Are future recycling benefits misleading? Prospective life cycle assessment of lithium-ion batteries

Life cycle assessment (LCA) quantifies the whole-life environmental impacts of products and is essential for helping policymakers and manufacturers transition toward sustainable practices. However, typical LCA estimates future recycling benefits as if it happens today. For long-lived products such as lithium-ion batteries, this may be misleading since there is a considerable time gap between production and recycling. To explore this temporal mismatch problem, we apply future electricity scenarios from an integrated assessment model—IMAGE—using “premise” in Brightway2 to conduct a prospective LCA (pLCA) on the global warming potential of six battery chemistries and four recycling routes. We find that by 2050, electricity decarbonization under an RCP2.6 scenario mitigates production impacts by 57%, so to reach zero-carbon batteries it is important to decarbonize upstream heat, fuels, and direct emissions. For the best battery recycling case, data for 2020 gives a net recycling benefit of −22 kg CO₂e kWh⁻¹ which reduces the net impact of production and recycling from 71 to 49 kg CO₂e kWh⁻¹. However, for recycling in 2040 with decarbonized electricity, net recycling benefits would be nearly 75% lower (−6 kg CO₂e kWh⁻¹), giving a net impact of 65 kg CO₂e kWh⁻¹. This is because materials recycled in the future substitute lower-impact processes due to expected electricity decarbonization. Hence, more focus should be placed on mitigating production impacts today instead of relying on future recycling. These findings demonstrate the importance of pLCA in tackling problems such as temporal mismatch that are difficult to capture in typical LCA.     

Is there a place for culture in life cycle sustainability assessment?

Purpose

Cultures are increasingly recognised for their inherent value, yet, despite political and societal concern, culture is widely unrecognised in assessment techniques. Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA), a technique encompassing environmental, social and economic aspects, is growing in popularity. However, cultural values are rarely considered in LCSA. This paper reviews the meaning of culture; current efforts to include culture in environmental life cycle assessment (LCA), social LCA (S-LCA) and LCSA; and aspects to address when investigating integration of culture in LCA, S-LCA and LCSA.

Methods

A literature review was undertaken on definitions of culture, recognition of culture in policy and decision making, and how culture is incorporated into assessment techniques. The potential for integrating culture in LCSA was evaluated in terms of the potential benefits and challenges.

Results

Culture is often intangible and inaccessible, which may then lead to a lack of recognition in decision-making processes, or if it is recognised, then it is relegated as an afterthought. Explicitly including consideration of culture within LCSA will allow its representation alongside other sustainability aspects. The challenges of representing culture within LCSA include recognising when ‘culture’ should be distinguished from ‘social’; culture’s dynamic nature; the data collection process; and the diversity of cultures between stakeholders and at different scales from community through to nation. The potential benefits of representing culture within LCSA include greater resonance of LCSA results with stakeholders; a more comprehensive decision support tool which appropriately accounts for values; and an assessment technique which may help protect communities and their diversity of cultures.

Conclusions

Representing culture in LCSA is not straightforward and, to some extent, may be addressed through social indicators. However, developing LCSA to explicitly address cultural values has potential benefits. Future research should focus on opportunities for the development of (a) a culturally inclusive LCSA process and (b) additional cultural indicators and/or dimensions of existing LCSA indicators that represent cultural values.     

How can a life cycle inventory parametric model streamline life cycle assessment in the wooden pallet sector?

Purpose

This study discusses the use of parameterization within the life cycle inventory (LCI) in the wooden pallet sector, in order to test the effectiveness of LCI parametric models to calculate the environmental impacts of similar products. Starting from a single case study, the objectives of this paper are (1) to develop a LCI parametric model adaptable to a range of wooden pallets, (2) to test this model with a reference product (non-reversible pallet with four-way blocks) and (3) to determine numerical correlations between the environmental impacts and the most significant LCI parameters; these correlations can be used to improve the design of new wooden pallets.

Methods

The conceptual scheme for defining the model is based on ISO14040-44 standards. First of all, the product system was defined identifying the life cycle of a generic wood pallet, as well as its life cycle stages. A list of independent and dependent parameters was used to describe the LCI flows of a generic wooden pallet. The LCI parametric model was applied to calculate the environmental impacts of the reference product, with regard to a selection of impact categories at midpoint level (climate change, human toxicity, particulate matter formation, agricultural land occupation, fossil depletion). The model was then applied to further 11 wooden pallets belonging to the same category.

