LCA Book - Chapter 9 (Advanced LCA Models)

Chapter 9: Advanced Life Cycle Models 299
Chapter 9 : Advanced Life Cycle Models

In this chapter, we define alternative approaches for LCA using advanced methods such as
process matrices and hybrid analysis. Process matrices organize process-specific data into
linear systems of equations that can be solved with matrix algebra, and represent a significant
improvement over process flow diagram-based approaches. Hybrid LCA models, those that
combine process and input-output based methods, offer ways to leverage the advantages of
the two methods while minimizing disadvantages. Three approaches to hybrid LCA modeling
are presented, with the common goal of combining types of LCA models to yield improved
results. The approaches vary in their theoretical basis, the ways in which the submodels are
combined, and how they have been used and tested.
Learning Objectives for the Chapter

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Define, build, and use a process matrix LCI model from available process flow data.
2. Describe the advantages of a process matrix model as compared to a process flow

diagram based model and an input-output based model.
3. Describe the various advantages and disadvantages of process-based and IO-based

LCA models.
4. Classify the various types of hybrid models for LCA, and understand how they
combine advantages and disadvantages of process and IO-based LCA models.
5. Suggest an appropriate category of hybrid model to use for a given analysis, including
the types of data and process-IO model interaction needed.
Process Matrix Based Approach to LCA

In Chapters 5 and 8 we introduced process-based and IO-based methods as two approaches
to performing life cycle assessment. The bottom-up process method presented in Chapter 5
(referred to as the process flow diagram approach) is a fairly limited application of the process
method. It requires time iteratively finding each needed set of process data, including for
following the connections between processes. We found results by summing effects from each
included process in the diagram in a bottom-up method. On the other hand, IO-LCA methods
presented a distinct benefit in terms of delivering quick and easy top-down results by
exploiting matrix math methods to invert and solve the entire upstream chain.
Life Cycle Assessment: Quantitative Approaches for Decisions That Matter – lcatextbook.com
300 Chapter 9: Advanced Life Cycle Models
We can merge the concepts introduced in input-output analysis with the data from a process
flow diagram approach to create linear systems of equations that represent a comprehensive
set of process models known as a process matrix.
Now that you have seen both process and IO methods, you might have already considered a
process matrix-based model. Conceptually, a process matrix model incorporates all available
process data (whether explicitly part of the process flow diagram or not) into the system. The
process matrix approach yields results similar to what would be expected if we added more
and more processes to the process flow diagram. However, as we will see, the process matrix
approach is able to improve upon the bottom up process diagram approach, as it can model
the interconnections of all processes, and as in IO methods, will be able to fully consider the
environmental flows of all upstream interconnections. The process matrix approach has the
potential to produce some of the large boundary benefits of an IO model system but with data
from explicit (rather than average) processes.
Before going further, we use the linear algebra introduced in Chapter 8 to re-define process
data and models. Figure 9-1 shows a hypothetical system with two processes, one that makes
fuel and one that makes electricity.24 This example is similar to the main example of Chapter
5 that discussed making electricity from coal.
Figure 9-1: Process Diagrams for Two-Process System
Focusing on the purely technical flow perspective, process 1 takes the raw input of 50 liters of
crude oil, and process 2 takes an input of 2 liters of fuel. Likewise, the output flow arrows
show production of 20 liters of fuel and 10 kWh of electricity, respectively, in the two
processes (the emissions shown in the figure will be discussed later). In this scenario, the
functional units are the outputs, 20 liters of fuel and 10 kWh of electricity, since all of the
process data corresponds to those normalized values. Without any analysis we know that fuel
(process 1’s output) must be produced to produce electricity (process 2’s output).
As with any linear system, but especially for the types of analysis of interest in LCA, we need
to consider alternative amounts of outputs needed, and thus create a general way of scaling
24 Thanks to Vikas Khanna of the University of Pittsburgh for this example system.
our production higher or lower than the functional unit values above. That is, we do not merely
have to be constrained to produce 20 liters of fuel or 10 kWh of electricity. Once a scaling
factor is established, the output for any input, or the input for any output can be found.
Within our process system, we initially consider only flows of product outputs through the
processes, e.g., fuel and electricity, not elementary flows. Thus, for now, we ignore necessary
crude oil input and the various emissions (again, we will consider these later). In such a linear
system we define a scaling factor vector X with values for each of the two processes, X1 and
X2, and the total net production across the system for each of the two outputs, Y1 and Y2.
Here, Y1 is the total net amount of fuel produced, in liters. Y2 is the total net amount of
electricity produced, in kWh.
We can define a sign convention for inputs and outputs such that positive values are for
outputs and negative values are for inputs (i.e., product output that is input to other processes
in the system). Given this framework and notation, we define the following linear system of
equations which act as a series of physical balances given our unit process data, with unit
production of fuel and electricity in rows via the two processes:
20 X1 - 2 X2 = Y1
0 X1 +10 X2 = Y2 (9-1)
where the first equation mathematically defines that the total amount of fuel produced is 20
liters for every scaled unit process 1, net of 2 liters needed for every scaled unit produced in
unit process 2. Likewise, the second equation defines that the total amount of electricity
produced is zero per scaled unit of process 1 and 10 kWh per scaled unit process 2. To scale
our functional unit-based processes (up or down), we would insert values for X1 and X2. In
general, these values could be fractions or multiples of the unit. If X1 = 1 and X2 = 1, we would
generate the identical outputs in the processes shown in Figure 9-1. If we wanted to make
twice as much fuel, then X1 = 2, which, for example would require 100 liters of crude oil. If
we wanted to make twice as much electricity as in the unit process equation (20 kWh), then
X2 = 2, requiring 4 liters of fuel input.
Similar to what was shown in Chapter 8 (and its Appendices), we use the generalized matrix
notation AX = Y to describe the system of Equations 9-1, as demonstrated in Heijungs (1994)
and Suh (2005). Now the matrix A, which in the process matrix domain is called the
technology matrix, represents the technical coefficients of the processes linking the product
systems together. In the system describing Figure 9-1 above,
20 −2
Ç=Ä Å
0 10
Note the structure of the matrix. The functional units, representing the measured outputs of
each of the processes, are along the diagonal of A. The use of outputs from other processes
within the system are the off-diagonal entries, e.g., -2 shows the fuel (output 1) used in the
process for making electricity (output 2).
To solve for the required scaling factor to produce a certain net final production in the system,
the linear system AX = Y is solved as in Chapter 8, by rearranging the linear system equation
and finding the inverse of A:
AX = Y ó X=A-1Y (9-2)
In this example, the inverse of A is:
. 05 . 01
ÇÖ+ = Ä Å
0 .1
thus if we want to produce Y2 = 1,000 kWh of electricity, we can use Equation 9-2 to
determine what the total production in the system needs to be. In this case it is:
. 05 . 01 0 10
ó = ÇÖ+ î = Ä ÅÄ Å=Ä Å
0 . 1 1000 100
which says that to make 1,000 kWh of electricity in our system of two processes, then from a
purely technological standpoint, we would need to make 10 times the unit process 1 of fuel
production (200 liters total) and we would need to scale the electricity generation process 2 by
a factor of 100. Within the system, of course, we would be making 200 liters of fuel, all of
which would be consumed as the necessary (sole) input into making 1,000 kWh of electricity.
Figure 9-2 shows this scaled up sequence of processes, including the dotted line ‘connection’
of the two processes. The processes are defined identically as those in Figure 9-1, but with all
values scaled by 10 for process 1 and by 100 for process 2.
Figure 9-2: Scaled-Up and Connected Two-Process System
So far, we have motivated the purely

