How Green is That Product Lecture Notes Week 1

Lecture Notes for How Green is That Product? 2015 Northwestern University.

How Green is That Product?

An Introduction to Life Cycle Environmental Assessment

Coursera Lecture Notes

March 2015

Prepared by:

Eric Masanet and Yuan Chang

McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

Northwestern University

Evanston, IL, USA

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Table of Contents About these lecture notes ...................................................................................................................... 2

Lecture 1: The life-cycle perspective and course goals .......................................................................... 3

Lecture 1 Supplement ............................................................................................................................ 7

Lecture 2: Understanding unit processes ............................................................................................... 9

Lecture 2 Supplement .......................................................................................................................... 15

Lecture 3: Constructing unit process inventories: Part 1 ..................................................................... 17

Lecture 3 Supplement .......................................................................................................................... 22

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About these lecture notes There are many useful resources for learning the life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, including

books, websites, case studies, publicly-available lecture materials, and LCA standards and

guidebooks. Rather than choose one particular resource as the assigned reading, the course staff

has prepared this compendium of lecture notes, which will serve as your primary reference for this

course. These notes make use of elements of key online LCA resources that are available to

students, and refer you to them where appropriate for additional information on different LCA

topics. Additional readings will be assigned or suggested throughout our MOOC as part of the

homework assignments, through the discussion forums, and when discussing specific LCA case

studies.

Each chapter relates to a single video lecture. The first section in each chapter contains a full

transcript of the video lecture. These transcripts will allow you to read along with the lectures as

you watch them, to write down comments at different points in a lecture, and to refer to the lecture

content when you are offline.

In many chapters, a second section has been provided, which contains additional notes that expand

upon points made within the lecture and refer you to other LCA resources as appropriate. Because

Coursera video lectures are inherently short, weve made use of the additional notes sections to

provide you with supporting information that couldnt be included in the video lectures due to time

constraints. Weve also added additional notes to further discuss topics that proved particularly

interesting or challenging in past offerings of the MOOC. Within the transcript section, youll see

blue arrows in the left hand margin that look like this:

This symbol indicates that additional notes have been provided. Each additional note has been

assigned a number, which also appears in the blue arrow symbol (in our example above, this

number is 1.1). The numbered blue arrows will allow you to easily jump back and forth between the

transcript and the additional information that is relevant to a particular topic.

Lecture notes will be released on a week-by-week basis.

We hope these lecture notes can serve as a basic, useful reference for you in your learning

experience. Suggestions for improving or expanding these lecture notes for future offerings of this

course are heartily welcomed. We hope you enjoy our journey together learning about and applying

the LCA methodology. Lets get started!

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Lecture 1: The life-cycle perspective and course goals Transcript

Hello, and welcome to How Green is that Product? An Introduction to Life Cycle Assessment. Im

Eric Masanet, and Ill be your instructor for this course. I hope youve been looking forward to this

as much as I have.

This course will provide you with a basic working knowledge of life cycle assessment, or LCA for

short. Now, you wont become a certified LCA practitioner in only nine weeks. However, you will

learn how to construct LCA studies that provide transparent results, to build basic LCA models in

spreadsheets, and to collect, analyze, and interpret environmental data in a structured manner for

better decisions.

But perhaps most importantly, youll learn that -- whatever the product -- everything has

environmental impacts and that understanding these impacts requires sound data and thorough

analysis. If you stick with me, youll be equipped with the basic skills to conduct such analyses and

begin answering environmental questions of your own.

So what exactly is LCA? LCA is a method to assess the environmental impacts of a product, process,

or service that involves four major steps:

1. Determine the goals and scope of the LCA;

2. Compile an inventory of energy and mass

inputs and outputs across all relevant life

cycle stages;

3. Evaluate relevant environmental impacts

associated with the life-cycle inputs and

releases; and

4. Interpret the results to lead to a more

informed decision.

Lets first discuss what is meant by life cycle stages using this plastic bag as an example. In this

course, well refer to five distinct stages of the product life cycle:

1. Raw materials acquisition, which includes processes related to raw materials extraction and

refining. For our plastic bag, which is made of a plastic called high-density polyethylene or

HDPE for short, raw materials acquisition would include extracting and processing natural

gas and transporting it to a chemicals plant.

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2. Manufacturing, which includes processes that convert raw materials to finished products.

In our case, plastic bags are manufactured by producing plastic pellets, melting them into a

film, and forming the bags.

3. Distribution, which includes transporting and stocking products for consumption. For

example, our plastic bag will be shipped from the manufacturer to a grocer.

4. Use/reuse, which is the stage where products perform a useful service to the consumer. In

our case, the plastic bag will carry our groceries home. Some consumers might also reuse

the bag for additional shopping trips or as a garbage can liner, which is why we often include

reuse in the use phase as well.