Results and discussion

The definition of a LCI parametric model based on 31 independent parameters and 21 dependent parameters streamlined the data collection process, as the information required for fulfilling the LCI are standard information about the features of the wooden pallet and its manufacturing process. The contribution analysis on the reference product revealed that the most contributing life cycle stages are wood and nails extraction and manufacturing (positive value of environmental impact) and end-of-life (avoided impact). This result is driven by two parameters: mass of wood and average distance for transport of wood. Based on the results of the application of the LCI parametric model to the identified products, one parameter-based regression and one multiple non-linear regression allowed to define a correlation between the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) category indicators considered and the most influencing parameters.

Conclusions

The definition of LCI parametric model in the wooden pallet sector can effectively be used for calculating the environmental impacts of products with different designs, as well as for obtaining a preliminary estimation of the life cycle environmental impacts of new products.     

Preface—a new paradigm for life cycle thinking: exploring sustainability in urban development scenarios

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The main goal of this special issue is to further the understanding of how to integrate life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) methods and...     

Uncertainty in life cycle impact assessment of toxic releases practical experiences - arguments for a reductionalistic approach?

This paper describes the experience with impact assessment of toxic releases in a Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) for PVC in Sweden. For this system, all emissions related to the PVC-chain were inventoried. They have been evaluated making use of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) step from the CMI.-guide, including the new toxicity equivalency factors calculated with the Uniform System for Evaluation of Substances (USES). The application of this method led to the conclusion that I.CA Impact Assessment of toxic releases is still a major bottleneck: the USES-equivalency factors are not to he trusted due to outdated data, inappropriate defaults, etc. in the USES’ substance properties database. Therefore, a second USES-ser of factors was calculated that differed up to factors of 1,000 or more from the old ones. Even these factors probably suffer from unacceptable high structural, in practice not reducible uncertainties. In conclusion, we warn the LCA community not to overestimate the possibility of LCA Impact Assessment to obtain a meaningfull priority setting with regard to toxicity problems. Instead, we propose developing indicator systems for LCIA of toxic releases that genuinely deal with all relevant types of uncertainty: data uncertainty, modelling uncertainty and particularly paradigmatic uncertainty.     

“Less is better” and “only above threshold”: Two incompatible paradigms for human toxicity in life cycle assessment?

The absence of spatial and temporal information in the data from a typical Life Cycle Inventory puts constraints on the possibilities of subsequent Life Cycle Impact Assessment to predict actual impact. Usual methods for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (often referred to as “less is better” methods) make only limited use of spatial and temporal information, because they predict concentration increases rather than full concentrations. As a consequence it does not seem possible to evaluate whether a threshold value is surpassed. The resulting poor accordance between the predicted impact and the expected occurrence of actual impact is a major problem. This problem is particularly relevant for human toxicity assessment, since the probability of surpassing thresholds here traditionally is the main point of attention. A considerable group of practitioners suggests to follow an “only above threshold” principle by introduction of assessment tools from risk assessment and environmental impact assessment in LCA. Intensive debate is going on about possibilities and limitations of “less is better” and “only above threshold”. The debate is obscured by two underlying discussions (about no-effect-levels and about data-availability) that are partly, but not fully intertwined. Both principles tend to be given fixed positions in these discussions, and are therefore often put forward as fundamentally different and incompatible with each other. This article entwines the discussions, shows parallels between both principles, and uses these parallels to present a new method for Life Cycle Impact Assessment of human toxicity from air emissions that — with limited data requirement from Life Cycle Inventory — can take as well threshold evaluation and spatial source-differentiation into account.     

An environmental assessment of small hydropower in India: the real costs of dams’ construction under a life cycle perspective

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - In the last years, India has taken a number of initiatives to boost small hydropower development based on the assumption of being a green energy...     

The need for co-product allocation in the life cycle assessment of agricultural systems—is “biophysical” allocation progress?

Purpose

Several new “biophysical” co-product allocation methodologies have been developed for LCA studies of agricultural systems based on proposed physical or causal relationships between inputs and outputs (i.e. co-products). These methodologies are thus meant to be preferable to established allocation methodologies such as economic allocation under the ISO 14044 standard. The aim here was to examine whether these methodologies really represent underlying physical relationships between the material and energy flows and the co-products in such systems, and hence are of value.

