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Abstract
The complete life cycle assessment of a passenger car takes mainly three phases into account :
production phase, use phase and end-of-life. Unfortunately, it is well-known that complete
LCAs are time and money consuming. Since most passenger cars can be considered as having
nearly similar production and end of life phases, a simplified LCA has been achieved. This
study, based on the energy consumed and the exhaust gases emitted during the use phase of the
vehicle, involves the inventory of the whole energy supply chain from cradle (extraction of
primary energy) to gate (moving vehicle). The impact assessment has been performed by using
Eco-indicator 95. One of the main conclusions of this study is that the hybrid vehicle studied
and the electric one (consuming electricity obtained by the average Belgian production) have
nearly the same relatively small global environmental load (i.e. global Eco-scores as calculated
in EI 95) compared to the ones of the ICE vehicles (at least three times less than the diesel ICE
vehicle and four times less than the petrol one). The robustness of this conclusion has been
checked by performing a sensibility analysis at the level of the weighting of the different
impacts. The contribution of these impacts to the global Eco-score is further described. It must
be noticed that the environmental impacts associated with the fuel cycle of the electric vehicle
depends on the way of producing electricity in the country considered. The conclusions of this
study are particularly important for influencing future decisions in the field of the European
traffic policy.
Introduction
It is a matter of fact that the transportation sector contributes significantly to major
environmental impacts as air pollution and global warming. This contribution is increasing,
mainly because of the important traffic growth. Internal combustion engines are constantly
improved in order to respect European emissions standards, while electric and hybrid vehicles
are presented as an interesting way to solve the problem of the urban air pollution. It seems now
that time has come to assess the environmental performances of these alternative technologies
The LCA methodology has been chosen to compare four vehicles (diesel, petrol, electric and
hybrid ones) on the basis of a global environmental load. This comparison has been achieved
thanks to Eco-indicator 95 (Goedkoop, 1995). It must be noticed that an other weighting set has
also been used at the valuation step in order to check the robustness of the final results.
The main technical characteristics of the four vehicles studied are described in table 1 :
Mitsubishi 2000 cm3
Peugeot 106
Toyota Prius
Energy Supply
Petrol
Diesel
Electricity
Petrol + Electricity
Max. Power
106 kW
81 kW
20 kW
75 kW
Yes
Yes
--
Yes
Catalyst
3 ways catalyst
Oxidation catalyst
--
3 ways catalyst
Battery
Lead-Acid
Lead-Acid
NiCd
Ni-MH
Electricity
Distribution
Vehicle
and preparation
production
network
use phase
Fuels transported
Refuelling
Vehicle
and refining
(losses)
use phase
CH4
(g/km)
N2O
(g/km)
PM10
(g/km)
CO
(g/km)
NOX
(g/km)
SO2
(g/km)
HC
(g/km)
Petrol vehicle
217
0.021
0.050
0.008
3.020
0.478
0.157
0.783
Diesel vehicle
170
0.006
0.010
0.106
0.860
0.927
0.118
0.229
Electric vehicle
(average production)
73
0.139
5.6E-5
0.017
0.050
0.145
0.186
0.002
Electric vehicle
(without nuclear power)
163
0.311
1.0E-4
0.033
0.126
0.323
0.416
0.004
Hybrid vehicle
104
0.010
0.024
0.004
0.556
0.121
0.076
0.156
Table 2 Inventory of the global emissions related to the different fuel cycles .
Table 2 shows that :
-
The CO2 emissions are directly linked to the energy consumption of the vehicles and also to
the efficiency of the other steps of the fuel cycle. These results show that the hybrid
vehicle needs less energy than the ICE ones. If the real Belgian production of electricity is
assumed, the lowest level of CO2 emitted corresponds to the electric vehicle.
The PM10 emissions which are released during the use phase of the diesel vehicle are very
high.
The CO and HC emissions which are released during the use phase of the diesel vehicle are
high. This means that the internal combustion is far from being complete in the case of a
petrol vehicle. It must be noticed that the CO emissions are not integrated in the Ecoindicator 95 method (but they are integrated in a more recent version of this method : Ecoindicator 99).
It is well-known that the CH4 emissions which correspond to the extraction of coal are
higher than the ones which correspond to the extraction of petrol. The fact that these
emissions are higher for the electric vehicle is then easily understandable.
The NOX emissions are usually considered as one of the weakest points of the diesel
vehicles. These emissions are very low in the case of the hybrid vehicle.
The SO2 emissions resulting from the Belgian production of electricity are high, which can
explain the bad results associated with the SO2 emissions of the fuel cycle of the electric
vehicle studied.
Impact assessment
The Eco-indicator 95 method was used to calculate the environmental impacts. The emission
data collected during the inventory participate to five environmental impacts : acidification,
greenhouse effect, winter smog, summer smog and eutrophication.
The results of the valuation are shown in figure 3.
Valuation
Inhab.year/km
Petrol-ICE
Diesel-ICE
EV (Belgian average)
EV (without nucl.)
Hybrid
7,0E-05
6,0E-05
5,0E-05
4,0E-05
3,0E-05
2,0E-05
1,0E-05
0,0E+00
Acidification
Greenh.
W. smog
S. smog
Eutrophic.
1,60E-04
Summer smog
Winter smog
1,20E-04
Greenhouse gases
Acidification
8,00E-05
This result
was obtained
without taking
into account
problems related
to the use of
nuclear power
4,00E-05
0,00E+00
Petrol-ICE
Diesel-ICE
EV (Belgian
average)
EV (without nucl.)
Hybrid
The global environmental load is calculated on the basis of the distance-to-target principle,
according to the EI 95 method. The results show that the electric and the hybrid vehicles have a
very low global Eco-score compared to the ICE ones. A sensitivity analysis is performed on the
basis of an other weighting set (for this analysis, the same weight is attributed to the five
environmental impacts). The results of this analysis clearly show that the choice between the
electric vehicle and the hybrid one is very difficult because it mainly depends on the weighting
set applied.
Conclusions
-
Life Cycle Assessment can help to compare the environmental performances of different
vehicles, even if this approach is not perfect as it does not take the spatial and temporal
aspects of the problem into account.
It must also be noticed that even if the global environmental load is very similar for both
electric and hybrid vehicles, its distribution between the five environmental impacts is
different.
The results of this LCA are strongly dependent on the energy needs of the vehicles and also
on the efficiency of the energy supply chains. This can be explained by the fact that most of
the pollutants considered (CO2, NOX, SO2,, etc.) are directly linked to the combustion
(combustion during the use phase, production of electricity, etc.).
A further step will be to integrate the whole life cycle of the vehicles (from the extraction of
raw materials to the end-of-life of the vehicle) for a broader range of alternative fuel
vehicles (CNG, fuel cell, biofuels, etc.).
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