5. Stage 5 is the end of life stage, where products enter the waste management system.

Depending on local waste management practices, the plastic bag might be recycled,

landfilled, or incinerated to generate energy.

So what is meant by relevant impacts? As youll learn in this course, an environmental impact is a

consequence associated with inputs and outputs of energy and mass across the product life cycle.

For example, the combustion of diesel fuel in the trucks that transport plastic bags to the grocer

releases carbon dioxide, which leads to global warming. When conducting an LCA, we strive to

include all non-negligible impacts so that informed decisions can be made and any tradeoffs

between impacts are made explicit.

Consider again this plastic bag. Many jurisdictions have banned plastic

bags at grocery stores in an effort to reduce litter. However, several

LCA studies have shown that if consumers shift to paper bags, more

diesel trucking might be required. Why is that? Its because a paper

bag takes up more space than a plastic bag, and therefore more trucks

might be required to bring the same number bags to the grocer. So in

this case, one tradeoff of a shift from plastic to paper grocery bags

might be that plastic litter is reduced but diesel fuel use and emissions

are increased.

This case teaches us two important lessons. First, an LCA can reveal that, while we think were

making a green choice, environmental impacts may shift based on the consumption choices we

make. Thats why its important to consider all relevant impacts in an LCA; otherwise such shifts in

impacts might be missed when were evaluating our options. Second, consideration of all life cycle

stages allowed for identification of unintended consequences. That is, a reduction in plastic litter in

the end of life stage might come at the cost of increased diesel fuel use in the distribution stage. If

we just focused on non-biodegradable litter, surely paper bags would look greener than plastic. Its

only by looking at all life cycle stages did we see that paper bags might make things worse in the

distribution stage. So you see that even the simple case of plastic versus paper bags involves

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environmental tradeoffs. With proper application of the LCA method, however, these tradeoffs are

made visible so we can make the most informed decisions.

You may be wondering how LCA is used in the real world, or, more directly, how you might use LCA

after completing this course. If youre an engineer, LCA can help you choose materials and design

features that lead to greener products and technologies. If youre a policy maker, LCA can help you

design public policies and incentives that improve sustainability without simply shifting

environmental problems from one type of impact to another. If youre a consumer, LCA can arm you

with data and results that guide you to greener purchasing decisions. And no matter what you do,

LCA can give you a healthy degree of skepticism of the environmental claims that are so often made

without hard data and through analysis to back them up.

Lets wrap up with an overview of what you can expect. Each lecture will

introduce a new concept, which will be reinforced through online quizzes,

homework, and the course notes. I believe LCA is best learned by

jumping in hands on, so in this course youll build an LCA model of a

simple product that you should all be familiar with a bottled soft drink.

No special LCA software packages will be required; all that is needed is a

spreadsheet.

Each week youll be developing a new section of the model that relates to

that weeks lecture material, so by the end of the course youll have built

a complete bottled soda LCA. While the product is fairly simple, by

building the model across all life cycle stages and impacts, youll acquire the skills and perspectives

that should allow you to move on to more complex products after you complete this course.

Lastly, well also occasionally offer separate videos describing real-world LCA studies that highlight

key material, so you can easily see how the theory relates to practice in real time.

Im looking forward to this experience together. See you next time!

Additional notes

Correction: In the lecture video, I say Compile an inventory of energy and material inputs and

environmental outputs across all relevant life cycle stages when I really should have said Compile

an inventory of energy and mass inputs and outputs across all relevant life cycle stages. The goal of

LCA is to include all relevant mass flows, whether they are materials, resources (such as water or

biomass), pollutants to the environment, or products to society.

Correction: As youll see in Homework 1, natural gas must be extracted and processed before it can

be used in industrial systems. Processing is aimed at improving natural gas quality by removing

impurities. In the lecture video, I say raw materials acquisition would include extracting natural

gas and transporting it to a chemicals plant when I really should have said raw materials

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acquisition would include extracting and processing natural gas and transporting it to a chemicals

plant.

Correction: In the lecture video, I say an environmental impact is an adverse consequence

associated with inputs of resources and outputs of pollutants across the product life cycle when I

really should have said an environmental impact is a consequence associated with inputs and

outputs of energy and mass across the product life cycle. In reality, not all impacts arising from life-

cycle systems are negative. For example, a biomass system may sequester carbon dioxide from the

air and a remediation technology may remove hazardous pollutants from soil to make it safe again.

By quantifying all flows of mass and energy across a life-cycle system (and not just resource and

pollutant flows), LCA enables us to explore both adverse and positive impacts associated with these

flows. While well focus exclusively on adverse impacts in this course, it is helpful to keep in mind

that LCA can just as easily quantify positive impacts.

