Life Cycle Analysis

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is a means of quantifying how much energy and raw materials are used and how much (solid, liquid, and gaseous) waste is generated at each stage of a product, process, service, or system’s lifetime. An LCA is the environmental impact over the entire lifespan of the entity in question, and can be used to help reduce anthropogenic impacts on the climate. Life cycle analysis is also known as a life cycle assessment, life cycle inventory, eco-balance, net energy analysis, materials flow analysis, cradle-to-grave analysis, cradle-to-cradle analysis, well-to-wheel analysis, resource analysis, and environmental impact analysis. The environmental impact can be converted to a carbon footprint or land area in ecological footprint (or ecofootprint) analysis.

There is no agreed-upon methodology for LCAs. The most institutionalized LCAs methodology is the codification into the ISO (International Organization of Standards) 14000 environmental management standards, which assists organizations to minimize negative environmental impacts, comply with applicable laws and regulations, and to continually improve on these metrics. ISO 14040 to 14044 covers LCAs and pre-production planning and environment goalsetting. LCA can, however, be very complex, and reliable data are difficult to compile. Thus, studies on similar systems, products, and processes often vary considerably in their final results. In the literature covering the LCA of controversial technologies (such as nuclear energy), the results may be biased. Provided all reports state the methodology used and the assumptions made, LCAs provide a useful indication of where to concentrate work on essential improvement, and which technologies should be adopted to reduce the environmental impact of a product or process, in terms of energy and raw materials used and wastes produced.

Life Cycle Analysis and the Energy Sector In the context of climate change and its largest contributor, the energy sector, LCAs generally focus on an energy LCA that includes both tangible and intangible costs of energy production, from the initial project conception to the final step of returning the land to its original or its next-use state. Tangible costs have always been included in the industry analysis and include items such as facility construction, fuel source development, post-extraction land remediation, and waste disposal.

Because different forms of energy use have adverse impacts, not only on nonusers, but also the entire biosphere, intangible costs are important. These include the impact of the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In the past, conventional energy proponents often overlooked costs (both economic and energy-related) because of plant decommissioning because of weak regulations and oversight. This allowed some energy producers to hide the true lifetime costs of energy production, thus projecting a false image of both economic and environmental benefit. Examples include ignoring nuclear waste storage, or the cost of reclaiming strip-mined land, or mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains. Complete LCA’s are difficult to perform, especially on emerging technologies, such as solar photovoltaic cells, whose fabrication is constantly undergoing improvements, and which has not been in mass production long enough for recycling or disposal to become established. Often in the energy sector, energy LCA is used because it is less complicated than a full LCA; energy consumption data are more reliable (often metered for individual processes). 

Ideally, an energy life cycle analysis would include: raw material production energy, manufacturing energy of all components, energy-use requirements, energy generation (if any), end of use (disposal) energy, and the distribution/transportation energies inbetween each stage.