Page 80 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

4.4 LCSA development in two decades of practice: A case study anthology 75
4.4.3 Transportation fuels
LCSA methodology was assessed and tested on four different transportation fuels using
multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) by Ekener et al. (2018). The transportation fuels were
petrol from Nigerian crude oil, petrol from Russian crude oil, ethanol from Brazilian sugar
cane, and ethanol from United States corn.
LCA was conducted separately from “well to tank” and “tank to wheel” (mixed fuel) to
ensure that environmental impacts from production to end-use of the product are considered
separately and subsequently combined and aggregated to obtain the final LCA results. The
SLCA data were obtained from a previous study conducted by Ekener-Petersen et al. (2014) to
assess potential social impacts of various bio and fossil fuels. The data were supplemented by
the introduction of “job creation” as a positive social impact from literature. Fig. 4.11 illus-
trates the LCSA approach used by Ekener et al. (2018). LCC was based on the direct cost borne
by the producer but excluded fees and taxes associated with the product. The data for LCC
were based on secondary data from Luo et al. (2009) (for petrol and sugarcane ethanol) and
Pimentel and Patzek (2005) (for corn ethanol).
The multiattribute value theory (MAVT), which has been used in LCA and environmental
management applications (Ferretti et al., 2014; Stefanopoulos et al., 2014; Apperl et al., 2015;
Rahimi and Weidner, 2004), was applied to combine the results of LCA, SLCA, and LCC, and
construct a sustainability index for the different transportation fuels. The sustainability indi-
ces were prioritized for three different stakeholder profiles (egalitarian, hierarchist, and in-
dividualist) used in other studies (Bachmann, 2013; Hacatoglu et al., 2015; De Schryver
et al., 2013). Different stakeholder profiles prioritize the sustainability perspectives differ-
ently. The corresponding priority (in descending order of priority in brackets) of the different

FIG. 4.11 Approach for LCSA of transportation fuels (Ekener et al., 2018).