the difference between "quick calculation" and "analysis" in the calculation method

Question

Question 1: What is the difference between "quick calculation" and "analysis" in the calculation method of production system? When the technical matrix is singular, "Quick Calculation" shows zero results, while "Analyze" shows non-zero but also incomprehensible results.

Question 2: In computing, what is the connection between the technology matrix, the intervention matrix and the "process"? In other words, how are the technology matrices and intervention matrices written?

I am very interested in the matrix method used for the calculation, can you provide some help?

Answer 1

Hi, interesting questions,

1, roughly, the quick calculation does not do a full matrix inversion and thus some parts of the results are not available, it is a bit faster and uses a bit less memory, but the effect is not too great, we are replacing this distinction in openLCA 2 with a lazy / on demand calculation and an eager calculation.

2, I do not understand. Process flows are in the technology matrix for product and waste flows, elementary flows are in the intervention matrix.

We documented the LCA calculation alorithm including the matrix method here FYI: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-62270-1_7.

Best wishes,

Andreas

Comments

Thanks for your answer, I learned a lot.