Starting in week 3, youll begin building your very own LCA model of a bottled soft drink packaged in

plastic. See the Course Project section of the course website for more details. (The Course

Project section can be accessed by clicking on Start Here! or Course Information in the left

hand navigation pane on the course website.) Note also that I say bottle of soda in the lecture

video, which is a term used commonly in North America to refer to bottled soft drink.

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Lecture 1 Supplement Transcript

Welcome to our first lecture video supplement. Supplements such as this one have been added to

improve the course content and to provide additional discussions and examples to help you better

understand the topics covered in our core lecture videos.

In this first supplement, Id like to give you a better idea of what to expect in this course as well as

some tips for success based on past course offerings.

First, I highly encourage you to review all of the material provided on the Start Here! section of

the website, which includes important information on policies, our course schedule, and further

details on the project.

Lets take a look at the course schedule, which lists the topics well cover in this course. The first

two weeks of this course will cover core skills that are necessary for sound LCA, such as constructing

unit process inventories, conducting energy and mass balances, and understanding data

conventions. These are the essential building blocks of an LCA. In Week 3, well begin applying

these building blocks to learn the LCA methodology and to start constructing our very own LCA

models.

For more information on the LCA models, lets take a look at the Project section of the website,

which describes the scope and intent of the course project. Youll be exposed to two different LCA

models, both of which will be developed in spreadsheets.

The first is an LCA model for a plastic grocery bag that has been developed by the course staff. The

spreadsheet consists of different tabs that contain the various elements of the LCA model, which

we'll reveal in week by week fashion as we learn each step of the LCA methodology. Think of our

plastic bag LCA model as an example of how your bottled soft drink LCA model should be

constructed and how it should function, and refer to it often for inspiration and guidance.

The second is the LCA model for a bottled soft drink, which youll be developing yourself. Starting

in Week 3, youll be given tasks to construct your model based on recent lecture topics.

Furthermore, some of the homework assignments will contain exercises that help you build specific

portions of your model. By following the development of our plastic bag LCA model, and by

completing the homework and modeling tasks to construct your own bottled soft drink LCA model,

youll gain valuable hands on experience. The course staff will also post regular solutions for the

bottled soft drink model, which you can use to check the accuracy of your spreadsheet.

Id also like to draw your attention to the discussion forums. If youve taken Coursera courses in the

past, youll know that the discussion forums can be a great way to enhance your learning

experience, but that they can also become unwieldy to navigate over time. To minimize forum

fatigue, weve established specific sub-forums for different types of posts. For example, there is an

Assignments sub-forum that you can use for posts related to specific homework assignments.

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There is also a Lectures sub-form for posts related to the lectures each week. Please review the

available sub-forums and be sure to choose the most logical sub-forum first before you make a post.

If we all do this, the discussion forums should be much more useful and manageable for everyone.

Youll also notice that Ill be suggesting discussion topics each week. These questions should be fun

to explore together, and will help us all think about how LCA relates to our own lives and the

sustainability problems wed like to solve. While participation isnt mandatory, I highly encourage

you to join in or review the posts whenever you can. The topics have been selected from some of

the most interesting and thought-provoking discussions in past offerings, so Im sure youll enjoy

them.

Finally, here are some quick tips for getting the most out of this course and earning a high grade:

First, if you need to improve your spreadsheet skills, please use the first two weeks of this course to

do so. Weve provided a specific discussion sub-forum that students can use to share spreadsheet

tips and tricks. Once we introduce the LCA models in Week 3, you may find it difficult to keep up if

youre not comfortable with spreadsheets.

Second, while the first two weeks of this course are somewhat basic, the level of difficulty and

required effort will increase in Weeks 3 9 when we move into the LCA method and modeling.

Therefore, you should plan for a greater time commitment in the last 7 weeks of the course.

Third, please take full advantage of the discussion forums for seeking out help and providing help to

others. In past offerings, many questions related to homework assignments, project tasks, and LCA

concepts were collectively answered by students through ongoing discussion. And you may find

that assisting others deepens your own understanding of the course material.

Fourth, while I encourage students to exchange ideas, please try to complete the assignments and

project tasks on your own before seeking out answers online. Learning through trial and error is

important for any course, and especially for the LCA methodology given its many details and

nuances.

Fifth, and finally, try to review some of the additional resources that are indicated in the lecture

notes. This course only covers basic LCA concepts, but the additional resources we mention provide

a wealth of information that can bring you closer to LCA proficiency if you have the time to review

them.

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Lecture 2: Understanding unit processes Transcript

Welcome back! Today well begin learning about the data structure of an LCA, starting with LCAs

most fundamental building block: the unit process model. But first lets quickly review what we

learned yesterday.