We could also use AX = Y notation technological aspects of the simple two-process
for the linear system if we instead system. However, Figure 9-1 gives us additional
wanted to determine the total net
information on the resource use and emissions
output given a set of scaling factors.
For example, if X = [10 ; 100] (our
performance of the two processes. We create an
result from the example above) then: environmental matrix, B, analogous to Chapter
8’s R matrix, to represent the direct per-
20 −2 10 0 functional unit resource use and emissions
Çó = î = Ä ÅÄ Å=Ä Å
0 10 100 1000 factors. The B matrix has a conceptually identical
basis of flows per functional unit as in Chapter 8,
So if we want to make 10 times the except that instead of consistently being flows
unit production of process 1 (200 per million dollars, the units are flows per
liters of fuel), and 100 times the unit
functional unit, which vary across the processes
production of process 2 (1,000 kWh
of electricity), net production is only (e.g., per kg, per MJ, etc.).
Y2 = 1,000 kWh of electricity, since
all of the 200 liters of fuel produced E = BX = BA−1Y (9-3)
in process 1 are consumed in process
2 to make electricity, resulting in a Again we use a sign convention where negative
net of Y1 = 0 liters of fuel. This result values are inputs and positive values are outputs.
(i.e., Y = [0; 1000]) is the same as From Figure 9-1, process 1 uses 50 liters of crude
used in the previous example. oil as an input, and emits 2 kg SO2 and 10 kg CO2.
Process 2 has no raw inputs (only the product
input of fuel already represented in the A matrix), and emits 0.1 kg of SO2 and 1 kg of CO2
emissions, respectively. Thus the environmental matrix B for our system, where the rows
represent the flows of crude oil, SO2, and CO2, and the columns represent the two processes,
can be represented as:
−50 0
ò=ï 2 . 1ñ
10 1
Of course, the linear system behind B reminds us of the connection of inputs, outputs, and
emissions shown in Figure 9-1:
Ecrude = −50 X1 ; ESO2 = 2 X1 + 0.1 X2 ; ECO2 = 10 X1 + X2
Put another way, the elements of BA-1 in Equation 9-3 represent total resource and emissions
factors across the process matrix system, analogous to total economy-wide emissions factors
R[I -A]-1 of an IO system (and the A matrices are different in the systems).
Building on our example from above, we can estimate the environmental effects of producing
the required amount of outputs by multiplying the BA-1 matrix by our previously found vector
Y [0 ; 1,000]. The resulting E is:
−500
ô = 30 ñ
ï
200
While we have motivated this initial example with an intentionally small (two process) model,
it is easy to envision how adding additional processes would change the system. If we added a
third process, which potentially had interconnections to the original two processes, we would
merely be adding another dimension to the problem. The A matrix would be 3x3, and the X
and Y vectors would have an additional row as well. If we added no environmental flows, B
would also be 3x3. If we added flows (e.g., another fuel input or emission) then there would
be additional rows. The linear algebra does not become significantly more difficult. Depending
on the necessary scope, your system may end up with 5, 10, or 50 processes.
We generally use integer scaling factors and achieve integer results in the chapter examples.
However, the linear algebra method can derive any real input and output values. Note that
some processes may in fact only be able to use integer inputs (or be able to produce integer
levels of output), in which case your results would need to be rounded to a near integer.
E-resource: “Chapter 9 Excel Matrix Math” shows all of the examples in this chapter in
a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Connection Between Process- and IO-Based Matrix Formulations

