EIO-LCA Web Forum

I am teaching a course in sustainable supply chains for the first time this fall. I am hoping to incorporate LCA using eoilca dot net. As a supply chain guy, this is a stretch for me.

I have been working through the examples in the Hendrickson, Lave, Matthews 2006 book, in particular the car example in Chapter 6, and I am pretty much able to replicate the analysis in the book. However I am getting two discrepancies. When I use eiolca dot net calculate energy use for the car (worth $16k in 1997 dollars), I get 121,000 MJ of energy use. Fig 6.3 shows that this should be 200,000 MJ. The text says it should be 138,000. Perhaps there is a discrepancy between the text and fig (or, more likely) I am not understanding something, but in any case my 121,000 seems to not jibe with the book. I am using sector #336110: Automobile and light truck manufacturing

The other discrepancy is that for GHG for Petroleum Refining, I am getting 12,500 kg CO2 equiv, whereas fig 6.4 shows this to be approx 18,000.

Can anyone help me figure out what I am doing wrong or misunderstanding?

I am using the 1997 database, same as the book.

Thanks

Tom - welcome to the forum and good luck with the class. Please keep us posted on your prep and how it goes.

With respect to your question, there is a very easy answer. The book is 5 years old and the data (even for 1997) was updated since the book was printed. There isnt much detail, but you can see a note about it at the following forum page:

http://www.eiolca.net/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=214

Anyway, I get the same results as you so you're not otherwise doing anything wrong - just using different data than when book was written.