Ben A. Wender

Illustrating Anticipatory Life Cycle Assessment for Emerging Photovoltaic Technologies

Current research policy and strategy documents recommend applying life cycle assessment (LCA) early in research and development (R&D) to guide emerging technologies toward decreased environmental burden. However, existing LCA practices are ill-suited to support these recommendations. Barriers related to data availability, rapid technology change, and isolation of environmental from technical research inhibit application of LCA to developing technologies. Overcoming these challenges requires methodological advances that help identify environmental opportunities prior to large R&D investments. Such an anticipatory approach to LCA requires synthesis of social, environmental, and technical knowledge beyond the capabilities of current practices. This paper introduces a novel framework for anticipatory LCA that incorporates technology forecasting, risk research, social engagement, and comparative impact assessment, then applies this framework to photovoltaic (PV) technologies. These examples illustrate the potential for anticipatory LCA to prioritize research questions and help guide environmentally responsible innovation of emerging technologies.

Anticipatory life-cycle assessment for responsible research and innovation

The goal of guiding innovation toward beneficial social and environmental outcomes – referred to in the growing literature as responsible research and innovation (RRI) – is intuitively worthwhile but lacks practicable tools for implementation. One potentially useful tool is life-cycle assessment (LCA), which is a comprehensive framework used to evaluate the environmental impacts of products, processes, and technologies. However, LCA ineffectively promotes RRI for at least two reasons: (1) Codified approaches to LCA are largely retrospective, relying heavily on data collected from mature industries with existing supply chains and (2) LCA underemphasizes the importance of stakeholder engagement to inform critical modeling decisions which diminishes the social credibility and relevance of results. LCA researchers have made piecemeal advances that address these shortcomings, yet there is no consensus regarding how to advance LCA to support RRI of emerging technologies. This paper advocates for development of ...

Integrate life-cycle assessment and risk analysis results, not methods

Two analytic perspectives on environmental assessment dominate environmental policy and decision-making: risk analysis (RA) and life-cycle assessment (LCA). RA focuses on management of a toxicological hazard in a specific exposure scenario, while LCA seeks a holistic estimation of impacts of thousands of substances across multiple media, including non-toxicological and non-chemically deleterious effects. While recommendations to integrate the two approaches have remained a consistent feature of environmental scholarship for at least 15 years, the current perception is that progress is slow largely because of practical obstacles, such as a lack of data, rather than insurmountable theoretical difficulties. Nonetheless, the emergence of nanotechnology presents a serious challenge to both perspectives. Because the pace of nanomaterial innovation far outstrips acquisition of environmentally relevant data, it is now clear that a further integration of RA and LCA based on dataset completion will remain futile. In fact, the two approaches are suited for different purposes and answer different questions. A more pragmatic approach to providing better guidance to decision-makers is to apply the two methods in parallel, integrating only after obtaining separate results.

Coordinating modeling and experimental research of engineered nanomaterials to improve life cycle assessment studies

Life cycle assessment (LCA) – a comprehensive modeling framework used to identify environmental and human health impacts associated with products, processes, and technologies – is increasingly recommended for emerging nanotechnologies. LCA applied prospectively can guide design decisions and enable reduction of future impacts. A growing literature describes the potential for LCA to inform development of safer nanotechnologies, for example by identifying the manufacturing inputs or processes with the greatest potential for improvement. However, few published studies to date include all life cycle stages in part because of uncertainty regarding engineered nanomaterial (ENM) releases and impacts, which precludes comprehensive environmental assessment of nano-enabled products. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) converts emissions into environmental damages through linked fate-exposure-effect models that require robust experimental data and a mechanistic understanding for each of these components. In the case of ENMs, there are pertinent knowledge gaps, high uncertainties in experimental data, and disagreement regarding the suitability of existing fate, exposure, and effect models. This frontier review summarizes recent advances in human and aquatic ecotoxicity LCIA for ENMs and calls for greater coordination between LCA modelers and experimentalists, including those that study fate and transport, environmental transformations, occupational exposure, and toxicology, to inform responsible development of nanotechnology, enabling ENMs to reach their full potential.

Towards prospective life cycle assessment: Single wall carbon nanotubes for lithium-ion batteries

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is increasingly recognized as the proper framework for understanding the environmental impacts of nanotechnologies. In practice, applying LCA to nanotechnology is problematic. The performance, emissions, and inventory data collected at the laboratory scale may not be representative of the commercial scale. Despite the high uncertainty, LCA may guide nascent technologies towards being environmentally beneficial through early identification of leverage points. This research applies novel LCA methods based on laboratory-scale manufacturing data and battery performance modeling to quantify the energy tradeoffs associated with nano-enabled lithium ion batteries. At present, the large energy demands of nanomanufacturing processes make commercial scale application of nano-enabled batteries impracticable. This case study reveals both the challenge and value of applying prospective LCA to nanomaterials.

Life cycle assessment for dredged sediment placement strategies

Dredging to maintain navigable waterways is important for supporting trade and economic sustainability. Dredged sediments are removed from the waterways and then must be managed in a way that meets regulatory standards and properly balances management costs and risks. Selection of a best management alternative often results in stakeholder conflict regarding tradeoffs between local environmental impacts associated with less expensive alternatives (e.g., open water placement), more expensive measures that require sediment disposal in constructed facilities far away (e.g., landfills), or beneficial uses that may be perceived as risky (e.g., beach nourishment or island creation). Current sediment-placement decisions often focus on local and immediate environmental effects from the sediment itself, ignoring a variety of distributed and long-term effects from transportation and placement activities. These extended effects have implications for climate change, resource consumption, and environmental and human health, which may be meaningful topics for many stakeholders not currently considered. Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides a systematic and quantitative method for accounting for this wider range of impacts and benefits across all sediment management project stages and time horizons. This paper applies a cradle-to-use LCA to dredged-sediment placement through a comparative analysis of potential upland, open water, and containment-island placement alternatives in the Long Island Sound region of NY/CT. Results suggest that, in cases dealing with uncontaminated sediments, upland placement may be the most environmentally burdensome alternative, per ton-kilometer of placed material, due to the emissions associated with diesel fuel combustion and electricity production and consumption required for the extra handling and transportation. These results can be traded-off with the ecosystem impacts of the sediments themselves in a decision-making framework.

Balancing research and funding using value of information and portfolio tools for nanomaterial risk classification

Risk research for nanomaterials is currently prioritized by means of expert workshops and other deliberative processes. However, analytical techniques that quantify and compare alternative research investments are increasingly recommended. Here, we apply value of information and portfolio decision analysis-methods commonly applied in financial and operations management-to prioritize risk research for multiwalled carbon nanotubes and nanoparticulate silver and titanium dioxide. We modify the widely accepted CB Nanotool hazard evaluation framework, which combines nano- and bulk-material properties into a hazard score, to operate probabilistically with uncertain inputs. Literature is reviewed to develop uncertain estimates for each input parameter, and a Monte Carlo simulation is applied to assess how different research strategies can improve hazard classification. The relative cost of each research experiment is elicited from experts, which enables identification of efficient research portfolios-combinations of experiments that lead to the greatest improvement in hazard classification at the lowest cost. Nanoparticle shape, diameter, solubility and surface reactivity were most frequently identified within efficient portfolios in our results.