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Consequential Life Cycle Environmental Impact Assessment

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Unintended Consequences of Renewable Energy

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

Abstract

This chapter describes the life cycle approach to energy chain analysis and the methodology of life cycle assessment (LCA). Consequential LCA (cLCA) is discussed in comparison with attributional LCA (aLCA). The methodological approach of environmental impact assessment (EIA) is also presented. The methods, with emphasis on cLCA, are discussed in the context of improving the knowledge of unintended consequences from various forms of renewable energy. The chapter presents a series of examples where cLCA are used to predict in advance, unanticipated impacts of different forms of renewable energy technologies throughout their life cycle, with particularly focus on the impact of biofuels production.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term “overall environmental impact” is determined by the “environmental scarcity method”, or UBP method, where UBP is an acronym for umweltbelasttungspunkt. The UBP method aggregates all environmental impacts to a single number, which represents the total environmental impact. This is an example of a so-called “EndPoint method” [7].

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  1. Western Norway Research Institute, Kaupanger, Norway

    Otto Andersen

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  1. Otto Andersen
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Correspondence to Otto Andersen .

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Andersen, O. (2013). Consequential Life Cycle Environmental Impact Assessment. In: Unintended Consequences of Renewable Energy. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5532-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5532-4_3

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-5531-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-5532-4

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