycle assessment to determine potential environmental advantages and disadvantages of using ammonia is necessary. In this work, emissions data from experiments with generating heat from tangential swirl burners using ammonia cofired with methane employing currently available technologies were utilized to estimate the environmental impacts that may be expected. Seven ammonia sources were combined with two methane sources to create 14 scenarios. The impacts from these 14 scenarios were compared to those expected from using pure methane. The results show that using ammonia from present-day commercial production methods will result in worse global warming potentials than using methane to generate the same amount of heat. Only two scenarios, methane from biogas combined with ammonia from hydrogen from electricity and nuclear power via electrolysis and subsequent ammonia synthesis using nitrogen from the air, showed reductions in global warming potential. Subsequent analysis of other environmental impacts for these two scenarios showed potentially lower impacts for respiratory organics, terrestrial acidification-nutrification and aquatic acidification depending on how the burner is operated. The other eight environmental impacts were worse than the methane scenario because of activities intrinsic to the generation of electricity via wind power and nuclear fission. The results show that generating heat from a tangential swirl burner using ammonia currently available technologies will not necessarily result in improved environmental benefits in all categories. Improvements in renewable energy technologies could change these results positively. Other means of producing ammonia and improved means of converting ammonia to energy must continue to be explored.

Jamaican bioethanol: an environmental and economic life cycle assessment

E10 is a blend of 10% bioethanol and 90% gasoline that can be used in the engines of most cars without causing damage. Currently for the E10 blend, Jamaica imports gasoline from Trinidad & Tobago and bioethanol from Brazil because the bioethanol production in Jamaica is at an early stage. However, the country has great potential for bioethanol production. In order to assess the environmental and economic feasibility of bioethanol in Jamaica, this paper presents an economic and environmental life cycle assessment for a case study in Jamaica in two different scenarios. The Baseline Scenario represents the use of E10 in the current conditions in which bioethanol comes from Brazil and gasoline from Trinidad & Tobago. Scenario I represents the use of E10 with bioethanol from Jamaica and gasoline from Trinidad & Tobago. The comparative environmental life cycle assessment revealed that the Baseline Scenario had better results than Scenario I in ten environmental categories. The economic assessment results in Scenario I were 7% higher than in the Baseline Scenario. Hence, the current context (Baseline Scenario) was identified as the scenario with the best economic performance. Therefore, the current situation in Jamaica (Baseline Scenario) scored better results than Scenario I from an environmental and an economical point of views. It is recommended to increase the bagasse cogeneration of Scenario I to lower the environmental impacts. To improve their productivity, it is necessary to improve the Jamaican sugar infrastructure by combining molasses and cane juice to produce bioethanol.

Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of alternative osmotic and mixing dilution desalination system configurations

An environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was applied to compare the conventional SWRO desalination process to two contemporary low-pressure membrane desalination processes: an osmotic dilution desalination (ODD) and a mixing dilution desalination (MDD). The ODD process combines a forward osmosis (FO) membrane and a low-pressure RO membrane (LPRO) in a hybrid (FO-RO) configuration. The MDD process couples the ultrafiltration (UF) with LPRO in a hybrid UF-RO configuration. SimaPro™ was used to conduct the LCA study. CML environmental impact assessment method was used to evaluate 11 environmental impact categories. Results from LCIA reveal the strong dependency of environmental impacts on the clean in place (CIP) process in dilution desalination systems while the energy flow in the standalone RO shows almost similar levels of dependency of environmental impacts instead of CIP process. Overall, the ODD process with FO-RO hybrid membrane technology has the highest environmental impact. The normalised comparison LCIA indicates that standalone RO has the lowest total environmental impacts as the fossil fuel is considered as the main source of power generator. Compared to conventional SWRO, the MDD process coupled with hybrid UF-RO technology had a lowest contribution to global warming and ozone layer depletion but had higher impacts to marine and aquatic resource depletion. Scenarios substituting the conventional with renewable energy sources to power the water treatment options favoured the MDD process coupled with hybrid UF-RO technology and prove the hybrid UF-RO process as the most environmentally favourable comparing to the conventional SWRO and hybrid FO-RO.