The product life cycle can be divided into five major stages: raw materials acquisition,

manufacturing, distribution, use, and end of life. In our plastic bag example, we learned that raw

materials acquisition covers the extraction, processing, and transportation of natural gas, which is

then converted into ethylene. Ethylene is converted into HDPE and formed into a bag in the

manufacturing stage. Next, the bag is distributed to retail stores, where it is filled with groceries to

transport food home during the use stage. Lastly, at the end of life stage, the bag is either recycled,

landfilled, or incinerated to generate energy.

We also learned that a key step in all LCAs is to compile an inventory of energy and mass inputs and

outputs across all relevant life cycle stages. So how do we compile such inventories? We do so by

modeling the product life cycle as a series of unit processes. The ISO 14040 standard for LCA

defines a unit process as the smallest portion of a product system for which data are collected

when performing a life-cycle assessment.

This is a picture of a generic unit process. On the left we have inputs of energy and mass required to

generate a useful product output. On the right we have the outputs of environmental emissions

and co-products that are associated with the process, along with the product output itself. From

now on, well refer to the inputs and outputs associated with a unit process as the unit process

inventory, which is a term commonly used by LCA practitioners.

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To visualize how we use unit processes, lets look more closely at the manufacturing stage of our

plastic bag. The first step is to convert processed natural gas into ethylene, which well represent by

this first unit process model.

The second step is to convert ethylene into HDPE pellets, which well represent with this second unit

process.

The third step is to melt the HDPE pellets, extrude a film, and form the bags in the bag production

process.

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As youve probably guessed, to construct a complete LCA model for the plastic bag, wed need to

develop and apply unit process models to capture all unit processes at each life cycle stage. We can

then sum all the unit process inventories to quantify the total environmental footprint of the bag life

cycle. Youll learn how to do this later; for now, you may be asking yourself how such unit process

inventories and life-cycle models can be developed without detailed engineering knowledge.

Fortunately, we have we have databases and literature sources to help us in this regard.

For example, a unit process inventory I obtained from the literature for converting ethylene to HDPE

pellets looks like this. If this level of detail seems a bit daunting, dont worry youll learn how to

work confidently with unit process inventory data in this course.

Fortunately, the LCA community has adopted a number of conventions for organizing unit process

inventories to make our lives easier. These conventions help ensure that inventories are intuitive

and use the same data structure for easy transfer between researchers and databases. So while the

unit process inventory for HDPE pellets may look complicated, thanks to this structured organization

of data it is actually simpler than it looks.

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First, many unit process inventories refer to inputs and outputs as flows or exchanges. In this

course, well use the word flows. Unit process inventories are essentially comprised of flow

information listed in rows.

In many LCI databases, flows are further characterized as flows to or from nature or to or from the

technosphere. In this course, well adopt this convention and organize our inventories into the

following four types of flows:

1. Inputs from nature,

2. Inputs from the technosphere,

3. Outputs to nature, and

4. Outputs to the technosphere

Inputs from nature are probably pretty obvious: they include flows such as crude oil extracted from

the ground or corn harvested from a field. Conversely, outputs to nature include pollutants and

wastes that are released back into the environment. Inputs from and outputs to the technosphere

refer to any flow of energy or mass that originates from a man-made process. For example, diesel

fuel is produced from crude oil in a petroleum refinery, but we dont find diesel fuel occurring

naturally in the environment.

For our plastic bag, the extraction of natural gas describes a flow from nature. After extraction,

natural gas must be processed to remove impurities. In the next unit process, that processed

natural gas is converted into ethylene. Here, because the natural gas came from a pipe and not the

ground, it is considered an input from the technosphere. Because ethylene is an intermediate

product that is used by other unit processes, it is considered an output to the technosphere.

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Why do we need to distinguish between flows to and from nature and flows to and from the

technosphere? Besides helping us better visualize the origins and destinations of flows in our

inventory, identifying flows to and from nature allows us to quantify environmental impacts in the

life-cycle impact assessment step of an LCA. Well learn more about impact assessment later in the

course. For now, lets get used to organizing our unit process inventories in this way.

Lastly, well use SI units to describe all flows in our unit process inventories in this course. For

example, mass will be expressed in grams, energy in joules, and volume in liters. Some of you may

wish to review the SI system before proceeding with this course; further readings are provided in

this weeks course notes.

Additional notes

Correction: Here weve added in the processing step that was omitted in the lecture video. See

Note 1.2.

Correction: Here again I should have referred to energy and mass inputs and outputs instead of

energy and materials inputs and environmental releases. See Note 1.1.

