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Hydropower Life-Cycle Inventories 243

illustrate those arguments, a case study is also presented. It is based on a Brazilian
LCI study of Itaipu Plant, which was the largest hydropower installation in the
world (Ribeiro and Silva 2010) during the period in which the study was per-
formed. In the topic regarding final recommendations, some suggestions about
future and complementary developments related to the topic are made.

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2 Review of Available Hydropower LCI s

A remarkable initiative on the area of LCA of energy systems was the workshop
conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) on 1992 (OECD 1992). At that time, a very important discussion was
conducted regarding the importance and the difficulties of this kind of study,
including the necessity of local data collection to obtain representativeness of the
results.
In 1994, a study of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was published
(ORNL 1994). This study, contracted by the United States Department of Energy,
first quantifies the environmental and social costs for six USA hydropower plants,
adopting a life-cycle approach, in order to establish monetary value for them
afterward.
Similar to this initiative, and using the ORNL methodology, the European
Union launched an ambitious project called ExternE. In an effort involving more
than 50 teams from 15 countries during 3 years, the project estimates the exter-
nalities of different energy options in Europe, considering their life-cycle. In 1995,
the report of hydropower generations was launched (EUROPEAN COMISSION
1995), but it contained very little quantitative information, since the study intended
to work with monetary values for the externalities.
Something different from these initiatives was the analysis conducted by Vat-
tenfall AB, a Nordic energy company which decided to carry out an LCA study of
its electricity generation options with the purpose to inform its customers
regarding their environmental performance. The first study, published on 1996
(Brännstrom-Norberg et al. 1996), describes the product system of hydropower
generation, presents elements of scope definitions and bring some inventory data.
A literature survey focusing environmental analysis of hydropower generation
systems revealed two important studies: the first published in 1999 (Swedish
Environmental Management Council 2002a), and the other on 2002 (Swedish
Environmental Management Council 2002b). Both are considered by many experts
the most complete LCA for hydropower published up to now. These studies
contain definitions, inventory results, impact assessment and conclusions.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has also two publications where LCA
of energy generation is discussed. The first one (IEA 1998), dated from 1998, is a
discussion about the environmental implication of renewable energy options. The
second one (IEA 2000), from 2000, proposes mitigation measures for hydropower
schemes. Nevertheless, these two publications do not perform the LCA in its