Standing the Test of Time: Signals and Noise From Environmental Assessments of Energy Technologies
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Standing the Test of Time: Signals and Noise From Environmental Assessments of Energy Technologies Björn A. Sandén Energy and Environment, Environmental Systems Analysis, Chalmers University of Technology, Sven Hultins gata 6, Göteborg, SE-412 96, Sweden ABSTRACT The point of view taken here is that systems analysis is a kind of learning process, not data gathering, not decision making, but the production and effective communication of arguments relevant in a particular context. This idea, that the intended application of the result of an assessment has consequences for methodological choices, is beginning to spread in the LCA research community. One problem is that standard LCA methodology is developed to answer questions about environmental impacts of the current production and use of one unit of a product or minor product or process changes. When this methodology, unchanged, is used to provide answers to questions about strategic technology choice, i.e. not decisions that aim at improving a process within an existing technological environment, but with the long-term goal of changing large-scale technological systems, the result could be of little value or misleading. In many cases, LCAs produce more noise than knowledge. This observation seems to be of particular importance for LCAs of energy technologies and for how energy use is treated in all kinds of LCAs. Here, it is suggested that a better understanding of some critical methodological issues related to time, universality, cause-effect relationships, technical maturity and system innovation, could result in better studies that reveal fundamental environmental issues related to the objects of study and reduce the noise from irrelevant information. Examples are given from the technology fields of solar cells, fuel cells, batteries, renewable transport fuels and carbon nanoparticles. INTRODUCTION In front of me on my desk there is a graph with many bars that is supposed to say something about the environmental load of a technology. It is marvellously detailed and at a quick look it seems to be based on thorough work. Looking closer the results are strange and I realise that the details are at one level correct but the core of the study is flawed. Too little thought went into the relationship between the question the study was supposed to answer and the design of the study, and too much work went into following the LCA protocol to the bitter end, hammering out details that no one except the author will ever care about, or worse, will be taken as a proxy for a broad technology field and basis for strategic decisions. When I look around, I see LCAs of solar cells that have the same LCA profile as a mix of coal and gas, the very technologies solar cells are to replace. More generally, a multitude of studies seems to do little but reflect more or less arbitrary electricity background systems. I see LCAs of biofuels and new propulsion systems with results that differ by orders of magnitude from study to study. I see bold claims made in political and indu
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