The most important aspect of the process matrix approach to recognize is the similarity to
how we solved EIO models. The matrix math (AX = Y ó X=A-1Y) is identical, differing only
where in the EIO notation the ‘A matrix’ is instead I-A. If you look at the elements of the
technology matrix A in the process matrix domain, and think through its composition, a more
distinct connection becomes clear. As noted above, the diagonal entries of the technology A
matrix summarize the functional units of the processes collected within the system. If we were
to think only about the inputs into the process system, and/or collect an A matrix consisting
only of the values of our own technology matrix from available process data, the matrix may
not have any of those functional unit values – it would just contain data on the required inputs
from all of the processes in the system. We would have no need to specify a particular sign
convention for inputs, so we could include them as positive values. For the system of
equations 9-1, the adjusted A matrix with this perspective would be:
0 2
Ç∗ = Ä Å
0 0
which would summarize the case where process 1 had no technological inputs from other
parts of the system (i.e., no input of fuel or electricity) and where process 2 had a requirement
of 2 liters of fuel. If we wanted to make productive use of this different process, we would
need to add in the functional unit basis of the system (otherwise we would have no way of
knowing how many units of output can be created from the listed inputs). In doing that, we
would need to create a diagonalized matrix containing the functional unit values of each of the
processes, which in this case is:
20 0
ö=Ä Å
0 10
and we would combine the information in these two matrices before inverting the result. W is
a matrix of positive values of the process outputs while A* is made of positive values for the
process inputs. The net flows are found as outputs minus inputs:
W + -(A*) = W – A*
and our modified matrix math system would be:
[W – A*]X = Y ó X=[W – A*]-1Y
Of course, combining W and A* in this way gives exactly the original A process matrix, which
is then inverted to find the same results as above.
The key part to understand is that this is exactly what is done in IO systems, but since the
system is in general normalized by a constant unit of currency (e.g., “millions of dollars”), all
of the functional units are already “1”, and thus the identity matrix I is what is needed as the
general W matrix above. Nonetheless, this exposition should help to reinforce the similarity
in derivation of the process based and IO-based systems.
Linear Systems from Process Databases

