Cristina de la Rúa

How Carbon-Friendly Is Nuclear Energy? A Hybrid MRIO-LCA Model of a Spanish Facility

Spain faces the challenge of 80-95% greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2050 (European Energy Roadmap). As a possible first step to fulfill this objective, this paper presents a two-level analysis. First, we estimate the carbon footprint of a hypothetical nuclear facility in Spain. Using a hybrid multiregional input-output model, to avoid truncation while diminishing sector aggregation problems and to improve environmental leakages estimations, we calculate the CO2 equivalent emissions associated with the different phases of the nuclear life-cycle--construction, fuel processing and operation and maintenance--taking into account the countries or regions where the emissions have been generated. Our results estimate a nuclear carbon footprint of 21.30 gCO2e/kWh, of which 89% comes from regions outside Spain. In some regions, the highest impacts are mostly direct (92%, 95%, and 92% of total carbon emissions in the U.S., France, and UK, respectively), meaning that these emissions are linked to the inputs directly required for nuclear energy production; in other regions, indirect emissions are higher (83% in China), which becomes relevant for policy measures. Second, through the analyses of different scenarios, we unravel and quantify how different assumptions that are often taken in the literature result in different carbon emissions.

The enhanced LCA Resources Directory: a tool aimed at improving Life Cycle Thinking practices

PurposeTo support life cycle-based EU policies, the European Commission created the “European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment (EPLCA).” The platform aims at providing coherent and quality-assured life cycle data, methods, and studies. The LCA Resources Directory (RD), one of the deliverables of the EPLCA, has so far consisted of lists of services, tools, databases, and providers. It has been decided to extend its scope to contain a section on LCA studies with metadata to characterize them. The research question addressed in this paper is “which structure and features should the RD have to store LCA studies so that it can efficiently support and promote robust Life Cycle Thinking practices?”MethodsExisting tools with similar aims and objectives have been identified and analyzed to identify current performances and missing functionalities. A literature review concerning LCA studies in scientific and technical literature has been carried out in order to define relevant and consistent patterns. Following this analysis, it has been decided to develop a collaborative platform and an original structure has been proposed for the new section. The structure has been tested with a few LCA studies.ResultsA new collaborative web platform of the resources directory has been developed and launched online. Contributors are now able to characterize LCA studies according to 43 fields of metadata, distributed among seven categories: general, goal, scope, inventory, impact assessment, interpretation, and review and compliance. Some fields are mandatory, and the fill-in boxes are either enumeration list or free text. The platform also contains a search tool to identify relevant LCA studies with their metadata. The administrator of the directory performs a consistency check before entries are shared with others.ConclusionsThe EPLCA now contains a new collaborative web platform where LCA studies can be characterized and stored. It has been possible to identify a list of criteria for which LCA studies should be characterized. These criteria form the structure of the platform. It is too early to assess the actual usefulness of this new platform; this will be possible only when the directory is populated by contributors. With this new section in the RD, the EPLCA expands its aim of promoting Life Cycle Thinking and robust practices.

Rescuing the concept of solar electricity transfer from North Africa to Europe

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to shed light to the concept of solar electricity transfer from North Africa to Europe in the frame of Article 9 of the European Renewable Energy Sources (EU-RES) Directive 28/2009/EC, to explain why efforts have not been successful up to now and to provide recommendations on how to proceed. Design/methodology/approach The authors have compared the “Supergrid” concept that was pursued by some institutions in the past years with the original “TRANS-CSP” concept developed by the German Aerospace Centre in 2006. From this analysis, the authors could identify not only major barriers but also possible ways towards successful implementation. Findings The authors found that in contrast to the Supergrid approach, the original concept of exporting dispatchable solar power from concentrating solar thermal power stations with thermal energy storage (CSP-TES) via point-to-point high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission directly to European centres of demand could be a resilient business case for Europe–North Africa cooperation, as it provides added value in both regions. Research limitations/implications The analysis has been made in the frame of the BETTER project commissioned by the Executive Agency for Competitiveness & Innovation in the frame of the program Intelligent Energy Europe. Practical implications One of the major implications found is that due to the time lost in the past years by following a distracted concept, the option of flexible solar power imports from North Africa to Europe is not any more feasible to become part of the 2020 supply scheme. Social implications To make them a viable option for post-2020 renewable energy systems for electricity development in Europe, a key recommendation of the project is to elaborate a detailed feasibility study about concrete CSP-HVDC links urgently. Originality/value The analysis presented here is the first to give concrete recommendations for the implementation of such infrastructure.

Life cycle environmental benefits of biodiesel production and use in Spain

The Spanish Ministry of Environment has launched forth into a project related to the evaluation of the environmental impacts of biodiesel production in Spain, in order to support its biofuels promotion policies. The objective of this project is to evaluate the environmental impacts of four different fuels composed by biodiesel from several crude vegetable oils and waste vegetable oils in comparison to diesel EN-590 along their whole life cycle, and to identify the opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts. Biodiesel is produced from sunflower oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, and palm oil, and also from waste vegetable oils. The transformation technology is that currently used in the Spanish biodiesel plants.