Methods

Two key components of agricultural LCAs which involve co-product allocation were used to provide examples of the methodological challenges which arise from adopting biophysical allocation in agricultural LCA: (1) the crop production chain and (2) the multiple co-products produced by animals. The actual “causal” relationships in these two systems were illustrated, the energy flows within them detailed, and the existing biophysical allocation methods, as found in literature, were critically evaluated in the context of such relationships.

Results and discussion

The premise of many biophysical allocation methodologies has been to define relationships which describe how the energy input to agricultural systems is partitioned between co-products. However, we described why none of the functional outputs from animal or crop production can be considered independently from the rest on the basis of the inputs to the system. Using the example of manure in livestock systems, we also showed why biophysical allocation methodologies are still sensitive to whether a system output has economic value or not. This sensitivity is a longstanding criticism of economic allocation which is not resolved by adopting a biophysical approach.

Conclusions

The biophysical allocation methodologies for various aspects of agricultural systems proposed to date have not adequately explained how the physical parameters chosen in each case represent causal physical mechanisms in these systems. Allocation methodologies which are based on shared (but not causal) physical properties between co-products are not preferable to allocation based on non-physical properties within the ISO hierarchy on allocation methodologies and should not be presented as such.

     

Incomplete tricarboxylic acid cycle and proton gradient in Pandoravirus massiliensis: is it still a virus?

The discovery of Acanthamoeba polyphaga Mimivirus, the first isolated giant virus of amoeba, challenged the historical hallmarks defining a virus. Giant virion sizes are known to reach up to 2.3 µm, making them visible by optical microscopy. Their large genome sizes of up to 2.5 Mb can encode proteins involved in the translation apparatus. We have investigated possible energy production in Pandoravirus massiliensis. Mitochondrial membrane markers allowed for the detection of a membrane potential in purified virions and this was enhanced by a regulator of the tricarboxylic acid cycle but abolished by the use of a depolarizing agent. Bioinformatics was employed to identify enzymes involved in virion proton gradient generation and this approach revealed that eight putative P. massiliensis proteins exhibited low sequence identities with known cellular enzymes involved in the universal tricarboxylic acid cycle. Further, all eight viral genes were transcribed during replication. The product of one of these genes, ORF132, was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli, and shown to function as an isocitrate dehydrogenase, a key enzyme of the tricarboxylic acid cycle. Our findings show for the first time that a membrane potential can exist in Pandoraviruses, and this may be related to tricarboxylic acid cycle. The presence of a proton gradient in P. massiliensis makes this virus a form of life for which it is legitimate to ask the question “what is a virus?”.Subject terms: Virology, Molecular evolution     

Customised life cycle assessment tool for sugarcane (CaneLCA)—a development in the evaluation of alternative agricultural practices

Purpose

To promote eco-efficient sugarcane products, there is a need for life cycle assessment (LCA) methods that enable rapid assessment of the environmental implications of alternative agricultural practices. In response, a customised LCA method for sugarcane growing was developed and operationalized in the CaneLCA tool. The aim of the paper was to describe the CaneLCA method in detail and to test the effectiveness of the tool’s parameterisation for evaluating the environmental implications of cane growing practice alternatives.

Methods

CaneLCA (Version 1.03) was developed over 6 years (2011–2017) in conjunction with the Australian sugarcane sector. The LCA process was customised for sugarcane growing by focusing on ‘cradle to farm gate’ operations and relevant impact categories, and by parameterising practice variables. To evaluate the effectiveness of the tool, we used it to assess a case study of actual practice changes in the Wet Tropics region of Australia, in terms of the scope of practice variables and environmental implications that can be accounted for.

Results and discussion

The case study results generated by CaneLCA were consistent with those generated by past studies using LCA software. The parameterisation of practice variables allowed for all the practice changes represented in the case study to be assessed. It is suitable for evaluating such known practice alternatives, but less suited to evaluating very innovative practice alternatives, as it is constrained by the underlying algorithms and factors. Most of the environmental implications could be considered, except for effects on soil quality. This will be an area for future tool development to understand the full implications of agricultural practice change, along with the introduction of dynamic models to better estimate emissions.

