Life Cycle modelling of Land Use Changes and Advanced Fuels

This 2.5-day course gives a thorough background for understanding the LCA modelling of land use changes and advanced fuels. One of the most important prerequisites for avoiding a climate crisis is that we succeed scaling up the right advanced biofuels and power-to-x (PtX) solutions. However, there is a large number of feedstocks, conversion technologies, carbon capture and storage options, as well as various integrations of different technologies, all of which influence the environmental impacts of the fuels.

The GHG emissions and environmental impacts differ significantly among advanced fuel productions, and far from all deliver the desired sustainable solution. One of the factors that can significantly influence the impact is land use changes. Therefore, it is key that we have robust environmental information on the different options. This course provides training in the needed methods for performing state-of-art consequential LCA of the modelling of land use changes and advanced biofuel and PtX pathways. Further, this course gives an overview of the most common candidates for feedstocks for advanced fuels and biofuels, and the conversion pathways from feedstock to fuels.

The course

SUBJECT:

Advanced biofuel and PtX pathways often involve the use of land, waste materials, and large amounts of energy, and they are often associated with various by-products/side-streams, which can potentially cause burdens as well as benefits. Therefore, it is important that any change in these flows is modelled in a way that reflect the associated life cycle impacts. Consequential life cycle modelling explicitly addresses this.

The course includes lectures, discussions and hands-on exercises on how to perform consequential modelling of land use changes, use of by-products and wastes as feedstocks (with constrained supplies), marginal electricity at different scales, and modelling of by-products/side-streams from the conversion pathways. Also, the effect of affecting the timing of flows is given attention: temporal differentiation of electricity markets, global warming effects from moving emissions in time (e.g. temporal carbon storage, preponing or delaying land use changes, regrowth of trees, preventing long decay rates of residues by using them as fuel feedstock, and long-term fugitive CO2 emissions from carbon storage).

Furthermore, the modelling of relevant interactions between the fuel production system and other systems, such as agriculture, waste treatment, and heat and electricity supply, are covered.

Lastly, advantages and disadvantages of consequential and attributional modelling are discussed, and it is presented how different regulatory and certification fuel standards address the LCA modelling challenges. The course will provide the background for understanding the key elements of life cycle inventory modelling, including comparability of functional units, identifying marginal supply mixes, the modelling of the supply and use of by-products, and ensuring mass- and carbon balances.

Hands-on exercises will be performed in Excel and the LCA software SimaPro.

COURSE OUTLINE :

  • The basics of consequential life cycle modelling: comparability of functional units, modelling of by-products, and composing marginal supply mixes.
  • Modelling of direct land use changes (dLUC) and indirect land use changes (iLUC).
  • Modelling of biogenic carbon, and how to avoid common errors related to this.
  • Establishing detailed carbon balances throughout the life cycle product system.
  • Composing marginal supply mixes for electricity and fuels – including the consideration of short-term vs long-term market mix, temporal differentiation of markets (e.g. day/night), and differentiation of market into baseload and regulating power.
  • Modelling the use of by-products/waste as feedstock, as well as supply of by-products.
  • Climate metrics and temporal issues of CO2 uptake and emissions; effects on global warming potential (GWP) and global temperature potential (GTP).
  • Difference between the modelling of current and near future product systems (default consequential modelling), and future systems (prospective life cycle modelling).
  • Overview of regulatory and certification GHG standards for fuels, how they relate to consequential and attributional modelling, and where they prescribe modelling that may lead to misleading/undesirable decisions for the environment.
  • Overview of the most common candidates for feedstocks for advanced fuels and biofuels, and for conversion pathways from feedstock to fuels, including different alternatives for carbon capture and storage (CO2 capture, and e.g., biochar from pyrolysis).
  • Overview of advanced biofuel and PtX pathways and the current potentials.

FORM AND ACADEMIC RECOGNITION:

Form: 12 hours lectures, 8 hours workshops/exercises.
Academic recognition: 1,5 ECTS points. This includes reading a mandatory list of literature.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

  • Ability to perform the modelling of land use changes in LCA.
  • Ability to perform consequential LCAs of advanced biofuels and PtX fuels.
  • Understanding of the difference between different modelling approaches (consequential and attributional) and their implications for the modelling of advanced biofuels and PtX fuels.
  • Understanding the limitations of prescribed methods in various regulatory and certification GHG standards for fuels.
  • Ability to critically review the goal, scope, data, methods, results, and interpretation of existing LCAs of advanced biofuels and PtX fuels, and to identify potential pitfalls.

The practicalities

WHEN AND WHERE?:

March 31st – April 2nd, 2025 
Monday-Tuesday: 8:30-12:30 & 14:30-18:30; Wednesday: 8:30-12:30
Course venue: To be confirmed. (Barcelona)

PARTICIPANT PREREQUISITES:

Masters degree or equivalent. Participants must bring own laptop computer. A good understanding and/or experience with life cycle assessment is an asset.

TEACHING STAFF: 

Professor Jannick Schmidt, Aalborg University
Life cycle engineer Karen-Emilie Trier Kreutzfeldt, 2-0 LCA

PRICE AND CONDITIONS:

3000 EUR – for professionals (consultancy, industry, private)
1500 EUR – for university personnel (postdocs, professors)
750 EUR – for PhD students


Second registration from the same institution offered at 50% discount, if enrolling at the same time (enquire before you register). Does not include travel, accommodation and meals.

REGISTRATION:

Please apply via mail to the course secretary: Peter Zacho Soegaard peter@ilca.es

Registration deadline: February 1st, 2025.