The ISO 14040 series of standards are a set of best practice rules and guidelines for conducting

LCA that have been developed and revised by the international LCA expert community since the

1990s. Well be referring to these standards often throughout the course. Well use them to discuss

the step by step nature of an LCA and to reinforce best practices. Unfortunately, the actual

standards documents are not freely available to the public. However, youll get a basic

understanding of these standards through our class materials and through the additional readings

well suggest and assign. There is no need to purchase the standards to benefit from the content of

this course. For those who would like to learn more about the formal standards, please visit the

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) website at:

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/store/catalogue_tc/catalogue_tc_browse.htm?commid=54854

Correction: Here weve changed materials and energy to the more general and correct energy

and mass. See Note 1.1.

For clarity, weve specified that it is processed natural gas that is converted into ethylene.

Processed natural as is a flow from the technosphere. This change was necessary to reduce

confusion in past course offerings as to whether natural gas from nature or natural gas from the

technosphere is used in ethylene production. See the Lecture 2 supplement video for more

information.

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http://www.iso.org/iso/home/store/catalogue_tc/catalogue_tc_browse.htm?commid=54854

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To give you a sense of the detail contained in a typical life-cycle inventory (LCI), and the

documentation that explains and supports such inventories, take a peek at the following report.

Youll use some of these data in this course to build you spreadsheet LCA model of a bottled soft

drink. There is no need to carefully read this report now, or to understand its contents. But looking

it over will give you an idea of the types of information sources that we rely on when constructing

LCA models.

Franklin Associates (2009). Life Cycle Inventory of Three Single-Serving Soft Drink Containers:

Revised Peer Reviewed Final Report. Prepared for the PET Resin Association. Eastern

Research Group. Prairie Village, KS. http://www.container-recycling.org/assets/pdfs/LCA-

SodaContainers2009.pdf

Similar to the reasons for Note 2.5, here weve added After extraction, natural gas must be

processed to remove impurities. In the next unit process, that processed natural gas is converted

into ethylene. See the Lecture 2 supplement video for more information.

There are many useful resources online for reviewing conversions from Imperial and US Customary

units into International System (SI) units. While well use SI units in this course, you are likely to

encounter data sources in your project and in your LCA careers that are expressed in Imperial

and US Customary units. Here are some conversion resources that the course staff recommends.

International System of Units from NIST. Essentials of SI units, background, and

bibliography. http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/

A concise summary of the International System of Units from BIPM.

http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_summary_en.pdf

OnlineConversion.com Convert just about anything to anything else.

http://www.onlineconversion.com/

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http://www.container-recycling.org/assets/pdfs/LCA-SodaContainers2009.pdfhttp://www.container-recycling.org/assets/pdfs/LCA-SodaContainers2009.pdfhttp://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_summary_en.pdfhttp://www.onlineconversion.com/

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To ensure that you understand the concept of a unit process and the distinctions between inputs

from nature, inputs from the technosphere, outputs to nature, and outputs to the technosphere,

lets step through the plastic grocery bag example in a bit more detail. Furthermore, lets try

working backwards in the life cycle so that the different types of flows are clear.

Lets first consider the factory that makes plastic grocery bags. The production of plastic bags

involves melting HDPE pellets, extruding the melted plastic into a film, and cutting the film into the

shape of a bag. For simplicity, well include these steps in one unit process that well label HDPE

Bag Manufacturing. The output of this unit process is an HDPE grocery bag. Since this bag will be

shipped to a grocer for use by consumers, well label this flow as an output to the technosphere.

To manufacture the plastic bag, the bag factory requires inputs of HDPE pellets, which are a man-

made product. Therefore, well label this flow as an input from the technosphere. Of course, there

are many other flows associated with the bag factory, such as inputs of energy to power processing

equipment and outputs of mass, including emissions of air and water pollutants. For now, well

ignore these flows to keep things simple.

The production of HDPE pellets occurs at a chemical factory, which converts ethyleneanother

man-made productinto HDPE resin. Lets label this unit process as HDPE Resin Manufacturing,

and denote the flow of ethylene into the factory as an input from the technosphere.

Ethylene is manufactured from processed natural gas at an olefins plant, which well label as

Ethylene Manufacturing in our simple example. Remember that processed natural gas does not

come directly from nature; rather, it is made by removing impurities from raw natural gas. Hence,

well label this flow as an input from the technosphere.

To produce processed natural gas, another unit process is required that well call Natural Gas

Processing. This unit process requires extracted natural gas, which is yet another technosphere

product that we get as an output from natural gas drilling operations.

Finally, lets label the natural gas drilling unit process as Natural Gas Extraction. The input to this

unit process is natural gas from the ground, which is an input from nature. Observing the entire

system, its now clear that to manufacture the HDPE grocery bag, a series of different unit processes

are required. These unit processes are linked by technosphere flows that can eventually be traced

back to an original exchange with nature.

