Abstract
Purpose
The paper presents new and updated datasets for the operation of fossil-fuelled passenger cars. These are intended to be used either as background processes or in the comparative assessment of transport options. Central goals were to achieve a high level of consistency, transparency and flexibility for a representative range of current vehicle sizes, emission standards and fuel types, and to make a clear definition between exhaust and non-exhaust emissions. The latter is an important contribution to studies focusing on hybrid and electric vehicles.
Methods
The datasets are the direct development of those available in ecoinvent v2 and are largely based on updated versions of the same sources. The datasets address petrol, diesel and natural gas vehicle fuels. The number of datasets was increased to cover small, medium and large vehicles. Other data sources were used in order to fill data gaps and to balance inconsistencies, particularly for the natural gas vehicles. Parameterisation was incorporated via the ecoeditor tool. This allows the datasets to be adapted for use as foreground processes and also increases transparency. An important method used was to observe the trends in fuel consumption and emissions across all sizes and emission standards simultaneously so that consistency would be achieved across the whole range of vehicles. Non-exhaust emissions were made dependent on vehicle weight and thereby independent of vehicle type.
Results and discussion
Some significant changes in individual emission factors between the v2 and v3 datasets was shown. This can be explained by a combination of corrections, updates based on more recent versions of the data sources, and attempts to make the datasets consistent to each other. This has also meant that the non-exhaust emissions are readily definable in terms of brake, tyre and road wear as a factor of vehicle weight, with the intention that this data can be applied to passenger vehicles of all technologies.
Conclusions
Fuel consumption, emission factors and infrastructure demand have been improved, extended and updated for petrol, diesel and natural gas vehicles adhering to the Euro 3, 4 and 5 emissions standards. Using the ecoeditor tool, significant parameterisation was included which has made the datasets far more flexible, consistent and transparent. The clear definition of non-exhaust emissions means that these can easily be applied to studies on hybrid and electric vehicles.
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Notes
These reference technologies are here considered to be conventional passenger cars; meaning those using petrol, diesel or compressed natural gas fuelled internal combustion engines (ICE).
TecHnology centered ELectric Mobility Assessment: www.http://www.thelma-emobility.net/
Fuel evaporation emissions are given for petrol cars only and are included as individual exchanges along with the fuel dependent emissions. According to the EMEP/EEA (Ntziachristos et al. 2009), evaporative emissions from diesel vehicles are negligible and can be neglected in calculations. This is due to the presence of heavier hydrocarbons and the relatively low vapour pressure of diesel fuel. A quantification of VOC emissions from natural gas vehicles is not given.
In this context the word “average” refers to the fuel consumption, the relationship between fuel consumption and fuel-dependent emissions, and the relationship between vehicle size and Euro-class dependent emissions based on the data sources as described in the text and representing the European vehicle fleet on the road in 2010.
AT, BE, CH, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GR, HU, IE, IT, LU, NL, NO, PT, PU, SE, SI and UK
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Swisselectric Research, the Competence Centre for Energy and Mobility and the Erdölvereinigung for their funding of the Technology Centred Electric Mobility Assessment (Thelma) project http://www.thelma-emobility.net. For inclusion in ecoinvent v3, it was compulsory that the datasets undergo a critical review for which we thank Domink Saner of the etH Zurich for his commitment and time taken in this.
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Simons, A. Road transport: new life cycle inventories for fossil-fuelled passenger cars and non-exhaust emissions in ecoinvent v3. Int J Life Cycle Assess 21, 1299–1313 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-013-0642-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-013-0642-9