Conclusions

CaneLCA makes the LCA process more rapid for evaluating alternative sugarcane growing practices, thereby speeding up progress towards devising more eco-efficient sugarcane products. It provides a model that could be adapted for other sugarcane growing regions, and for other perennial cropping systems. The novelty of the method is the detailed parameterisation of practice variables so that a wide range of alternative practices can be evaluated.

     

Genome editing in livestock: Are we ready for a revolution in animal breeding industry?

Genome editing is a powerful technology that can efficiently alter the genome of organisms to achieve targeted modification of endogenous genes and targeted integration of exogenous genes. Current genome-editing tools mainly include ZFN, TALEN and CRISPR/Cas9, which have been successfully applied to all species tested including zebrafish, humans, mice, rats, monkeys, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats and others. The application of genome editing has quickly swept through the entire biomedical field, including livestock breeding. Traditional livestock breeding is associated with rate limiting issues such as long breeding cycle and limitations of genetic resources. Genome editing tools offer solutions to these problems at affordable costs. Generation of gene-edited livestock with improved traits has proven feasible and valuable. For example, the CD163 gene-edited pig is resistant to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS, also referred to as “blue ear disease”), and a SP110 gene knock-in cow less susceptible to tuberculosis. Given the high efficiency and low cost of genome editing tools, particularly CRISPR/Cas9, it is foreseeable that a significant number of genome edited livestock animals will be produced in the near future; hence it is imperative to comprehensively evaluate the pros and cons they will bring to the livestock breeding industry. Only with these considerations in mind, we will be able to fully take the advantage of the genome editing era in livestock breeding.     

Role of motor cortex in coordinating multi-joint movements: is it time for a new paradigm?

Reaching movements to spatial targets require motor patterns at the shoulder to be coordinated carefully with those at the elbow to smoothly move the hand through space. While the motor cortex is involved in this volitional task, considerable debate remains about how this cortical region participates in planning and controlling movement. This article reviews two opposing interpretations of motor cortical function during multi-joint movements. On the one hand, studies performed predominantly on single-joint movement generally support the notion that motor cortical activity is intimately involved in generating motor patterns at a given joint. In contrast, studies on reaching demonstrate correlations between motor cortical activity and features of movement related to the hand, suggesting that the motor cortex may be involved in more global features of the task. Although this latter paradigm involves a multi-joint motor task in which neural activity is correlated with features of movement related to the hand, this neural activity is also correlated to other movement variables. Therefore it is difficult to assess if and how the motor cortex contributes to the coordination of motor patterns at different joints. In particular, present paradigms cannot assess whether motor cortical activity contributes to the control of one joint or multiple joints during whole-arm tasks. The final point discussed in this article is the development of a new experimental device (KINARM) that can both monitor and manipulate the mechanics of the shoulder and elbow independently during multi-joint motor tasks. It is hoped that this new device will provide a new approach for examining how the motor cortex is involved in motor coordination.     

An Italian tomato “Cuore di Bue” case study: challenges and benefits using subcategory assessment method for social life cycle assessment

Purpose

The main purpose of this study is to present an implementation of the subcategory assessment method (SAM) to the life cycle of an Italian variety of tomato called “Cuore di Bue” produced by an Italian cooperative. The case study was used to use the methodology proposed in compliance with the guidelines of social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) in order to highlight issues for the improvement of SAM. A summary of strengths and weaknesses of the methodology as well as the social performance of the considered Italian tomato is an important result of this case study.

Methods

The methodology used is based on SAM. The UNEP/SETAC guidelines of S-LCA and the complementary methodological sheets were used as main references to carry out SAM, and it was used to assess the social performances of Cuore di Bue. The focus was on the assessment of the following three out of five stakeholder groups presented in the guidelines: workers, local community and consumers. Specific questionnaires have been developed to collect the inventory data related to each stakeholder group and along the product life cycle.

Results and discussion

SAM of Cuore di Bue showed a range of values, between 2 and 3 (C-B) for consumer stakeholder group and mainly 3 (B) for the local community and worker stakeholders. Because the best performance (A) is related to a numerical value of 4, better performances were not identified, owing to no propagation of actions in the value chain. The collective bargaining, transparency, feedback mechanism and privacy are the subcategories with the worst performance, but at the same time with more potential for improvements.

