When we\u00a0need to compare the environmental\u00a0consequences of energy technologies \u2014 between an internal combustion vehicle or an EV, or between a compact natural gas generator and a big wind farm \u2014 what\u2019s the best way to understand the full picture? Should we just look at pollutant emissions? Or should we take a broad view, and consider the total lifecycle, including mining, manufacturing, transport and waste? The latter is what lifecycle assessment (LCA) is all about, and although it can be used to compare very complex sets of things in a helpful way, it can also be abused to suit an agenda.<\/p>\n
To really be sure we\u2019re comparing apples with apples, we need to understand the right ways and the wrong ways to do LCA. And then we need to think carefully about the implications of our research, and how to communicate them to a lay audience in such a way that they can inform policy without being misunderstood or misrepresented. It\u2019s a tricky art, but our guest in this episode is an LCA veteran from NREL who can show us the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What is lifecycle assessment, and how can it help us choose between various energy options during the transition? NREL\u2019s Garvin Heath explains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[370,10,22,153,368,369,365,156,363,362,364,65,93,64,367,366,100,45],"class_list":["post-1400","xen_episodes","type-xen_episodes","status-publish","hentry","category-energy-transition-show-podcasts","tag-csp","tag-electricity","tag-emissions","tag-eroi","tag-ethanol","tag-ice","tag-land","tag-lca","tag-lifecycle-analysis","tag-lifecycle-assessment","tag-lithium","tag-natural-gas","tag-nuclear","tag-solar","tag-vogtle","tag-waste","tag-water","tag-wind","xen_guests-garvin-heath"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n