Developments in battery technology are essential for the energy transition and need to follow the framework for Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) materials, chemicals, products and processes as... Show moreDevelopments in battery technology are essential for the energy transition and need to follow the framework for Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) materials, chemicals, products and processes as set by the EU. SSbD is a broad approach which ensures that chemicals/advanced materials/products/services are produced and used in a way to avoid harm to humans and the environment. Technical and policy-related literature was surveyed for battery technologies and recommendations were provided for a broad SSbD approach that remains firmly grounded in Life Cycle Thinking principles. The approach integrates functional performance and sustainability (safety, social, environmental and economic) aspects throughout the life cycle of materials, products and processes, and evaluates how their interactions reflect on SSbD parameters. 22 different types of batteries were analyzed in a life cycle thinking approach for criticality, toxicity/safety, environmental and social impact, circularity, functionality and cost to ensure battery innovation has a green and sustainable purpose to avoid unintended consequences. Show less
Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are expected to fulfill a crucial role in the renewable energy systems of the future. Within current regulatory frameworks, assessing the sustainability as... Show moreBattery energy storage systems (BESS) are expected to fulfill a crucial role in the renewable energy systems of the future. Within current regulatory frameworks, assessing the sustainability as well as the social risks for BESS should be considered. In this research we conducted a social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) of two BESS: the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) and the lithium-ion battery (LIB). The S-LCA was conducted based on the guidelines set by UNEP/SETAC and using the PSILCA v.3 database. It was found that most social risks related to the life cycle of the batteries are associated with the raw material extraction stage, while sectors related to chemicals also entail considerable risks. Workers are the stakeholder group affected most. These results apply to supply chains located in both China and Germany, but risks were lower for similar supply chains in Germany. An LIB with a nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathode is associated with considerably larger risks compared to a LIB with lithium manganese oxide cathode. For a VRFB life cycle with an increased vanadium price, the social risks were higher than those of the VRFB supply chain with a regular vanadium price. Our paper shows that S-LCA through the PSILCA database can provide interesting insights into the potential social risks associated with a certain product's life cycle. Generalizations of the results are not recommended, and one should be careful with assessments for technologies that have not yet matured due to the cost sensitivity of the methodology. Show less
Material constraints may slow the pace of energy transition if the materials intensity of renewable energy technologies remains the same. Innovations in solar photovoltaics (PV) can contribute to... Show moreMaterial constraints may slow the pace of energy transition if the materials intensity of renewable energy technologies remains the same. Innovations in solar photovoltaics (PV) can contribute to achieving lower material demands. In this research, the actor-centered institutionalism framework, transitions literature and the science-policy interface framework are used to analyze how the involved actors perceive the transition towards more resource-efficiency in solar PV, what their preferences are, and how government should support this transition. Altogether, resource-efficiency is not sufficiently supported, while it is considered extremely important in the future of solar PV according to various involved actors. Traditional silicon-based solar panels are locked-in into the current policy landscape. Actors prioritizing resource-efficiency interact in a niche space, while actors involved in traditional silicon-based PV form the regime. Improved alignment between science and policy actors would help ease disagreements and prevent or benefit from path-dependency, thus, supporting resource-efficiency in solar PV. Show less
A framework for prospective/ex-ante life cycle assessment (LCA) and ecological risk assessment (ERA) of emerging technologies is developed and applied to a case study of III-V/silicon photovoltaic... Show moreA framework for prospective/ex-ante life cycle assessment (LCA) and ecological risk assessment (ERA) of emerging technologies is developed and applied to a case study of III-V/silicon photovoltaic panels. Show less
Adrianto, L.R.; Hulst, M.K. van der; Tokaya, J.P.; Arvidsson, R.; Blanco Rocha, C.F.; Caldeira, C.; ... ; Hauck, M. 2021
This paper summarizes the 76th LCA Discussion Forum end its main findings. Main issues when addressing emerging technologies identified were: the lack of primary data, the need for (shared) future... Show moreThis paper summarizes the 76th LCA Discussion Forum end its main findings. Main issues when addressing emerging technologies identified were: the lack of primary data, the need for (shared) future background scenarios and (guidlines for) a common methodology. The following recommendations have been derived by the organizers: 1) Specific foreground inventories are always tailor-made, but consistency can be improved through lists of mandatory considerations. 2) Continue sharing (future) technology data and proxy processes, that can be readily replicated to new studies and assist in developing inventories. 3) Streamline and unify the process of including scenarios for background systems. New approaches may provide first important solutions to efficiently include consistent future scenarios in prospective LCA. Show less
Blanco Rocha, C.F.; Penedo de Sousa Marques, A.; Bodegom, P.M. van 2017
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool to quantitatively assess the environmental impacts associated to a product’s life cycle. Since its conception, LCA has improved considerably in sophistication... Show moreLife Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool to quantitatively assess the environmental impacts associated to a product’s life cycle. Since its conception, LCA has improved considerably in sophistication and scope. Yet efforts to incorporate ecosystem services (ES) are still at an early stage. We present a novel framework for assessing ES in LCA that integrates models from adjacent fields and partitions the required modeling steps into different phases of LCA. Physical models are first used to determine how physical units of ecosystems are transformed by industrial processes; ES models are then used to determine the losses or gains of ES per ecosystem unit, and economic valuation is used to normalize and weigh the total ES losses/gains. We demonstrate the framework for a case study on water extraction by the mining industry in Chile and compare ES losses that result from the transformation of wetland and coastal ecosystems respectively. The proposed framework advances current efforts to assess ES beyond land use impacts in LCA by presenting a coherent approach to deal with spatial and temporal variability of ES production and by incorporating socioeconomic aspects of ES use. It also facilitates the coupling of LCA with other ES databases currently being developed Show less