Moving forward, youll be developing more detailed inventories of energy and mass flows across

unit process systems. For example, we could further include the input of processed natural gas to

be combusted for heat in HDPE resin manufacturing as well as the smokestack emissions of carbon

dioxide and other air pollutants that arise from natural gas combustion. Here, emissions of carbon

dioxide would be labeled as a flow to nature.

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As youll come to learn in future lectures, specifying and tracking types of flows in unit process

systems is critical from an accounting perspective, because the environmental impacts of a system

are related to its flows to and from nature. In our case, you can probably imagine that the sources

of impact in our system so far are related to the resources we extract from the ground and to the

pollutants we reject into the air.

Youll get more practice with labeling flows in Homework 1.

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Lecture 3: Constructing unit process inventories: Part 1 Transcript

Welcome back. In todays lecture, well dive deeper into how unit process inventories are

structured for ease of interpretation and ease of transfer between researchers and databases. Last

time I introduced the four types of flows well use in our inventories:

1. Inputs from nature,

2. Inputs from the technosphere,

3. Outputs to nature, and

4. Outputs to the technosphere

Lets take a closer look at the complete unit process inventory for converting ethylene to HDPE

pellets. Ive created this inventory in a spreadsheet in the same way that youll be creating unit

process inventories in your spreadsheets. As we discussed last time, flow data appear in rows of the

inventory table, and they are organized into our four types of flows. In this course, the first column

in the inventory will always contain the flow type, starting with inputs from nature, followed by

outputs to nature, inputs from the technosphere, and outputs to the technosphere.

The second column will always contain the name of the flow, which, by convention, uses standard

names for products (e.g., diesel fuel), pollutants (e.g., carbon dioxide), and resources (e.g., water).

In many cases, the name of the flow will be taken directly from the LCI database from which we get

the flow data. It is critically important to use standard flow names and to use them consistently so

we can link up unit process inventories correctly when creating our LCA model.

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The third column contains additional information on the origins and destinations of flows to and

from nature, which well refer to in this course as the flow category. Inputs from nature will

always be denoted as resources in the category column, while outputs to nature will be denoted

by the medium to which they are released. There are three media well denote: air, water, and land.

The fourth column is reserved for subcategories of the third column. For example, the

subcategories for outputs to air include emissions to areas with low population density and

emissions to areas with high population density. And the subcategories for resources include

resources extracted from in the ground (like coal), from water (like drinking water), or from the

biosphere (like wood). In this course, well use a standard set of subcategories to describe inventory

flows. Ive provided the list of subcategories well use in the lecture notes because there are too

many to mention here.

Why do we need information on flow categories and subcategories? The main reason is that this

information helps us better quantify the environmental impacts caused by flows to and from nature

in the life-cycle impact assessment step of an LCA. For example, you might easily imagine that a

pollutant emitted in a high population density area will have a higher human health impact than if it

were emitted in a low population density area where there are fewer persons exposed. Well learn

more about impact assessment later in the course.

I also want to mention that in many LCI databases, flows to and from nature are referred to as

elementary flows. So you arent confused by this, moving forward well also use this label for our

flow types in unit process inventories.

By convention, well always use the category product for flows to and from the technosphere.

This makes sense when we consider that once a resource enters the technosphere, it is converted

into different forms of products for further use by industry and society.

The fifth column in our inventory table will always contain a numerical value and our sixth column

will always contain the unit in which that value is expressed. Where do these values come from?

Typically through some combination of direct measurement, engineering estimation, or literature

sourcing. Knowing where the data come from and how to determine their quality is a critical step in

any credible LCA, and one which well discuss later in this course. For now, just assume that all data

in our inventory come from reliable sources.

The numerical value expresses the amount of each flow that corresponds to the units of product

output listed in the inventory. For example, our product output is one kg of HDPE pellets, and the

emissions of CO2 to air associated with the production of one kg of HDPE pellets is 100 g CO2.

Here the product output is expressed in units of mass; however, the product output in a unit process

inventory can be expressed in many different units depending on what goods or services are

provided. The unit process of pellet production logically has product outputs expressed in units of

kg, which corresponds to physical production. However, a unit process for a diesel freight truck

might have product output expressed in units of kilogram-kilometers, which corresponds to the

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useful service provided by trucking. Or a unit process for electricity production might specify kWh of

electricity produced, which is the useful output of that process. Youll get exposed to all of these

types of outputs and more moving forward.

Lastly, our simple example inventory focused on single unit process, but youll often encounter unit

process inventories that combine several unit processes into one aggregated inventory. For

example, rather than finding every unit process step in the manufacture of the bag which would

include natural gas extraction, transportation, conversion to pellets, and bag forming you might

just find a single inventory for all of these processing steps combined. This aggregated inventory

would contain the sum of all included unit process flows to and from nature.

