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

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.

Eco-Cost Analysis of Split Air-Conditioner Using Activity-Based Costing Method

“…It belongs to a bottom-up analysis method that takes an input-output material list, energy and environmental emissions as the input variables. The advantage of the PLCA method is its ability to accurately analyze the impact of a product/project over its entire life cycle on the nature environment [25]. The disadvantage of PLCA is that it inevitably has a truncation error, that is, the accounting process is incomplete [26].…”

Sustainability Implications of Using Hydrogen as an Automotive Fuel in Western Australia

“…With the improved standard of living and increased human desires, secure and reliable energy supply has become an essential requirement for modern society [1]. The global primary energy demand is expected to be increased by 1.6% each year until 2030 [2].…”

“…Western Australia holds an excellent position to be a leader in the hydrogen economy, owing to its reputation and skills in managing pressured gas in the LNG export industries over many years [7]. The transport sector of WA at the same time is unsustainable as the state's passenger vehicle dominated transportation system is fully depended on imported liquid fossil fuels [1]. Around 78% of vehicles in WA are passenger cars, and 87.14% of those vehicles use gasoline as fuel [8].…”

“…By considering the current situations, hydrogen is considered as one of the potential fuels for the WA's transport sector to improve energy security and lessen the environmental burden [1]. Locally produced alternative fuels can also increase the region's socioeconomic status, such as the creation of long-term job opportunities [7,14].…”

Modeling of Biofuel’s Emissivity for Fuel Choice Management

“…The production of biofuels from plant materials brings wide possibilities of reducing CO 2 emissions [63,64]. Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) is implemented, among others, by improving agrotechnics of crops, for example by using no-tillage cultivation, indirect land use change [65] or using less energy-intensive processing processes for given substrates [66], using lower emission fuels to power machines and devices in the harvesting and processing [67], limiting transport distances in the manufacturing process [68].…”