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Life-cycle assessments are ways to gauge the impact of any product or process. What is the cost of a system over a defined period of time? Life-cycle assessments are really important as we consider the transition to renewable energy sources, especially as we share insights into a zero emissions future with newbies or cynics.

Life-cycle assessments provide an exhaustive overview of the upstream (material sourcing and delivery) and downstream (product distribution, use, and disposal) impacts associated with any given system. Originally designed to focus on environmental impacts by scientists, they now have been extended to examine social and economic impacts, sometimes called life-cycle costing, by policymakers and decision-makers. The most comprehensive evaluations begin with the extraction of raw material; move to the various steps of production, implementation, and operation; and extend all the way to the energy use of carriers to perform work.

Life-cycle analysis considers both upfront cost of production and incremental costs of operation and depreciation. As a data-intensive methodology, it incorporates all inputs and outputs, requires detailed information, and is organized into databases known as life-cycle inventories.

What Do the Scientists Say about Energy Resources & their Life-Cycle Assessments?

life-cycle assessmentsExecutive summaries from a variety of scientific white papers can offer us life cycle insights into different energy sources. Here are a few to peruse.

Active Transportation: Life-cycle analysis provides a comprehensive view of the environmental impact of transportation infrastructure due to processes involving construction, operation, and maintenance.

  • Airplanes show the highest GHG emissions — 3 times that of cars and 6 times that of buses.
  • Cars or buses show higher GHG emissions when considering life-cycle impacts than the results without the life-cycle impacts because the GHG impact of manufacturing and operating automobiles and buses could be greater than that of other modes.
  • Walking does not require any tools, so its life-cycle impact is minimal compared to other modes.
  • The GHG impact of producing and maintaining bicycles is much smaller than that of automobiles or public transportation vehicles.
  • On balance, active transportation modes produce far less emissions than other modes even after taking into account all the life-cycle impacts.

Biomass: Co-firing biomass as a means of GHG abatement becomes economically competitive with traditional carbon capture and sequestration only after an incentive is in place to mitigate emissions.

  • The point at which co-firing becomes an attractive option depends on the potential value of CO2, the level of an emissions penalty, and the type of plant.
  • The break-even value would either represent the amount required on the sale of the captured CO2 in the capture cases, or a benefit received for the use of biomass as a fuel source in the non-capture cases, when compared to the economics of a supercritical (SC) PC plant without capture or co-firing.
  • This value would need to be reached before incentivizing either CO2 capture or biomass co-firing. The emissions penalty would be the minimum value required to encourage the use of capture technology or abatement using biomass.

Hydropower: The assessment considers various ecological influence groups which could be generally categorized as — global warming, ozone formation, acidification, eutrophication, ecotoxicity, human toxicity, water consumption, stratospheric ozone depletion, ionizing radiation, and land use.

  • Though water itself is not lethal, the electricity production process involves many stages, which creates environmental issues.
  • Furthermore, the transportation medium of these elements to the plant location releases hazardous particles i.e., carbon monoxide, dust, and carcinogenic particles.
  • Among the key impact groups, the whole outcomes show that a substantial ecological influence occurred at non-alpine region plants over alpine region plants. The reason behind this is that the long distance transportation of raw materials in non-alpine region hydropower plants due to unavailability at nearby locations where raw materials of the alpine based plants is available at nearby locations.
  • The maximum impact is occurred at fine particulate matter formation impact category due to freshwater eutrophication category by both types of hydropower plants. The reason behind these impacts is the amount of toxic materials present as constituent of plant structure and its electricity production steps.

Natural Gas: This analysis takes into account a wide range of performance variability across different assumptions of climate impact timing.

  • Natural gas-fired baseload power production has life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 35% to 66 % lower than those for coal-fired baseload electricity.
  • The lower emissions for natural gas are primarily due to the differences in average power plant efficiencies (46% efficiency for the natural gas power fleet versus 33% for the coal power fleet) and a higher carbon content per unit of energy for coal in comparison to natural gas.
  • Natural gas-fired electricity has 57% lower GHG emissions than coal per delivered megawatt-hour (MWh) using current technology when compared with a 100-year global warming potential (GWP) using unconventional natural gas from tight gas, shale, and coal beds.

