Butnar, I., Lynch, J., Vetter, S. et al. (11 more authors) (2024) A Review of Life Cycle Assessment Methods to Inform the Scale‐Up of Carbon Dioxide Removal Interventions. WIREs: Energy and Environment, 13 (6). ISSN 2041-8396
Abstract
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods are increasingly used for policy decision-making in the context of identifying and scaling up sustainable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) interventions. This article critically reviews CDR LCA case-studies through three key lenses relevant to policy decision-making on sustainable CDR scale-up, namely comparability across CDR assessments, assessment of the climatic merit of a CDR intervention, and consideration of wider CDR co-benefits and impacts. Our results show that while providing valuable life cycle understanding, current practices utilize diverse methods, usually attributional in nature, which are CDR and time-specific. As a result, they do not allow comprehensive cross-comparison between CDRs, nor reveal the potential consequences of scaling up CDRs in the future. We suggest CDR LCA design requires clearer definitions of the study scope and goal, the use of more consistent functional units, greater comprehensiveness in system boundaries, and explicit baseline definitions. This would allow for robust assessments, facilitating comparison with other CDR methods, and better evidencing net climate benefits. The inventory should collect time-dependent data on the full CDR life cycle and baseline, and report background assumptions. The impact assessment phase should evidence the climatic merits, co-benefits, and trade-offs potentially caused by the expanding CDR. Finally, to ensure a sustainable scale-up of CDR, consequential analyses should be performed, and interpretation involves the comparison of all selected metrics and the permanence of carbon storage against a baseline scenario.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | carbon dioxide removal (CDR); greenhouse gas removal (GGR); Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); negative emissions technologies (NETs); scale-up |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mechanical Engineering (Leeds) > Institute of Engineering Thermofluids, Surfaces & Interfaces (iETSI) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 29 Nov 2024 12:21 |
Last Modified: | 29 Nov 2024 12:21 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/wene.540 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:220224 |