Assessment of environmental impacts of current and future energy provision: Steps forward

Transcription

1 WIR SCHAFFEN WISSEN HEUTE FÜR MORGEN Karin Treyer:: Researcher in Life Cycle Assessment :: Paul Scherrer Institut Assessment of environmental impacts of current and future energy provision: Steps forward 1 st LCIC, Berlin,

2 Decision makers need information Climate change, nuclear incidents, air particulate matter diseases => change of the energy system But which change? At which trade-offs/burden shifts? Environmental impacts, internal/external costs, risks, security of supply, social acceptance, potentials of technologies (Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis MCDA) Time frame up to ca They want to get THE answer but LCA and MCDA only provide a multitude of potential «facts»! Page 2

3 Energy system today oehrenkollektoren/vitosol-300-tm.html «Parallel» systems where individual components can be analysed independently with LCA. science/unit-3-energy/chapter electricity Mobility Heating Electricity Storage Page 3

4 and potential future aranlage/roehrenkollektoren/vitosol-300-tm.html 18 MW battery in Volketswil (CH) energy/chapter-20---electricity Mobility Heating Electricity Storage Page 4

5 Challenges for LCA Stochastic renewables Storage on various time scales Novel technologies Technology learning Feedback loops Behavioural changes Centralised/decentralised Much more interlinked: E.g. exchange of electricity (use the natural resources where they are most present, e.g. wind in Northern Europe and solar in Southern Europe) Behavioural changes: Shared economy Page 5

6 Decision makers need answers! om/2015/03/ants-question.jpg We need to ask the right questions! Page 6

7 Which are the questions we need to ask? How to calculate reliable, sound, transparent, objective, reproducible environmental impact results? What are the life-cycle, long term environmental implications of (complex and long) energy transition and energy provision? How do we communicate results and potentials/limitations of the LCA to decision makers? How to integrate LCA in regulations, product certifications, sustainability standards LCA is not suited to answer all questions; and it cannot take everything into account given that we are working with huge systems. It s only fair and it s our duty to inform target audience on this. How to model the consequences of a decision? (e.g. Frischknecht and Stucki 2010, Plevin et al. 2013, Weidema 2017) Page 7

8 Which are the methodological questions we need to ask? (1) How to define the functional unit and system boundaires in interlinked systems? (e.g. Zhang et al. 2017, Parra&Zhang 2017) How to allocate burdens? How to move from static LCA to dynamic LCA to model the energy transition phase (on various temporal scales)? How to link LCA with energy projection models, life cycle costing, external costs, risk and societal aspects? (e.g. Cox 2018, Volkart et al. 2017, Hirschberg et al. 2014) Choice of data to link to (e.g. Panos et al. 2018) Page 8

9 Which are the methodological questions we need to ask? (1) How to define the functional unit and system boundaires in interlinked systems? (e.g. Zhang et al. 2017, Parra&Zhang 2017) How to allocate burdens? How to move from static LCA to dynamic LCA to model the energy transition phase (on various temporal scales)? Zhang et al How to link LCA with energy projection models, life cycle costing, external costs, risk and societal aspects? (e.g. Cox 2018, Volkart et al. 2017, Hirschberg et al. 2014) Choice of data to link to (e.g. Panos et al. 2018) Page 9

10 Which are the methodological questions we need to ask? (2) Uncertainties! Data, technologies, average vs. Individual/local conditions or plants LCIA assessment Projections, innovations, behavioural changes Parametrisation, sensitivity analyses (e.g. Cox 2018) Prioritisation and collection of foreground and background data (e.g. Reinhard et al. 2016/2017, Steubing et al. 2016) Adaptation of background data to future (Cox 2018) Regionalisation of LCI and LCIA Background/Foreground data: what to collect and how (current /future/average/marginal) (e.g. Vandepaer et al. Submitted) Which tools can we use to process these huge amounts of data? (Mutel C Brightway2) Page 10

11 These are many questions! Is it the right thing we do? Always step back and ask if we are concentrating on the right thing. Otherwise you can get lost in details. Page 11

12 Action items Understand the system Identify the data to find (prioritisation) Find data Existing data(bases) (IMAGE, ecoinvent, questionnaires, experts, IEA technology roadmaps, energy projections upt to 2050, scarcity of metals ) Physical models Automated data generation (Reinhard et al. 2017) Process data (linking together, parametrisation, making consistent, ) (Python, Brightway2) Create results, including uncertainty, sensitivity analyses, dynamic aspects Present results: Ranges, over full time horizon and not only for climate change Make sure results are being used for change initiation Page 12

