Livestream on scooter LCA case study, using ecoinvent 3.6

If you are interested in the topics related to urban mobility, comparison of different scooters (electric and motor scooters), or if you want to have an overview about how to perform a Life Cycle Assessment using the software openLCA and ecoinvent 3.6 database, useful information is available in the webinar “Comparison of the Life Cycle of different scooters used in Berlin”. This webinar was originally presented by our intern Thaís Barreiros in a livestream on YouTube on October 9th, 2020. The video is available hereunder:

The motivation behind this topic lies in the challenge to rethink urban mobility. One essential key to that is the use of Life Cycle Assessment to identify environmental hotspots and compare different alternatives from a sustainability, representing a possibility to identify points for technological improvements.

The use of scooters is common in big city centers due to the low costs and facility in mobility. However, they are often related as a source of urban pollution and health problems. Nowadays, it is possible to find three main scooters models: two-stroke engine, four-stroke engine, and electric. The two-stroke scooter has a higher emission of several compounds (for instance carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons). The four-stroke scooter has a reduced emission of these compounds, but a higher emission of nitrogen oxides. Finally, the electric scooter does not have many emissions in the use phase, but the electricity mix and its impacts should be considered.

Therefore, in this webinar, it is possible to understand how life cycle assessment can be applied to compare the three different models. The collection of data from suppliers and literature from the production until the end of life is explained in detail. When not possible to find specific data, ecoinvent database was applied. The implementation of the collected data in openLCA results in three different product systems (and 3 models graphs), and the three scooters can be compared using the same functional unit.

For the electric scooter, one interesting approach is the comparison of different electricity mix and different batteries. All these scenarios can be performed using the same product system, through the use of parameters. Therefore, the use of parameters during the modeling phase and the creation of the project setup is explained in the video.

The video presents part of the results, interpretations, and limitations of the work. Finally, it shows the complete recorded Q&A section. A complete report about the content of this video was performed, and this report contains all the reference lists and detailed explanation.