Petroleum: Petroleum is produced from crude oil, a complex mixture of hydrocarbons, various organic compounds, and associated impurities.

  • The crude product exists as deposits in the earth’s crust, and the composition varies by geographic location and deposit formation contributors. Its physical consistency varies from a free flowing liquid to nearly solid. Crude oil is extracted from geological deposits by a number of different techniques.
  • When comparing transportation GHG emissions, both the tailpipe or tank-to-wheel (TTW) emissions, and the upstream or well-to-tank (WTT) emissions are considered in the full well to wheel (WTW) life cycle.
  • Extracting, transporting, and refining crude oil and bio-based alternatives on average account for approximately 20-30% of well-to-wheels (WTW) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with the majority of emissions generated during end use combustion in the vehicle phase (TTW).
  • GHG emissions in the generic cases range from ≈105 to 120 g of CO2/MJ [gasoline basis, full fuel cycle, lower heating value (LHV) basis] when co-produced electricity displaces natural-gas-fired combined-cycle electricity.
  • The carbon intensity varies with the energy demand of TEOR, the fuel combusted for steam generation, the amount of electric power co-generated, and the electricity mix. The emission range for co-generation-based TEOR systems is larger (≈70−120 g of CO2/MJ) when coal is displaced from the electricity grid (low) or coal is used for steam generation (high). The emission range for the California-specific cases is similar to that for the generic cases.

Solar: Life-cycle assessment is now a standardized tool to evaluate the environmental impact of photovoltaic technologies from the cradle to the grave.

  • The carbon footprint emission from PV systems was found to be in the range of 14–73 g CO2-eq/kWh, which is 10 to 53 orders of magnitude lower than emission reported from the burning of oil (742 g CO2-eq/kWh from oil).
  • Negative environmental impacts of PV systems could be substantially mitigated using optimized design, development of novel materials, minimize the use of hazardous materials, recycling whenever possible, and careful site selection. Such mitigation actions will reduce the emissions of GHG to the environment, decrease the accumulation of solid wastes, and preserve valuable water resources.
  • Following a report published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the volume of PV panel waste could globally yield a value of up to 60–78 million tons by 2050. Recycling solar cell materials can also contribute up to a 42% reduction in GHG emissions.

Wind: Wind power presents minimal emissions and environmental impacts during the working phase, being considered as a “cleaner” generation source. But not all stages of wind power are so efficient.

  • The extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, and transportation as part of wind power construction have significant emissions of CO2 and environmental impacts.
  • Not only will improvements in logistics, transportation, a mixed electricity supplement, and a more efficient equipment production reduce CO2 emissions from wind power construction, new basic materials and innovative built techniques may decrease CO2 emissions and energy demand.
  • Decommissioning stage may present a reduction of the energy consumption and CO2 emissions through reusing equipment, recycling critical materials in the end of life cycle, reducing the extraction of raw materials and the total consumption of resources.
  • Such changes may create unexpected fluctuations in the market, such as shortages of supplies and dependence on exporters.

Of course, there are many other types of energy sources and other data analyses to consult to consider life cycle assessments. For more ideas, try Life Cycle Analysis of Energy for a good starting point.

Infographic retrieved from Department of Energy

Image retrieved from NASA

 

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.

France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.

At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.

And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:

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While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.

FRANCO-GERMAN COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC EXPERTS (FGCEE)

That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.

“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”

The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.

You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.

Electrek’s Take

Hydrogen-sceptical truck maker MAN to produce limited series of 200 vehicles with H2 combustion engines
MAN hydrogen semi; via MAN Trucks.

MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.

He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”

With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.

SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!

Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

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Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.

GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.

At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.

The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.

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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”

SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.

Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction


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