Conclusions

The implementation of SAM on Cuore di Bue allowed us to demonstrate how SAM transforms qualitative data into semi-quantitative information through a score scale that can help a decision maker achieve a product overview. SAM has been implemented on Cuore di Bue; the product assessment, the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology are identified and discussed as well. It has been possible to present the best and worst performances in product life cycle, by identifying the phase or the subcategories with good or bad performance. However, in this case study, as the same company owns most of the product life cycle taken into account, the majority of social performances are identical, and this may represent a limit of the methodology or that more organisations along the life cycle must be taken into account (for example, energy, distribution).

     

A novel social life cycle assessment method for determining workers’ human development: a case study of the sugarcane biorefineries in Brazil

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) methodology needs to advance in its methodological development, mainly regarding the impact assessment...     

Is it really a mismatch negativity? An assessment of methods for determining response validity in individual subjects

Mismatch negativity (MMN) responses were collected from 86 normal school-age children in response to synthesized speech syllables, /wa/ and two variants of /ba/. Waveform characteristics and statistical properties of the responses were analyzed across stimulus conditions in order to assess methods for determining response validity in individuals. Methods were compared using signal detection theory techniques. Criteria based on measurements of response area, onset latency, and duration were the best indicators of response validity. Also a promising indicator of validity was the interval of significance based on Z transformations determined by considering the variance of the underlying noise distribution. Correlations of individual responses with the grand average and integral calculations of the response negativity showed somewhat lower d′ values. Statistical methods which utilized response subaverages were the poorest indicators of response validity. Likely the methods are limited primarily by the signal to noise ratio of the MMN compared to the underlying physiologic noise. Improvement of the signal to noise ratio remains a significant factor in the interpretation of MMN for individual subjects.     

IMPACT 2002+, ReCiPe 2008 and ILCD’s recommended practice for characterization modelling in life cycle impact assessment: a case study-based comparison

Purpose

The European Commission has launched a recommended set of characterization models and factors for application in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). However, it is not known how this recommended practice, referred to as the ILCD 2009, performs relative to some of the most frequently used alternative LCIA methodologies. Here, we compare the ILCD 2009 with IMPACT 2002+ and ReCiPe 2008, focusing on characterization at midpoint based on a case study comparing four window design options for use in a residential building.

Methods

Ranking of the four window options was done for each impact category within each methodology. To allow comparison across the methodologies both in terms of total impact scores and contribution patterns for individual substances, impact scores were converted into common metrics for each impact category.

Results and discussion

Apart from toxic impacts on human health and ecosystems, all studied methodologies consistently identify the same window option as having the lowest and the highest environmental impact. This is mainly because few processes, associated with production of heat, dominate the total impacts, and there is a large difference in demand for heat between the compared options. Despite this general agreement in ranking, differences in impact scores are above 3 orders of magnitude for human health impacts from ionizing radiation and ecosystem impacts from land use, and they lie between 1 and 3 orders of magnitude for metal depletion and for toxicity-related impact categories. The differences are somewhat smaller (within 1 order of magnitude) for the impact categories respiratory inorganics and photochemical ozone formation, and are within a factor of 3 for the remaining impact categories. The differences in impact scores in our case study are brought about by the differences in underlying characterization models and/or substance coverage, depending on the impact category.

Conclusions

In spite of substantial differences in impact scores for the individual impact categories, we find that the studied LCIA methods point to the same conclusion with respect to identifying the alternative with the lowest environmental burden and ascribe this to the fact that few processes are driving the main environmental impacts, and there is large difference in demand for output from these processes between the compared options. Even though the overall conclusions remain the same for our case study, the choice of the ILCD’s recommended practice over the existing alternatives does matter for the impact categories ionizing radiation and land use and all toxicity-related impact categories.     

Both completing system boundaries and realistic modeling of the economy are of interest for life cycle assessment—a reply to “Moving from completing system boundaries to more realistic modeling of the economy in life cycle assessment” by Yang and Heijungs (2018)

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - As Yang and Heijungs (Int J Life Cycle Assess https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1532-y , 2018) bring forward, there is indeed a need for...     

Creating a “family tree” on fertilizer inventory use in life cycle assessment of oil palm: visualization of earlier studies and its implications

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - This review develops and applies a visualization method for understanding how chemical fertilizer inventory data, including greenhouse gas (GHG)...