A Review of the Necessity of Improved Life Cycle Inventory Data Quality in Evaluating Renewable Fuels Supported by a Case Study of Recycled Carbon Fuels

Abstract

Climate change is the most significant environmental challenge facing the world today. The EU is implementing various strategies to create a legislative and proposal framework for its Member States, promoting environmental sustainability through the European Green Deal. The EU aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent, requiring significant reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the energy sector, including initiatives under the Clean Energy Transition prioritizing renewable fuels. Besides weather-dependent renewables – aligned with waste management regulations – waste-based fuels like recycled carbon fuels (RCFs) can also aid the transition when the 70% GHG emission saving criterion is fulfilled, which is highly dependent on the accuracy of the input data. Digitalization will help higher renewable energy integration, but the extensive use of data requires preserving high privacy, safety, and security standards. Systematic literature research identified blockchain-based systems as an appropriate choice for advanced data collection. Data from a Hungarian municipal solid waste sorting facility was used to investigate the effect of data accuracy on GHG emission saving results of a RCF, comparing the EU regulated calculation method and the holistic life cycle assessment (LCA) method suitable for analyzing complex systems, complemented with a sensitivity analysis. Results showed that the GHG emission saving increases by 4.5 percent points using LCA compared to the EU regulated method. The sensitivity analysis proved the necessity of accurate data as a 1% change of input parameters resulted in a maximum two-fold relative change in GHG emission savings.