Life-cycle assessment: use and application in the Australian energy context

2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 661
Author(s):  
Rob Rouwette
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Life Cycle Approach ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Full Life Cycle ◽  
Lca Results

Australia is experiencing a time of major change in its energy sector. First, there is record investment in developing new fossil fuel resources—such as coal, LNG and coal seam methane gas—for export. Second, there is an ever-increasing attention to renewable energy generation for the domestic market. The looming introduction of a price on carbon (greenhouse gas emissions) in 2012 has fuelled the debate about how clean various energy sources are, and how any/all emissions associated with their development and the generation of energy should be treated. As a market reponse, a significant increase in using life-cycle assessment (LCA) results to communicate environmental performance, particularly about greenhouse gas emissions, have been witnessed. When undertaken appropriately, a full life-cycle approach is the only acceptable methodology to compare disparate technologies or products; however, given the often technical nature of LCA studies, the results are not always conveyed accurately in the non-technical mainstream media. This extended abstract discusses case studies related to the energy sector using LCA results—their benefits and shortcomings—in Australian media; suggestions for better communication and decision making in the coming period are also discussed.

scholarly journals Impact of Cycle Time and Payload of an Industrial Robot on Resource Efficiency

Robotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Florian Stuhlenmiller ◽  
Steffi Weyand ◽  
Jens Jungblut ◽  
Liselotte Schebek ◽  
Debora Clever ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Resource Efficiency ◽  
Life Cycle Costs ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Cycle Times ◽  
The Individual

Modern industry benefits from the automation capabilities and flexibility of robots. Consequently, the performance depends on the individual task, robot and trajectory, while application periods of several years lead to a significant impact of the use phase on the resource efficiency. In this work, simulation models predicting a robot’s energy consumption are extended by an estimation of the reliability, enabling the consideration of maintenance to enhance the assessment of the application’s life cycle costs. Furthermore, a life cycle assessment yields the greenhouse gas emissions for the individual application. Potential benefits of the combination of motion simulation and cost analysis are highlighted by the application to an exemplary system. For the selected application, the consumed energy has a distinct impact on greenhouse gas emissions, while acquisition costs govern life cycle costs. Low cycle times result in reduced costs per workpiece, however, for short cycle times and higher payloads, the probability of required spare parts distinctly increases for two critical robotic joints. Hence, the analysis of energy consumption and reliability, in combination with maintenance, life cycle costing and life cycle assessment, can provide additional information to improve the resource efficiency.

scholarly journals Method for a Multi-Vehicle, Simulation-Based Life Cycle Assessment and Application to Berlin’s Motorized Individual Transport

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7302
Author(s):  
Anne Magdalene Syré ◽  
Florian Heining ◽  
Dietmar Göhlich
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Transport Sector ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Vehicle Simulation ◽  
Transport Simulation ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

The transport sector in Germany causes one-quarter of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. One potential solution to reduce these emissions is the use of battery electric vehicles. Although a number of life cycle assessments have been conducted for these vehicles, the influence of a transport system-wide transition has not been addressed sufficiently. Therefore, we developed a method which combines life cycle assessment with an agent-based transport simulation and synthetic electric-, diesel- and gasoline-powered vehicle models. We use a transport simulation to obtain the number of vehicles, their lifetime mileage and road-specific consumption. Subsequently, we analyze the product systems’ vehicle production, use phase and end-of-life. The results are scaled depending on the covered distance, the vehicle weight and the consumption for the whole life cycle. The results indicate that the sole transition of drive trains is insufficient to significantly lower the greenhouse gas emissions. However, sensitivity analyses demonstrate that there is a considerable potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with higher shares of renewable energies, a different vehicle distribution and a higher lifetime mileage. The method facilitates the assessment of the ecological impacts of complete car-based transportation in urban agglomerations and is able to analyze different transport sectors.

scholarly journals Study of the viticultural technical itineraries carbon footprint at fine scale

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 01030
Author(s):  
E. Adoir ◽  
S. Penavayre ◽  
T. Petitjean ◽  
L. De Rességuier
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Carbon Footprint ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Life Cycle Approach ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Carbon Footprints ◽  
Life Project ◽  
One Year

Viticulture faces two challenges regarding climate change: adapting and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Are these two challenges compatible? This is one of the questions to which Adviclim project (Life project, 2014–2019) provided tools and answers. The assessment of greenhouse gas emissions was implemented at the scale of the plot using a life cycle approach: calculating the carbon footprint. This approach makes it possible to take into account the emissions generated during each stage of the life cycle of a product or a service: in this case, the cultivation of one hectare of vine for one year. Carbon footprint was assessed for the 5 pilot sites of the Adviclim project: Saint-Emilion (France), Coteaux du Layon/Samur (France), Geisenheim (Germany), Cotnari (Romania) and Plompton (United Kingdom). An important work for primary data collection regarding observed practices was carried out with a sample of reresentative farms for these 5 sites, and for one to three vintages depending on the site. Beyond the question asked in the project, the calculation of these carbon footprints made it possible to (i) make winegrowers aware of the life cycle approach and the share of direct emissions generated by viticulture, (ii) acquire new references on the technical itineraries and their associated emissions, (iii) improve the adaptation of the methodology for calculating the carbon footprint to viticulture.

scholarly journals Life cycle assessment of dryland paddy farming in Ngadirojo District, Pacitan

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 07001
Author(s):  
Priyaji Agung Pambudi ◽  
Tarsoen Waryono
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Chemical Control ◽  
Organic Fertilizer ◽  
Growth Potential ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Mechanical Control ◽  
Weed Growth

The growth of weeds among agricultural crops is a pest that can decrease agricultural production by 47-87%. The aims of this research is to compare organic and an organic fertilizer and compare mechanical and chemical weed and pest control. This research employed a mixed-method, observation, in-depth interviews, and life cycle assessment. The greenhouse gas emissions were released are organic fertilizer 1,87 x 10-3 kg CO2 eq/ha and an organic fertilizer 15 x 101 kg CO2 eq/ha. Thereafter greenhouse gas emissions were released from mechanical control 1,87 x 10-3 kg CO2 eq/ha and chemical control 4,4 x 101 kg CO2 eq/ha. The totally of greenhouse gas emissions was released from dryland paddy farming in management phase is 19,4 x 101 kg CO2 eq/ha. Organic fertilizer more friendly than an organic fertilizer and mechanical control more friendly than chemical control. Mechanical control by farmers must be modified for the increase of effectiveness. The post-mechanical control should be those containing fruit and seed must be burned, meaning there will be not a longer any weed growth potential. Therefore, this mechanism will be able to realize potential production and sustainable dryland paddy farming.

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