Entropy Life Cycle Assessment – practical application and further development

Life cycle assessments are partly based on subjective assumptions, which makes results of different LCAs with the same scope hard to compare, and eventually can call into question the validity of the LCA as such. We expect the Entropy LCA to provide a scientifically sound way to better interpret the results of classical LCA, and to compare similar LCA studies. Using entropy generation as general, unambiguous indicator for environmental sustainability, the Entropy LCA may also serve as an independent study. After having presented the principal theory of our approach to the audience at LCE 2021, we will now show the progress of our work since then. Entropy balances of a set of different power plants (coal, wind, PV, hydro) following a strictly thermodynamic approach fed with data from existing plants already show clear differences between the four processes, and also seem to be consistent against classical LCA. However, these results contain only part of the truth: The process variable entropy generation cannot account for states like contamination or land use, also resource depletion cannot be considered directly. Using the example of CO2 emissions, we show different methods to account for the harmfulness of substances, which on one side deliver promising results, but on the other side raise new questions.