Impact assessment GaBi

[Elorri]

Hi,
Using the GaBi database, I realized that the impact score for fossil depletion (with methods such as ReCiPe, CML 2001 or Eco-Indicator 99) is equal to zero for the tested processes (e.g. electricity from natural gas, from coal, titanium production...).
Looking more carefully at these GaBi processes, the fossil resources listed as inputs are: "brown coal; 11.9 MJ/kg", "crude oil; 42.3 MJ/kg", "hard coal; 26.3 MJ/kg", "natural gas; 44.1 MJ/kg", "Oil sand (10% bitumen) (in MJ)", "Oil sand (100% bitumen) (in MJ)", and "peat; 8.4 MJ/kg".
However, the LCIA methods usually characterizes fossil resources with names such as "Coal, hard, unspecified, in ground", "Coal, brown, in ground", "Gas, natural, in ground", "Oil, crude, in ground", "Peat, in ground". That is why the related impact score is equal to zero.
How can I solve this in order to characterize the fossil depletion impact (which can have huge influence on LCIA results)?
Thank you in advance,
Elorri

[crodriguez]

Hi Elorri,

The ecoinvent LCIA methods package contains mainly ecoinvent elementary flows, so GaBi specific flows are not included. openLCA LCIA methods package intends to keep, as accurately as possible, the original data from the methodologies considered. Therefore, if these flows are not included in the original data provided by the methods developers, they were not added to the pack. There are currently, though, some methods, such as ILCD or TRACI 2.1, that contain them.

We are currently working in a GaBi extension of the openLCA LCIA methods pack which will include all these resource flows.

Regards,

Cristina

[Elorri]

Hi Cristina,

First, I used the most recent LCIA pack (version 1.2) from your download page "including ecoinvent 3, GaBi, ELCD". So, it seems strange to me that most of the LCIA methods from this pack do not characterize the fossil resources of the GaBi processes.
Then, using GaBi software, the LCIA methods such as ReCiPe, Impact2002 or EcoIndicator99 characterize these elementary flows ("brown coal; 11.9 MJ/kg", "crude oil; 42.3 MJ/kg", etc.). Why these elementary flows are not present in the OpenLCA version of these methods?
Could you tell me the expected date of release for the new version of the LCIA methods pack?

Thank you,
Elorri

[aciroth]

Hi Elorri,
yes we are in discussion with PE about this. In the end we might simply add these flows (which are often GaBi-specific) to the methods. I will keep you updated of course (and we try to get a quick solution here).
Best wishes,
Andreas