13 Take home messages LCA of complex energy systems is complex We strive to create reliable, sound, transparent, objective, reproducible, life- cycle, long-term LCA results We improve the methodology to move towards that goal %20take%20home%20message/ Communication to decision makers is challenging Changes based on such results need to be initialised Page 13

14 References (selection) Bauer, C., S. Hirschberg (eds.), Y. Bäuerle, S. Biollaz, A. Calbry-Muzyka, B. Cox, T. Heck, M. Lehnert, A. Meier, H.-M. Prasser, W. Schenler, K. Treyer, F. Vogel, H.C. Wieckert, X. Zhang, M. Zimmermann, V. Burg, G. Bowman, M. Erni, M. Saar, M.Q. Tran (2017) Potentials, costs and environmental assessment of electricity generation technologies. PSI, WSL, ETHZ, EPFL. Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI, Switzerland. Cox, Brian (2018). Mobility and the Energy Transition: A Life Cycle Assessment of Swiss Passenger Transport Technologies including Developments until 2050., ETH Zurich, Vol Frischknecht, R. and Stucki, M. Scope-dependent modelling of electricity supply in LCA. Int J Life Cycle Ass. DOI /s Stefan Hirschberg, Stefan Wiemer, Peter Burgherr (eds.), Energy from the Earth. Deep Geothermal as a Resource for the Future? TA-SWISS Study. vdf Hochschulverlag AG. ISBN (Buch) Panos,E., Kober, T. (2018). Long-term evaluation of electricity-based storage technologies vs alternative flexibility options for the Swiss energy system, Treffen der Studiengruppe Energieperspektiven, Baden, Plevin, R.J., Delucchi, M.A., Creutzig, F Using attributional LCA to estimate climate-change mitigation benefits misleads policy makers. Journal of Industrial Ecology. DOI /jiec Reinhard, J., Zah, R., Hilty, L.M Regionalized LCI modeling: a framework for the integration of spatial data in LCA. Reinhard, J., Mutel, C., Wernet, G., Zah, R., Hilty, L.M Contribution-based prioritization of LCI database improvements: Method design, demonstration, and evaluation. Steubing, B., Wernet, G., Reinhard, J., Bauer, C., Moreno-Ruiz, E The ecoinvent database version 3 (part II): analyzing LCA results and comparison to version 2. Int J Life Cycle Ass. DOI /s Vandepaer, L., Treyer, K., Mutel, C., Bauer, C. and Amor, B. The integration of long-term marginal electricity supply mixes in the ecoinvent consequential database version 3.4 and examination of modeling choices. Submitted to the Int J Life Cycle Ass Volkart, K., Mutel, C., Panos, E Integrating life cycle assessment and energy system modelling: Methodology and application to the world energy scenarios. Sustainable Production and Consumption. Weidema, B.P Estimation of the size of error introduced into consequential models by using attributional background datasets. Int J Life Cycle Ass. DOI /s x Wernet, G., Bauer, C., Steubing, B., Reinhard, J., Moreno-Ruiz, E., Weidema, B The ecoinvent database version 3 (part I): overview and methodology. Int J Life Cycle Ass. DOI /s Zhang, X., Bauer, C., Christopher, M., Volkart, K Life Cycle Assessment of Power-to-Gas: Approaches, system variations and their environmental implications. Applied Energy 190(2017) Parra & Zhang et al., 2017, An integrated techno-economic and life cycle environmental assessment of power-to-gas systems, Applied Energy, Vol 193, Schmidt, T., Beuse, M., Zhang, X., Steffen, B., Schneider, S., Pena-Bello, A., Bauer, C., Parra, D., 2018, Life cycle emissions and life cycle cost analysis for stationary batteries in different geographies, submitted to Energy & Environmental Science Terlouw, T., Bauer, C., Zhang, X., Alskaif, T., 2018, Towards the determination of metal criticality in home-based battery systems using a life cycle assessment approach, Page 14 under internal review

15 Wir schaffen Wissen heute für morgen My thanks go to Brian Cox Xiaojin Zhang Christian Bauer Vandepaer Laurent Page 15

16 Present results (1): LCA impact categories Bauer et al Page 16

17 Present results (2): MCDA DGE: Deep Geothermal Energy Hirschberg et al Page 17

18 Climate change results for current and future electric cars operating globally Cox, B., et al., The uncertain environmental footprint of future electric vehicles. Environmental Science and Technology, 2018 DOI: /acs.est.8b00261 Red line shows median, boxes contain 50% of results, whiskers show maximum and minimum values. Page 18