Comparative Environmental Life Cycle and Cost Assessment of Electric, Hybrid, and Conventional Vehicles in Lithuania

Electric mobility is promoted as a future transport option that has environmental and economic benefits and encourages sustainable urban transportation. The aim of this study is to reveal the changes in environmental and economic performance if we switched from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to battery electric (BEV) or hybrid electric (HEV) vehicles. Therefore, this research presents a comparative environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) from the Cradle-to-Grave perspective of the vehicles and a Well-to-Wheel analysis of their fuel supply. Moreover, an LCA of a BEV was performed under diverse electricity mix scenarios, which are forecasted for 2015–2050 in Lithuania. From an economic point of view, a life cycle costing was conducted for the same vehicles to estimate the economic impacts over the vehicle life cycles under Lithuanian conditions. The results show that ICEV-petrol contributes the major environmental damage in all damage categories. BEVs with the electricity mix of 2020–2050 scenarios, which are composed mainly of renewable energy sources, provide the least environmental impact. The economic results reveal that BEV and ICEV-diesel are the most cost-efficient vehicles, with the total consumer life cycle costs of approximately 5% and 15% less than ICEV-petrol and HEV, respectively.

A comparative environmental life cycle assessment between a condensing boiler and a gas driven absorption heat pump

Gas absorption heat pumps represent an alternative to condensing boilers for space heating and domestic hot water production in existing buildings. In particular, they enable fuel saving and the exploitation of renewable energy even in heating systems based on radiators, which require high supply temperature. However, in order to provide useful indications to policymakers, manufacturers, and system designers, a fair comparison of two technologies has to be based, besides the energy consumption and the direct CO2 eq emissions, also the environmental impact over the entire life cycle. Thus, in this paper, the environmental profiles of a condensing boiler and a gas driven absorption heat pump are compared as competing technologies to provide space heating and domestic hot water in old (constructed before 1980) and not refurbished buildings. The assessment was carried out for three buildings located in three representative European climates, using 1 kWh of thermal energy produced by the two systems as the functional unit. The Ecoinvent 3.6 was used as background database and the EF 3.0 normalization as weighting set method. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis were also included. The results show that the use phase contributes for more than 97% of the total impact for both the energy systems in the three climate zones. Despite the higher electricity consumption, the gas driven absorption heat pump offered a lower environmental profile compared with the condensing boiler, mainly because of the lower amount of natural gas needed in the use phase. In particular, an average reduction of 27% was found for CO2 eq, 25% for fossil resource consumption, and 22% for weighting results.

A comparative environmental life cycle assessment of hatchery, cultivation, and preservation of the kelpSaccharina latissima

AbstractSeaweed cultivation and processing industries could contribute to sustainable blue growth and the European bioeconomy. This article contributes a case study evaluation of environmental sustainability of preserved brown seaweed Saccharina latissima by means of environmental life cycle assessment of a pilot facility in Sweden. The study accounts for nutrient bioremediation and carbon capture and includes two alternative hatchery processes, a 2-ha longline cultivation, and four alternative preservation methods (hang-drying outdoors, heated air-cabinet drying, ensiling, and freezing). The study found that as a result of carbon capture and nitrogen and phosphorus uptake (bioremediation) by seaweed, more CO2 and PO4 equivalents are (temporarily) absorbed than emitted by the supply chain. The extent of emissions is most affected by preservation methods undertaken. Impact profiles of the supply chain show that the greatest impact shares result from freezing and air-cabinet drying, both the two most energy-intensive processes, followed by the cultivation infrastructure, highlighting strategic optimization opportunities. Hatchery processes, harvesting, and the low-energy ensilage and hang-drying outdoors were found to have relatively small impact shares. These findings presage the environmentally friendliness of seaweed-based products by documenting their potential to mitigate eutrophication and climate change, even when taking a life cycle perspective.