Aggregated inventories are quite common in practice, because they can simplify a complex chain of

processes for general use. Aggregated inventories also protect private entities who may not want to

release detailed unit process data on each step in their production chain. The downside is that one

loses visibility on which of the aggregated processes might be hot spots and often the ability to

recreate the inventory using process-level knowledge.

How can you tell if you have an aggregated inventory? Good databases will tell you this in their

inventory documentation. Youll notice terms like cradle to gate, which refers to flows from

nature to a certain point in the technosphere, or gate to gate, which refers to flows between

points in the technosphere. All unit processes included in the aggregated inventory should be listed

explicitly.

Additional notes

When you gain access to the spreadsheet LCA models in Week 3, the structure and contents of this

unit process inventory will make more sense. For now, just concentrate on following the logic for

each column, and how that information will be useful when you link together many different unit

process inventories to construct a systems model.

In the models well use in the current offering of this course, the order of flows has been updated as

follows In this course, the first column in the inventory will always contain the flow type, starting

with inputs from nature, followed by outputs to nature, inputs from the technosphere, and outputs

to the technosphere. The updated order is reflected in the spreadsheet figure as well.

In our plastic bag and bottled soft drink LCA models, well use a simplified set of categories and

subcategories for all flows. As discussed in the lecture video, well adopt the convention of using

the category Product for all flows to and from the technosphere. Product flows will not be further

divided into subcategories.

Inputs from and outputs to nature that is, elementary flows will be labeled using the following

simplified set of categories and subcategories in our inventories.

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Elementary flow type Category Subcategory

Inputs from nature Resource Biotic (from biosphere)

In air

In ground

In water

Outputs to nature Air High population density

Low population density

Land Unspecified

Water Unspecified

There are several important caveats to our simplified selection of elementary flow categories and

subcategories.

First, because this is a basic introductory course, the course staff has chosen to keep our flow

conventions simple. Once you get in the habit of labeling flow categories and subcategories at a

basic level, youll be well equipped to use more detailed protocols for labeling of flow categories and

subcategories in the future. To get an idea of the level of detail that many LCA practitioners use

when conducting LCAs and working with LCA databases, take a look at the following reports:

Overview and methodology: Data quality guideline for the ecoinvent database version 3

(2013), Weidema B P, Bauer C, Hischier R, Mutel C, Nemecek T, Reinhard J, Vadenbo CO,

and Wernet G.

http://www.ecoinvent.org/fileadmin/documents/en/Data_Quality_Guidelines/01_DataQual

ityGuideline_v3_Final.pdf

The ecoinvent database is used widely by LCA practitioners and within various LCA software

packages. Take a look at Table 9.1, page 63, which lists the compartments and sub-

compartments (i.e., categories and subcategories) used for elementary exchanges (i.e.,

flows) in the ecoinvent database. Youll notice that many more subcategories are available

for defining flows with greater precision in practice.

U.S. LCI Database Project Users Guide, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2004).

http://www.nrel.gov/lci/pdfs/users_guide.pdf.

The U.S. LCI data contains publicly-available life-cycle inventory (LCI) data that are reported

using a standardized unit process inventory structure. Well make use of some of the data

from the U.S. LCI database in this course. Take a look at the table on page 16. Youll notice

many categories and subcategories that are similar to those in the ecoinvent database, but

also some differences. Again, the subcategories listed allow for greater precision when

documenting flows.

Second, even though the categories and subcategories included in many LCA databases can be quite

detailed, in practice many LCI data sources do not include such detail in their reporting. For

example, one may find that pollutant outputs to water are reported, but that this flow is not further

specified as an output to a lake, ocean, or river. Thus, in many LCI data sources, the most common

http://www.ecoinvent.org/fileadmin/documents/en/Data_Quality_Guidelines/01_DataQualityGuideline_v3_Final.pdfhttp://www.ecoinvent.org/fileadmin/documents/en/Data_Quality_Guidelines/01_DataQualityGuideline_v3_Final.pdfhttp://www.nrel.gov/lci/pdfs/users_guide.pdf

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subcategory youll encounter is unspecified. The publicly-available data sources well use in our

course projects do not contain such detailed specification of subcategories, either. This is another

reason well keep our labeling of flow categories and subcategories simple in this course!

Third, as discussed in the lecture video, the primary benefit of identifying categories and

subcategories for elementary flows is that it can enable more sophisticated estimation of life-cycle

impacts. In your course project, the labeling of air emission flows with the subcategories high

population density and low population density can enable the estimation of human health

impacts to both types of demographic areas. Well discuss impact analysis later in this course.