Using the Framework for Integrated Sustainability Assessment (FISA) to expand the Multiregional Input–Output analysis to account for the three pillars of sustainability

Decision makers interested in promoting sustainable development must simultaneously consider the environmental, economic and social implications of any action. This article proposes the Framework for Integrated Sustainability Assessment (FISA), a methodological framework for conducting a sustainability impact assessment of any investment project. Based on a Multiregional Input–Output (MRIO) framework, FISA links the extended MRIO results with social risk data from the Social Hotspots Database (SHDB) in order to integrate the social with the environmental and economic pillars. Resulting impacts are simultaneously considered and reported by means of FISA charts, making it possible to assess the different impacts within the three sustainability pillars across countries involved in the whole supply chain of investment projects. This methodological framework can be applied not only to compare the sustainability impacts of two alternative projects, but also to derive specific recommendations aimed at minimizing the harmful social, environmental and economic effects along the whole project supply chain.

Method applied to the background analysis of energy data to be considered for the European Reference Life Cycle Database (ELCD)

Under the framework of the European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment, the European Reference Life-Cycle Database (ELCD - developed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission), provides core Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data from front-running EU-level business associations and other sources. The ELCD contains energy-related data on power and fuels. This study describes the methods to be used for the quality analysis of energy data for European markets (available in third-party LC databases and from authoritative sources) that are, or could be, used in the context of the ELCD.The methodology was developed and tested on the energy datasets most relevant for the EU context, derived from GaBi (the reference database used to derive datasets for the ELCD), Ecoinvent, E3 and Gemis. The criteria for the database selection were based on the availability of EU-related data, the inclusion of comprehensive datasets on energy products and services, and the general approval of the LCA community. The proposed approach was based on the quality indicators developed within the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook, further refined to facilitate their use in the analysis of energy systems.The overall Data Quality Rating (DQR) of the energy datasets can be calculated by summing up the quality rating (ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 represents very good, and 5 very poor quality) of each of the quality criteria indicators, divided by the total number of indicators considered. The quality of each dataset can be estimated for each indicator, and then compared with the different databases/sources. The results can be used to highlight the weaknesses of each dataset and can be used to guide further improvements to enhance the data quality with regard to the established criteria.This paper describes the application of the methodology to two exemplary datasets, in order to show the potential of the methodological approach. The analysis helps LCA practitioners to evaluate the usefulness of the ELCD datasets for their purposes, and dataset developers and reviewers to derive information that will help improve the overall DQR of databases.

Background qualitative analysis of the European Reference Life Cycle Database (ELCD) energy datasets – Part I: Fuel datasets

The aim of this paper is to identify areas of potential improvement of the European Reference Life Cycle Database (ELCD) electricity datasets. The revision is based on the data quality indicators described by the International Life Cycle Data system (ILCD) Handbook, applied on sectorial basis. These indicators evaluate the technological, geographical and time-related representativeness of the dataset and the appropriateness in terms of completeness, precision and methodology. Results show that ELCD electricity datasets have a very good quality in general terms, nevertheless some findings and recommendations in order to improve the quality of Life-Cycle Inventories have been derived. Moreover, these results ensure the quality of the electricity-related datasets to any LCA practitioner, and provide insights related to the limitations and assumptions underlying in the datasets modelling. Giving this information, the LCA practitioner will be able to decide whether the use of the ELCD electricity datasets is appropriate based on the goal and scope of the analysis to be conducted. The methodological approach would be also useful for dataset developers and reviewers, in order to improve the overall Data Quality Requirements of databases.

Ex Post and Prospective Analyses of Renewable Policies in Spain

In this work, socioeconomic and environmental impacts associated to energy technologies in the current and future Spanish Energy System have been estimated. This information has provided the base from which to conduct two kinds of analyses. First, an Ex post analysis of renewable policies in Spain, where the net impact on social welfare associated to the progressive introduction of those energies in the energy system has been assessed using a partial cost-benefit analysis. Then, a prospective analysis of the Spanish energy system where the optimum energy mix, which leads to the largest social welfare under different energy scenarios, taking into account a medium-long term time horizon (2035), has been estimated using the national energy optimization model TIMES-Spain. The results of the Ex post analysis of the period 2005–2012 show an increase on social welfare due to the introduction of renewable energies. Nevertheless, when assessing the total expenditure of renewables support policies, the results show this support exceeds the economic value of the socioeconomic and environmental externalities calculated in this work. The prospective analysis results for the period 2010–2035 definitely recommend a support for renewable electricity generation technologies and the redesigning of renewables support policies to better reflect their external benefits with respect to the fossil alternatives.