How to add carbon emission from fuel combustion & transportation in Process?

Question

Hello!

So I am trying to do perform (Gate to Gate) LCA study for manufacturing of a chemical product and it includes utilization of fuel, say coal & diesel and transportation of RM to the unit as their major contributing sources. I have calculated the equivalent CO2 emissions that shall be generated from fuel combustion & transportation in terms of tons of CO2 equivalent. I want to know how should I enter this detail in my process and calculate the overall impact of the production of the product?

Also, is there any way to select the parameters to be assessed for the selected impact category. For instance, I do my calculation with ReCiPe method, but I just want to check climate change, ozone depletion & photochemical smog. So is there a way to select these parameters?

Thanks in advance!

Regards

Jesal

Answer 1

Hello Siddhi,

There are two ways to approach this:

1: Combine background and primary data. If you know the elementary flows from transport and combustion of coal, you can add the elementary flows to the process, along with a process of extraction of those fuels. Adding the rest of the product system will then give you a more or less complete model.

2: Use solely background data. There are some issues with combining data from several sources. Most databases have a way to calculate energy from coal combustion, and emissions from transport. Unless you have very specific data on these two processes, or data of a very high quality from elsewhere, i would suggest not mixing data sources unless necessary.

Regarding the impact assessment, if youre using OpenLCA 2, you can create your own impact assessment method, and add the GWP, Ozone depletion, and photochemical smog impact categories from ReCiPe. Using this LCIA method you created will yield results only on these categories.

Best of luck

Comments

Hello!

Firstly, thank you so much for the prompt response, I truly appreciate it!

In the regards of the above discussed points I would like to know a few things further. Lets say I am solely using the background data; you have specified above that most of the databases have their way of calculating the energy from fuel combustion. So if that's the case, how should I add my fuel in the "Input"? Like which flow should I select for considering combustion of fuel for production of a certain product because mostly the options for the fuel flows are either its production or ways of its transportation. There nothing in the lines of like utilization/ combustion of fuel itself.
And also how should I quantify the same. Should I directly give the overall quantity of fuel that shall be consumed during the process or is there any other way to do this?

Thanks in advance!

Regards
Jesal

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Hello Jesal. It is difficult to say, when i do not know the databases you have access to. Could you inform me of those?
The process will depend on the database you use, and the unit of the input will depend on the proces.
I hope this makes sense :)

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Hi Matias. Thank you for the reply!
I have got the Ecoinvent 3.9 database and to be precise I am using the "Cutoff" database (since I am performing LCA for an industrial product).
For instance my product utilises 10 MT to Coal, so how can I consider the energy & emissions from combustion of coal and what input should I add for the same?

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Hello Jesal,
In EcoInvent, most product processes use the output as a reference flow. This means that you will not find a process that you can input 10.000 ton of coal. Rather you will have to input the equivalent output. I have found two processes you can use:
heat and power co-generation, hard coal | heat, district or industrial, other than natural gas | EN15804, LCI
and
electricity production, hard coal | electricity, high voltage | EN15804, LCI

The process you will need to go through is then the following:
Determine whether the output for your chemical system is electricity or heat, and choose the corresponding process.
Find the - U version of the process, and identify how many Mt coal is required to produce 1 kWh.
From this, calculate the relationship of numberof kWh / 1 Mt coal
Multiply this number with 10, to get the amount of kWh you need to input into the process. (i suspect it will be a high amount. Consider converting to MWh for ease of use)
Note the method in your report, so it is transparent for a possible third party reviewer, or if the analysis needs to be reproduced.

I hope this makes sense, otherwise comment here again.
Have a nice day :)

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Hello Matias,

Yes this works, thank you so much. Well I also have another similar doubt, so as we did for fuel combustion/consumption for process, how can we do the same for transportation ?
My case study comprises of getting my raw materials to the manufacturing facility (say 10 nos. of trucks; 20 MT each; to&fro distance ~500 km) and so the emissions generated by the vehicle must be counted as well.
So, for this case should I directly select the "transport, freight, lorry 16-32 metric ton, EURO4" flow or do we have to consider fuel consumption & emission generation separately by some other means?

Thanks in advance!  
You have been a great help, thank you so much!

Regards
Jesal

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Hello Jesal,
In most cases in LCA we would use the tonkm unit, as well as a generic process for transportation, such as the one you mentioned. In your case, you would omit the number of trucks and the empty return (that is included in the procesS). Instead you would calculate the one way distance (i suppose 250 km) and the total mass of the transported goods (either 20.000 tons, or 200.000 tons, depending on which of your comments i look at). You then identify the total amount of tonkm needed: 250*(20.000 or 200.000). Thus your final result is either 5.000.000 tonkm, or 50.000.000 tonkm.

This is the total transport value for all transportation. If you want it at a product level, then you must allocate this transport to the production.

Hope this helps :)