In electric and hybrid vehicles Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), batteries play a central role and are in the spotlight of scientific community and public opinion. Automotive batteries constitute, together with the powertrain, the main differences between electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles. For this reason, many decision makers and researchers wondered whether energy and environmental impacts from batteries production, can exceed the benefits generated during the vehicle’s use phase. In this framework, the purpose of the present literature review is to understand how large and variable the main impacts are due to automotive batteries’ life cycle, with particular attention to climate change impacts, and to support researchers with some methodological suggestions in the field of automotive batteries’ LCA. The results show that there is high variability in environmental impact assessment; CO2eq emissions per kWh of battery capacity range from 50 to 313 g CO2eq/kWh. Nevertheless, either using the lower or upper bounds of this range, electric vehicles result less carbon-intensive in their life cycle than corresponding diesel or petrol vehicles.
The introduction of stationary storage systems into the Italian electric network is necessary to accommodate the increasing share of energy from non-programmable renewable sources and to reach progressive decarbonization targets. In this framework, a life cycle assessment is a suitable tool to assess environmental impacts during the entire life cycle of stationary storage systems, i.e., their sustainability. A Li-ion battery (lithium–iron–phosphate (LFP), nickel–manganese–cobalt (NMC) 532, and NMC 622) entire life cycle assessment (LCA) based on primary and literature data was performed. The LCA results showed that energy consumption (predominantly during cell production), battery design (particularly binder choice), inventory accuracy, and data quality are key aspects that can strongly affect results. Regarding the battery construction phase, LFP batteries showed better performance than the NMC ones, but when the end-of-life (EoL) stage was included, NMC cell performance became very close to those of LFPs. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, done using the Monte Carlo methodology, confirmed that the results (except for the freshwater eutrophication indicator) were characterized by a low dispersion and that the energy mix choice, during the different battery life phases, was able to greatly influence the overall impact. The use of primary and updated data related to battery cell production, like those used in the present paper, was necessary to obtain reliable results, and the application to a European production line is an item of novelty of this paper.
The study presents a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Italian electricity scenarios, devised in the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (INECP). A fully representative LCA of the national electricity system was carried out, taking into consideration a great number of different power plant typologies for current (2016 and 2017) and future (2030) electricity mixes. The study confirms that LCA can be a powerful tool for supporting energy planning and strategies assessment. Indeed the results put in evidence not only the improvement of the environmental profile from the current to the future mix (the impacts decrease from 2016 to 2030 due to the transition towards renewables, mainly wind and photovoltaic), but also underline the difference between two scenarios at 2030 (being the scenario that includes the strategic objectives of the INECP to 2030 the one showing best environmental profile), providing an evaluation of the effect of different energy policies. For example, in the INECP scenario CO2 eq/kWh is 46% lower than current scenario and 37% lower than business as usual scenario for 2030. Moreover, considering different impact categories allowed to identify potential environmental trade-offs. The results suggest also the need of future insight on data related to photovoltaic technologies and materials and their future development.
The time evolution of electrical discharges induced and guided between the cathode of a Van de Graf generator and a ground sphere was studied using a 100 fs Ti:Sapphire laser. Nonlinear focusing and ionization effects produce optical and plasma filaments in the discharge region. Streak camera images often exhibit streamers that propagate towards the cathode, but sudden discharge triggering is frequently observed with no streamer precursors. The typical discharge triggering delay time was measured to be 150 ns. Similar time delays were obtained from an air chemistry code used to model the long time behavior of the plasma induced by the short laser pulse. The model shows that ohmic heating of the filament plasma persists over long time scales and inhibits the decay of electron density due to recombination and attachment processes. Eventually the rise in electron temperature causes the avalanche rate to increase to the point where breakdown occurs. The hydrodynamic density reduction process reported by Tzortzakis et al. [Phys. Rev. E 64, 057401 (2001)] is also taken into consideration. Its main effect is found to be a hastening of the breakdown process.
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