In the spreadsheet models, and throughout this course, numbers will be expressed using the U.S.

numeric convention where commas separate thousands and the dot (or decimal point) is the

decimal separator. For example, the number one thousand two hundred and one-tenth is written

1,200.1 in the US numeric convention. However, when working with spreadsheets in this course,

you can change the numeric format in which data are displayed in your spreadsheet software to

match your local numeric convention.

Weve added in the term to and from nature here, because the process of aggregation eliminates

intermediate flows to and from the technosphere in the system. See the Lecture 3 supplement video

for a simple example of unit process inventory aggregation.

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In this video supplement, well use the simplified system of unit processes for HDPE grocery bags

that we discussed earlier. Below the figure Ive added in an inventory table that contains a

simplified list of flows for each unit process. In this example, well only track a few flows to illustrate

how inventory aggregation works. However, youll practice aggregating much more complicated

inventories later in this course.

Lets start with the unit process inventory for HDPE Bag Manufacturing. In this simplified inventory,

its only input is 1.02 kilograms (kg) of HDPE pellets and its only outputs are 1 kg of HDPE grocery

bags and 0.5 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to air. By convention, the flows of HDPE pellets

and HDPE grocery bags are labeled as product flows from and to the technosphere, respectively.

Also by convention, the flow of CO2 is labeled as a flow to nature, or elementary flow, and to air.

Now lets take a closer look at the Natural Gas Extraction process. Its only input is 1.08 kg of in-

ground natural gas, which is a resource flow from nature. Its only outputs are 1.05 kg of extracted

natural gas and 0.02 kg of CO2 emissions to air. Youll notice that the next unit process, Natural Gas

Processing, requires 1.05 kg of extracted natural gas as a product input. If you look carefully at the

rest of the unit process inventories, youll also notice that the product mass output of each unit

process matches exactly the product mass input that is required by the next unit process.

This means that my unit process inventory data have all been properly scaled to produce the mass

flows necessary to ultimately manufacture 1 kg of HDPE grocery bags. Youll learn how to scale unit

process inventories later in this course. For now, you just need to understand that since the product

mass flows have been balanced across all unit processes, we can simply add up the flows of CO2 to

arrive at a total CO2 emissions footprint for the system.

In this example, to ultimately produce 1 kg of HDPE grocery bags, the unit processes in the system

will collectively emit 2.02 total kg of CO2 to the air. One can also scan the inventory data to

determine which unit processes account for the greatest share of CO2 emissions; namely, HDPE Bag

Manufacturing, HDPE Resin Manufacturing, and Ethylene Manufacturing.

In a similar fashion, I could also add up all resource inputs from nature in the system, which, in this

case, would amount to 1.08 kg of in-ground natural gas required to ultimately produce 1 kg of HDPE

grocery bags.

In fact, using these totals I could create a single inventory for the entire system, which would just

contain the inputs from nature, the outputs to nature, and the product output of the system. Such

an inventory is known as an aggregated unit process inventory, because it represents the sum totals

of flows to and from nature associated with all unit processes within its system boundaries. These

flows are expressed relative to the mass quantity of the final product output from the system, in our

case, 1 kg of HDPE grocery bags.

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Another way to think of aggregation is that Ive drawn a boundary around the entire system and Ive

only counted the flows that cross this boundary in my aggregated inventory; namely, flows from and

to nature and flows of the final product to the technosphere. All of the intermediate product flows

in the system do not cross this boundary, and are therefore not counted. This makes sense when

you observe that all of these flows will simply cancel out; for example, the ethylene output from the

Ethylene Manufacturing unit process will subsequently be consumed as a product input by the HDPE

Resin Manufacturing unit process.

As you gain more practice with LCA, youll notice that many data sources contain aggregated unit

process inventories. Aggregation can be done as a matter of convenience, since it can be quite time

consuming to work with inventories for all intermediate unit processes in a product system, even for

simple products. Aggregation is also often done for confidentiality reasons, so that data on

individual factories or processing steps within a system are not revealed to the public. For example,

assume that you have obtained only the aggregated inventory for 1 kg of HDPE grocery bags. While

you would know the total CO2 emissions to air from the cradle to gate system, you would have no

way of identifying HDPE Bag Manufacturing, HDPE Resin Manufacturing, and Ethylene

Manufacturing as the largest contributors to this CO2 footprint.

In our spreadsheet models for our plastic bag and bottled soft drink, well make use of aggregated

inventories as a matter of practicality and convenience. However, well be sure to carefully

document the system boundaries associated with the aggregated inventories we use, so that we and

others can understand which intermediate unit processes have been included therein.

Documents

How Green is That Product Lecture Notes Week 1