Zero value for "Fossil fuel depletion" (TRACI 2.1) and "Non-renewable energy" (IMPACT 2002+) impact categories?

Question

I've calculated the impacts of my product system using both TRACI 2.1 and IMPACT 2002+ impact assessment methodologies from the LCIA 2.0.3 package I downloaded from the openLCA Nexus site. I'm using openLCA version 1.8. All of the values calculated on the "Impact analysis" tab of the analysis seem reasonable and within the range of what I expected for my product system, based on other research/LCAs out there.

 That is, except for the respective "Fossil fuel depletion" and "Non-renewable resources" impact categories, which both have a zero value. I'm not sure why, considering I have plenty of electricity processes in my product system utilizing coal, natural gas, etc. Two examples are "Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant - US" and "Electricity, natural gas, at power plant - US". I also use flows such as "Bituminous coal, combusted in industrial boiler - US". So it seems to me that there would be some sort of value for MJ of fossil fuel depletion.

Any ideas as to why these impacts are zero?

Comments

I should also add that when I choose the TRACI 2.1 impact method from the openLCA LCIA methods 1.5.7, which is named "TRACI [v2.1, February 2014]", I do get an actual result for the "Resource depletion - fossil fuels" category there (.03301 MJ surplus).

So I guess I'm just confused which impact assessment methods to choose and any explanation for why the one included in the LCIA 2.0.3 package would return a zero value.

Answer 1

Hi, which database are you using? An older database and model mayb fit better to the 157 method packge. The regionalised databases are fit or the 2.x method package which also includes more recent methods. You can inspect which flows are not covered by the selected LCIA method in "LCIA checks" of the product system, by impact category, or also over all results.

There will of course be many flows that are reasonably not used in one category, but - depending on the database - there may be some that should be classified, i.e. fossil fuels in your case. You can add these to the category then. I'd be interested if you could report back, thank you in advance.

Comments

Thanks Andreas! I knew I could add certain flows to impact categories, I guess I was just unsure when it would be appropriate to do so.

I've combined the US LCI NREL repository (https://www.lcacommons.gov/lca-collaboration/National_Renewable_Energy_Laboratory/USLCI/datasets) and the ELCD database (https://nexus.openlca.org/database/ELCD) for my project. Most of the flows that I'd think should be contributing to the fossil fuels impact category seem to be coming from the US LCI NREL repository.