“With increasing support across the globe, innovations in carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies are now widely acknowledged as a means to help address climate change and to ensure access to critical carbon-based products. In order to assess the potential benefits and reduce environmental, societal, and commercial risks of these innovations, life-cycle assessments (LCA) and techno-economic assessments (TEA) are needed that inform decision makers in industry, academia and policy.”
The Global CO2 Initiative has built upon the initial efforts of its research partners to establish a global Techno-Economic Analysis and Life Cycle Analysis (TEA / LCA) Toolkit that many users think should be adopted as a full standard.
This toolkit serves as the critical framework and foundation for the nascent CO2 removal and utilization management industry to analyze the technologies that may have the most impact and ability to succeed in meeting climate and commercial goals.
The TEA/LCA toolkit elevates and harmonizes the industry and positions it for maximum growth potential in the years ahead. Our toolkit is aligned with the work performed at National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL).
The recently revised and expanded LCA and TEA guidelines for CO2 Utilization version 2 is a valuable resource to accelerate carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technology research, development, and deployment. The accompanying Making Sense document helps explain to decisionmakers how to best use assessments that are described by these new guidelines.
If you missed the March 17, 2022 launch event, you can watch the recording of it on the Global CO2 Initiative YouTube channel and download the slides with the links below.
Worked examples of how to apply the TEA and LCA guidelines can be found at:
- A Guide to Goal Setting in TEA: A Worked Example Considering CO2 Use in the Domestic Heating Sector: this work is available under DOI 10.3998/2027.42/154988
- Building an LCA Inventory: A Worked Example on a CO2 to Fertilizer Process: this work is available under DOI 10.3998/2027.42/154989
- Interpretation of LCA results: A Worked Example on a CO2 to Fertilizer Process: this work is available under DOI 10.3998/2027.42/154990
- Methanol Worked Examples for the TEA and LCA Guidelines for CO2 Utilization; this work is available under DOI 10.3998/2027.42/145723.
- Global CO2 Initiative Complete Mineralization Study 2018; this work is available under DOI 10.3998/2027.42/147467.
- Global CO2 Initiative Complete Oxymethylene Ethers Study 2018; this work is available under DOI 10.3998/2027.42/147468
- Multi-Attributional Decision Making in LCA & TEA for CCU: An Introduction to Approaches and a Worked Example (DOI 10.7302/805)
- SNG Worked Example for the TEA Guidelines for CO2 Utilization (DOI 10.7302/1057)
Read the outcomes from our April 2019 hands-on workshop (PDF: 946KB) in Ann Arbor that gathered over 100 CO2 experts, industry representatives, policymakers and members of the public.
Learn about CO2nsistent, a project, jointly funded by the Global CO2 Initiative and EIT Climate-KIC that launched in spring 2019. CO2nsistent just concluded with the release of the Guidelines, Version 2.
