Errors in Conventional and Input‐Output—based Life—Cycle Inventories

Lenzen, Manfred

doi:10.1162/10881980052541981

Cited by 629 publications

(461 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

439

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Services exhibit higher truncation error because much of the energy footprint is in higher-order (or background) paths. Lenzen (2000) notes that most goods carry a truncation error of the order of 50%.…”

Section: Truncation Errormentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An Exploration of Divergence in EPBT and EROI for Solar Photovoltaics

Palmer

Floyd²

2017

Biophys Econ Resour Qual

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Solar photovoltaics (PV) is widely regarded as one of the most promising renewable energy technologies. Net energy analysis (NEA) is a tool to evaluate the energetic performance of all energy supply technologies, including solar PV. Results across studies can appear to diverge sharply, which leads to contestation of NEA's relevance to energy transition feasibility assessment and contributes to ongoing uncertainty in relation to the critical issue of the sustainability of PV. This study explores how PV NEA approaches differ, including in relation to goal definitions, methodologies and boundaries of analysis. It focuses on two principal NEA metrics, energy return on investment (EROI) and energy payback time (EPBT). Here we show that most of the apparent divergence between studies is accounted for by six factors-life-cycle assessment methodology, age of the primary data, PV cell technology, the treatment of intermittency, equivalence of investment and output energy forms, and assumptions about real-world performance. The apparent divergence in findings between studies can often be traced back to different goal definitions. This study reviews the differing approaches and makes the case that NEA is important for assessing the role of PV in future energy systems, but that findings in the form of EROI or EPBT must be considered with specific reference to the details of the particular study context, and the research questions that it seeks to address. NEA findings in a particular context cannot definitively support general statements about EROI or EPBT of PV electricity in all contexts.

show abstract

Section: Truncation Errormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the ISO 14041 standard for goal and scope definition does not define system boundaries as absolute, but as dependent on the goal of the study (Lenzen 2000), there is no requirement to ensure that the analysis meets a prescribed level of 'completeness'. ISO (1998, Sect.…”

Section: Level Of 'Completeness'mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Exploration of Divergence in EPBT and EROI for Solar Photovoltaics

Palmer

Floyd²

2017

Biophys Econ Resour Qual

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…On the downside, there is a need to apply cut-off criteria to exclude operations that are not expected to make significant contributions. It is known, however, that added together the excluded contributions are significant [10,11]. The second approach, environmentally extended input-output analysis (EEIOA), is a top-down technique in which inventories are quantified using monetary data at the level of economic sectors.…”

Section: Lca: Conceptual Basis and Calculation Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, EEIOA operates at a high aggregation level; the sector resolution in EEIOA is generally too coarse for making LCAs of specific products. Hybrid methods -where process-LCA is used to model important operations, and EEIOA is used to model operations that would otherwise be omitted -can potentially exploit advantages of both approaches, but is more challenging to employ [10][11][12]. Also, depending on the method of hybridization and quality of data [12], most hybrid models may offer limited support for following material flows through product systems.…”

Section: Lca: Conceptual Basis and Calculation Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: A review of present knowledge and research needs

Arvesen

Hertwich

2012

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

178

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We critically review present knowledge of the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power.We find that the current body of life cycle assessments (LCA) of wind power provides a fairly good overall understanding of fossil energy use and associated pollution; our survey of results that appear in existing literature give mean values (± standard deviation) of, e.g., 0.060 (±0.058) kWh energy used and 19 (±13) g CO 2 e emitted per kWh electricity, suggesting good environmental performance vis-à-vis fossil-based power. Total emissions of onshore and offshore wind farms are comparable. The bulk of emissions generally occur in the production of components; onshore, the wind turbine dominates, while offshore, the substructure becomes relatively more important. Strong positive effects of scale are present in the lower end of the turbine size spectrum, but there is no clear evidence for such effects for MW-sized units. We identify weaknesses and gaps in knowledge that future research may address. This includes poorly understood impacts in categories of toxicity and resource depletion, lack of empirical basis for assumptions about replacement of parts, and apparent lack of detailed considerations of offshore operations for wind farms in ocean waters. We argue that applications of the avoided burden method to model recycling benefits generally lack transparency and may be inconsistent.Assumed capacity factor values are generally higher than current mean realized values. Finally, we discuss the need for LCA research to move beyond unit-based assessments in order to address temporal aspects and the scale of impacts.

show abstract

“…Analysts are often forced to simply ignore many facets of life cycle impacts due to lack of data availability and time restrictions [30], and, especially, uses of services are typically ignored [4]. Studies show that process-based LCAs can underestimate emissions by as much as 50% [4,14,31]. Furthermore, doing a comprehensive process-based LCA of all the products and services a company are requiring, in both direct operations (in the production chain) and indirect operation (administration, R&D, marketing, etc.…”

Section: Eio Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of Environmental Input-Output Analysis for Corporate and Product Environmental Footprints—Learnings from Three Cases

Kjær

Høst-Madsen²,

Schmidt

et al. 2015

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An increasing number of companies are expanding their environmental impact reduction targets and strategies to include their supply chains or whole product life cycles. In this paper, we demonstrate and evaluate an approach, where we used a hybrid Environmental Input-Output (EIO) database as a basis for corporate and product environmental footprint accounts, including the entire supply chain. We present three cases, where this approach was applied. Case study 1 describes the creation of total corporate carbon footprint accounts for three Danish regional healthcare organisations. In case study 2, the approach was used as basis for an Environmental Profit and Loss account for the healthcare company, Novo Nordisk A/S. Case study 3 used the approach for life cycle assessment of a tanker ship. We conclude that EIO-based analyses offer a holistic view of environmental performance, provide a foundation for decision-making within reasonable time and cost, and for companies with a large upstream environmental footprint, the analysis supports advancing their sustainability agenda to include supply chain impacts. However, there are implications when going from screening to implementing the results, including how to measure and monitor the effect of the different actions. Thus, future research should include more detailed models to support decision-making.

show abstract

Errors in Conventional and Input‐Output—based Life—Cycle Inventories

Cited by 629 publications

References 46 publications

An Exploration of Divergence in EPBT and EROI for Solar Photovoltaics

An Exploration of Divergence in EPBT and EROI for Solar Photovoltaics

Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: A review of present knowledge and research needs

Application of Environmental Input-Output Analysis for Corporate and Product Environmental Footprints—Learnings from Three Cases

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About