Berkeley

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
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Framework for Modeling the Uncertainty of
Future Events in Life Cycle Assessment
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Funding Sources: LMAS
Objectives Rethinking LCA
Model Framework: Rethinking LCA Case Study -- Laptop
Probability of Recession Tablet Impact on PC usage
Case Study Results Conclusion and Future Work
A model framework is proposed to incorporate the future
uncertainty.
The model provides additional information about the possible
range of the values that the carbon footprint will likely take.
Case study on laptop shows the impacts of including such
uncertainty has the potential to alter the LCA result
significantly.
More and better quality data may be required for better
probability estimation of events.
Future work: construct a database for identifying events and
their probabilities.
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CumulativeGlobalWarmingPotential(100years)fora
DellLatitudeE6400laptop
Use EOL
Manufacturing
Assembly &
Transport
Time(years)
GuaranteedEmissions
ActualEmissions
PointWhenLCA
isConducted
Scenario 3
Scenario 2
Scenario 1
Baseline
2009
2012
Year 0 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2012
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2009
Complementary(Certain)
Complementary
Recession
Recession
0.00 50.00 100.00 150.00
CO2ein UsePhase(kg)
S
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s
With the inclusion of uncertain events,
Use phase greenhouse gas emissions are up to 40% lower than the
benchmark scenario
32% to the overall LCA emissions reported by OConnell and Stutz
(2010) as opposed to their estimates of 47%.
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k
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Year
UsePhaseGlobalWarmingPotential(100years)for
aDellLatitudeE6400laptop
Recession
NewComplementary
Product
Chanceofa Recession
OccurringWhenPeopleBegin
ReplacingTheirDevices
(thirdyearofconsiderationon,
intheU.S.)
0
0.002
0.004
0.006
0.008
0.01
0.012
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Timesince Last Recession
LikelihoodRecessionsWillOccurGivenTime
SinceLastRecession
TheNationalBureauofEconomic
Research(NBER) RecessionIndicator
significantdeclineineconomicactivity,
lastingmorethanafewmonths,
measuredby:
RealGDP,
Realincome,
Employment,
Industrialproduction,and
Wholesaleretailsales
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U.S.RecessionsoverTime
TimeIntervalsbetweenEventsFittedTo
Weibull Distribution
LCA may provide non-significant result if uncertainty is not
included.
A model framework is proposed to incorporate the uncertainty
of future events into LCA.
Traditional thinking of LCA:
0
50
100
150
200
Manufacturing
&Assembly
Transportto
customer
Use Recycling
(75%)
k
g

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E
q
u
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v
.
LifeCyclePhase
GlobalWarmingPotential(100years)fora
DellLatitudeE6400laptop
ConceptforEventAdjustedLCA
1. Identifyevents
2. Determineprobabilityoverperiod
3. Evaluateimpacts
4. IncorporateintoLCA
Use
Manufacturing
Assembly &
Transport
Time(years)
GuaranteedEmissions
Use
EOL
Time(years)
12 3 45
ExpectedEmissions
|(BaselineEmissions)
Phusc

n
=1
( (ImpactProbability)
Lcnt k

m
k=1
)
Phusc
]
E1
E
3
E2
Carbon footprint of
the use phase of
laptop is
significant.
Two events are
considered in the
case study.
Recession
Complementary
Technology
Two scenarios
with uncertainty
are analyzed.
Eventsoccurchangethe
trajectoryofactual
emission
RethinkingofLCA
As a new complementary technology, surveys suggested that
users who own both a tablet and a PC reduce their use time on
old PCs for content consumption activities. [Morgan Stanley,
2010]
0
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
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Number ofAdopters
Cummulative Number of
Adopters
Proportionofpeopleownbothdevice
theaveragereducedusagetimeofeachuser
1 2 3 4
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Year