Life Cycle Assessment of Natural Gas Vehicles. Development and Application of Site-Dependent Impact Indicators

This project compares petrol, diesel and natural gas fuels with regards to their effects on human health and the natural environment. It is suggested to apply the method within a life cycle assessment comparing electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles to vehicles with combustion engines using diesel, petrol or natural gas. In the case of primary pollutants, the human health impacts per emitted mass will generally be lower for these upstream processes than for the vehicle emissions, in particular if the latter occur in large cities. The method presented would allow us to determine whether this has an effect on the overall results of the comparison.
Besides studies of transportation systems, the use of site-dependent indicators for human health impacts appears to be particularly relevant in life cycle assessments of products or services where transportation of goods with diesel vehicles significantly contributes to the overall emissions. Furthermore, it is suggested that these indicators be used in order to calculate the average impacts for emissions from specific sectors of industry. These could be useful in connection with the industry-averaged emission data that are frequently used in life cycle assessments.

This dissertation was written by Dipl. Phys. Karl-Michael Nigge and was supervised by Professor Dr.-Ing. Michael F. Jischa (Universität Clausthal); it was completed in Spring 2000.