Tuesday, May 5, 2009 - 10:30 AM
8-05
A Life Cycle Impact Assessment Framework for Characterizing Human Health Benefits and Impacts from Emerging Biofuels
Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) provides an assessment framework that addresses both benefits and impacts from emerging biofuels on human health from changes in chemical emissions. LCIA addresses the links among emissions, transport, human exposure, and health damage. We have adapted LCIA to compare the impacts of emerging biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol and butanol, to California reformulated gasoline. This presentation describes the development of characterization factors (CFs), which yield important information on the human health effects and human damage related to the emissions-fate-exposure pathway of chemicals associated with these fuels.
CFs track chemical releases to the environment at various fuel life stages including: 1) from drilling and/or harvesting to a refinery; 2) conversion and processing of fuel at a refinery; 3) storage, transport and distribution of the fuel; and 4) fuel combustion. CFs incorporate both an environmental fate factor and the human intake fraction (iF). Systems models that track the exchange of chemicals among air, water, soil, and plant compartments provide fate factors. The iF, which is the ratio of the chemical mass taken in by a population to the mass released, is used to express cumulative inhalation and ingestion exposures for a defined geographic region.
We present the CFs we use to compare emissions at various life cycle stages. Important in this analysis is the consideration of the variation and uncertainty of human exposures related to temporal and spatial scope of a fuel's life cycle, including local (e.g., refinery) and regional (e.g., agricultural systems and storage of fuel).
CFs track chemical releases to the environment at various fuel life stages including: 1) from drilling and/or harvesting to a refinery; 2) conversion and processing of fuel at a refinery; 3) storage, transport and distribution of the fuel; and 4) fuel combustion. CFs incorporate both an environmental fate factor and the human intake fraction (iF). Systems models that track the exchange of chemicals among air, water, soil, and plant compartments provide fate factors. The iF, which is the ratio of the chemical mass taken in by a population to the mass released, is used to express cumulative inhalation and ingestion exposures for a defined geographic region.
We present the CFs we use to compare emissions at various life cycle stages. Important in this analysis is the consideration of the variation and uncertainty of human exposures related to temporal and spatial scope of a fuel's life cycle, including local (e.g., refinery) and regional (e.g., agricultural systems and storage of fuel).
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