The simple two-process system above assumed values for inputs and outputs. But we may also
build up our linear system with data from processes in available databases. We could envision
the process flow diagram from Chapter 5, where we made electricity from burning bituminous
coal that had been mined and delivered to the power plant by train. This example used actual
data from the US-LCI database. In Chapter 5, we already saw how to build simple LCI models
from this process flow diagram. We could find the same answers by building a linear system.
Using the same notation as in our two-process example above, we could define the linear
system in the system of Equations 9-4. This system uses the US LCI database values from
Chapter 5 (Figure 5-7 through Figure 5-10), where bituminous-fired electricity generation is
process 1, bituminous coal mining is process 2, and rail transport is process 3. Recall from
Figure 5-7 that the values we were most concerned about were that a functional unit of 1 kWh
of bituminous coal-fired electricity required inputs of 0.442 kg of bituminous coal and 0.461
ton-km of diesel-fueled rail transport. Those values are prominent in the linear system.
1 X1 + 0 X2 + 0 X3 = Y1
-0.442 X1 + 1 X2 + 0 X3 = Y2
-0.461 X1 + 0 X2 + 1 X3 = Y3 (9-4)
For this system,

1 0 0
Ç = ï−0.442 1 0ñ
−0.461 0 1
So in order to produce 1 kWh of electricity, we would need to produce the following in each
of the three processes:
1 0 0 1 1
ó = ÇÖ+ î = ï0.442 1 0ñ ï0ñ = ï0.442ñ
0.461 0 1 0 0.461
which of course matches the values found in Chapter 5 (and which are obvious given the
absence of inputs of electricity, coal, or rail in two of the three processes). Considering only
fossil CO2 emissions,
ò = [0.994 0 0.0189]
so, using E = BX , E ~ 1.003 kg CO2, the same result reached in Chapter 5 (Equation 5-1).
This example shows us that we could build linear system models based on process data, and
could include as many processes as we have time or resources to consider. Of course we can
use software tools like Microsoft Excel or MATLAB to manage the data and matrix math.
From the example in Chapter 5, we could expand the boundary to add data from additional
processes like refining petroleum, so as to capture effects of diesel fuel inputs. As we add
processes (and flows) we are just adding rows and columns to the linear system above. Beyond
adding rows and columns as we expand our boundary, we also generally add technical
coefficients to the A matrix that were not previously present (e.g., if we had data showing use
of electricity by the mine). We would thus be adding upstream effects that would likely not
have been modeled in a simple process flow diagram approach. The three-process example
above does not shed light on this potential, because there are no upstream coefficients that
are in the system that were not in our process flow diagram example in Chapter 5. There are
questions at the end of this chapter that assess such changes.
If building linear system models from the bottom up, we would eventually decide that we were
unlikely to add significantly more information by adding data from additional processes or
flows. The dimensions of the technology matrix A of our linear system would be equal to the
number of processes included in our boundary, and the dimensions of the environmental
matrix B would be the number of processes and the number of flows. In short, we would have
a matrix representation of our process flow diagram model, but with interconnected upstream
flows.
However, if we have access to electronic versions of all the process LCI modules from
databases, we can use them to build large process matrix models. Since databases like US LCI
and ELCD are publicly available, matrices and spreadsheet models can be built that by default
encompass data for all of the many interlinked processes and flows provided in the databases.
Many researchers and software tools incorporate external databases with the process matrix
approach (e.g., SimaPro). In the rest of this section, we explore construction and use of these
comprehensive process matrix models to facilitate rapid construction of LCI models. While
not publicly available, licensees of ecoinvent data can download or build complete matrices
representing all processes and flows.
Chapter 5 discussed the availability of unit process and system process level data in the
ecoinvent database and software tools. System processes are aggregated views of processes
with relatively little detail, and no connections to the other unit processes. Using them is like
using a snapshot of the process (i.e., where the matrix math has already been done and saved).
Using ecoinvent unit processes allows the full connection to all upstream unit processes, and
calculations involving them will ‘redo’ the matrix math.
While the US LCI database as accessed on the LCA Digital Commons website does not
directly provide A and B matrices, the matrices can be either built by hand using the
downloadable spreadsheets (see Advanced Material for Chapter 5), or by exporting the entire
matrix representation of the US LCI database from SimaPro (choose the library after
launching the software, then choose ‘Export Matrix’ option from the ‘File’ menu). The US
LCI database, as exported from SimaPro as of 2014, provides LCI data for 746 products and
949 flows. These 746 products are the outputs of the various processes available in US LCI.
Given that the US LCI database has information on 746 products, we could form an A matrix
of coefficients analogous to the linear system above with 746 rows and 746 columns, where
the elements of the matrix are the values represented as inputs of other product processes
