I am trying to understand how openLCA accounts for direct energy use in a foreground process when calculating CED/NRE.
Example 1: a pasture production process uses 10 L of diesel. I enter diesel as a product flow and link it to an ecoinvent diesel market. openLCA then calculates the upstream burden of producing those 10 L. But the farm also directly uses the energy contained in the diesel:
10×35.8=358 MJ
Where is this 358 MJ direct energy use represented in the CED/NRE results?
Example 2: a factory uses 34 kWh electricity to produce a product. I enter 34 kWh as an input and link it to the electricity market. openLCA calculates the upstream energy/resources needed to generate that electricity. But the factory directly consumes:
34×3.6=122.4 MJ
How can I separate this direct factory energy use from the upstream CED/NRE?
Does openLCA account for this automatically, and if so, where can it be seen? If not, what is the recommended way to model/report:
Total energy=Direct/on-site energy+Upstream energy
without double counting?
