Abstract
Purpose
Plevin et al. (2014) reviewed relevant life cycle assessment (LCA) studies for biofuels and argued that the use of attributional LCA (ALCA) for estimating the benefits of biofuel policy is misleading. While we agree with the authors on many points, we found that some of the arguments by the authors were not presented fairly and that a number of specific points warrant additional comment. The main objective of this commentary is to examine the authors’ comparative statements between consequential LCA (CLCA) and ALCA.
Methods
We examined the notion that the LCA world is divided into CLCA and ALCA. In addition, we evaluated the authors’ notion of “wrong” models.
Results
We found that the authors were comparing an idealized, hypothetical CLCA with average (or less than average), real-life ALCAs. Therefore, we found that the comparison alone cannot serve as the basis for endorsing real-life CLCAs for biofuel policy. We also showed that there are many LCA studies that do not belong to either of the two approaches distinguished by the authors. Furthermore, we found that the authors’ notion of “wrong” models misses the essence of modeling and reveals the authors’ unwarranted confidence in certain modeling approaches.
Conclusions
Dividing the LCA world into CLCAs and ALCAs overlooks the studies in between and hampers a constructive dialog about the creative use of modeling frameworks. Unreasonable confidence in certain modeling approaches based on their “conceptual” superiority does not help support “robust decision making” that should ultimately land itself on the ground.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This quote appears in the preface of The Order of Things by Foucault (1970) which refers to a Jorge Luis Borges’ book that again quotes a “certain Chinese encyclopedia”. Whether the original literature noted as “certain Chinese encyclopedia” really exists is unknown but it is likely to be a fictitious creation of Borges.
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of the past and the cause of the future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.” [Laplace 1902; A philosophical essay on probabilities].
How one classifies an LCA study as either of the two is yet another interesting problem, which is discussed in the following section.
This was the reason we tried to avoid these terms in our publications.
In Box and Draper 1987; Empirical model-building and response surfaces.
There are “dynamic” GEMs in the literature, but the nature of these models is, strictly speaking, still comparative static.
“A model is essentially a theoretical construct which enables us, starting with some actual or hypothetical data, to arrive at some interesting empirical conclusions. It must start on the ground. It must end on the ground. In between, you can fly as high as you want, but land on the ground again. There are too many models which are still flying.” [W. Leontief 1975].
References
Berndes G, Bird N, Cowie A (2011) Bioenergy, land use change and climate change mitigation. Bioenergy, Land Use Change and Climate Change Mitigation. Whakarewarewa, Rotorua, New Zealand: IEA Bioenergy
Box GE, Draper NR (1987) Empirical model-building and response surfaces. John Wiley & Sons, Oxford, England
Duchin F (forthcoming) The transformative potential of input–output economics for addressing critical resource challenges in the 21st century. In: Baranzini M, Rotondi C, Scazzieri R (eds) Scale Constraints, Resource Rents, and Structural Dynamics. Cambridge University Press
Farrell A, Plevin R, Turner B, Jones A, O’Hare M, Kammen D (2006) Ethanol can contribute to energy and environmental goals. Sci 311(5760):506–508
Foucault M (1970) The order of things. Random House, New York
Guinee JB, Gorree M, Heijungs R, Huppes G, Kleijn R, de Koning A, van Oers L et al (2002) Handbook on life cycle assessment: operational guide to the ISO standards. Kluwer Academic Pubisher, Dordrecht
ISO (2006) ISO 14040: Environmental management—life cycle assessment—principles and framework. International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland
Laplace PS (1902) A philosophical essay on probabilities. J. Wiley, New York
Leontief W (1975) Models and decisions, a transcript of Leontief’s verbal speech. In: Vogely WA (ed) Mineral Materials Modeling, Resources for the Future, Washington, DC, USA
Moriguchi Y, Kondo Y, Shimizu H (1993) Analysing the life cycle impacts of cars: the case of CO2. Ind Environ 16:42–45
Pesonen H-L, Ekvall T, Fleischer G, Huppes G, Jahn C, Klos ZS, Rebitzer G, Sonnemann GW, Tintinelli A, Weidema BP (2000) Framework for scenario development in LCA. Int J Life Cycle Assess 5(1):21–30
Plevin R (2009) Modeling corn ethanol and climate. J Ind Ecol 13(4):495–507
Plevin RJ, Delucchi MA, Creutzig F (2014) Using attributional life cycle assessment to estimate climate-change mitigation benefits misleads policy makers: attributional LCA can mislead policy makers. J Ind Ecol 18(1):73–83. doi:10.1111/jiec.1274
Rose A (1995) Input–output economics and computable general equilibrium models. Struct Change Econ Dyn 6(3):295–304
Searchinger T, Heimlich R, Houghton R, Dong F, Elobeid A, Fabiosa J, Tokgoz S, Hayes D, Yu T (2008) Use of US croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change. Sci 319(5867):1238–1240
Suh S, Taff S, Goodkind A, Yang Y, Kim J, Bae J, Yee S (2012) Sustainable pathways to achieving biofuel policy goals: a web-based simulation tool. http://forio.com/simulate/umn/rfs2/simulation. Accessed February 25, 2014
Weidema BP, Ekvall T, Pesonen HL, Rebitzer G, Sonnemann GW, Spielmann M (2004) Scenarios in LCA. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), Pensacola FL
Wenzel H (1998) Application dependency of LCA methodology: key variables and their mode of influencing the method. Int J Life Cycle Assess 3(5):281–288
Yang Y, Bae J, Kim J, Suh S (2012) Replacing gasoline with corn ethanol results in significant environmental problem-shifting. Environ Sci Technol 46(7):3671–3678
York R (2012) Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels? Nat Clim Chang 2(6):441–443
Acknowledgments
Earlier version of this commentary was provisionally accepted by the Journal of Industrial Ecology, where the original article by Plevin and colleagues (2014) appeared. However, we were not able to meet the length restriction set by the journal (1,500 words), and therefore we withdrew our submission. We thank Reid Lifset and Robert Anex of the Journal of Industrial Ecology for their kind understanding of our decision, and Mary Ann Curran and Walter Klöpffer of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment for considering this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible editor: Mary Ann Curran
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Suh, S., Yang, Y. On the uncanny capabilities of consequential LCA. Int J Life Cycle Assess 19, 1179–1184 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-014-0739-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-014-0739-9