within the US LCI database to produce the functional unit of another product’s process. For
example, the coefficients of our three-process US LCI example above would be amongst the
cells of the 746 x 746 matrix. Of course, the A matrix will be very sparse (i.e., have many blank
or 0 elements) since many processes are only technologically connected to a few other
processes. This matrix would be similar to the IO direct requirements matrix considered in
Chapter 8. Likewise, B can be made from the non-product input and output flows of the US
LCI database, resulting in a 949 x 746 matrix. This matrix again will be quite sparse since the
number of flows listed in a process is generally on the order of 10 to 20.
For small-scale LCA projects, a Microsoft Excel-based process matrix model could suffice
and provide the same quantitative results, yet will not provide the graphical and other
supporting interpretation afforded by other LCA software tools. The process matrix models
will, in general, represent more technological activity than bottom-up process flow diagrams
because of the addition of many upstream matrix coefficients, and thus will generally estimate
higher environmental flows.
E-resources: The Chapter 9 folder shows two forms of the US LCI database represented
as a complete matrix of 746 processes in Excel. The main (larger file size) spreadsheet shows
all of the intermediate steps of building the matrices, including the raw exported data from
SimaPro, matrices normalized by functional unit, transposed, inverted, etc., on separate
worksheets. It also has a ‘Model Inputs and Tech Results’ worksheet where you enter
production values for processes and see the ‘direct’ (just the top-level technical requirements
for the product chosen – as would be shown in the LCI module of the chosen process), total
(X) using the inverted technology matrix, and E results. You can look at this spreadsheet and
its cell formulas, especially those involving array formulas, to see how such models can be
built from databases. Amongst the many features of this larger spreadsheet are that the
coefficients of the A and B matrices can be modified, and changes would ripple through the
model. A second spreadsheet (filename appended with “smaller”) is the same model, but with
just the final resulting matrices, without intermediate matrix math steps. It has the same
functionality, but is significantly smaller in size. It may be more appropriate to use for building
models that will not modify any of the A or B matrix coefficients.
These two spreadsheets work by entering a desired input of process Y into the blue column
of the ‘Model’ worksheet to estimate the direct and total technical requirements X and the
environmental effects E, shown in yellow cells. Values entered must be pertinent to the listed
functional unit of the product (i.e., check whether energy products have units of MJ or kWh).
While the resulting values may be intimidating (746x949 entries), all possible detail is visible
which is not possible in other tools. The spreadsheet formats ‘significant’ results in red, in this
case greater than 0.000001, since imperfect matrix inversion results in many very small values
(less than 10-16) throughout the model which can be treated as negligible.
Example: Estimating the life cycle fossil CO2 emissions of bituminous coal-fired
electricity using a process matrix model of the US LCI database.
We can estimate the total fossil CO2 emissions of making coal-fired electricity in the US using
the Microsoft Excel US LCI e-resource spreadsheets. The first step is determining the
appropriate model unit process and input value to use. The same product used in other US
LCI examples, Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant/US, (process number 416 of 747 US LCI
processes when sorted alphabetically) is chosen and an input value of 3.6 MJ (equal to 1 kWh)
is used. Figure 9-3 shows the ‘direct’ technical flows from this input, corresponding to the
seven direct inputs needed for this product in the US LCI data module for this process. Values
can be extracted from the US LCI spreadsheet model by copy/pasting the columns with the
process names (column A) and direct outputs (column E).
Flows prepended with “Dummy” in the US LCI database were not discussed in Chapter 5.25
In short, these are known technical flows for a process, but for which no LCI data are included
within the system boundary of the US LCI model (i.e., they are not connected to other
upstream flows in the matrix). They thus act only as tracking entries in the model.
Product Unit Flow

Transport, train, diesel powered/US tkm 0.461
Bituminous coal, at mine/US kg 0.442
Transport, barge, average fuel mix/US tkm 0.056
Dummy_Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to unspecified treatment/US kg 0.044
Dummy_Disposal, ash and flue gas desulfurization sludge, to unspecified reuse/US kg 0.014
Transport, combination truck, diesel powered/US tkm 0.003
Dummy_Transport, pipeline, coal slurry/US tkm 0.002
Figure 9-3: Direct technological flows from 3.6 MJ (1 kWh) of Electricity, bituminous coal, at power
plant in US LCI Process Matrix
The values of X and E for all processes and flows are also shown in the spreadsheet. Figure
9-4 shows the elements of X with physical flows greater than 0.001 in magnitude. There are
18 more products upstream of electricity than in the ‘direct’ needs. While, as expected, the
process matrix values for the same physical products are larger in Figure 9-4 than in Figure
9-3, the differences are generally small. We can also see that the additional amount of
bituminous coal-fired electricity needed across the upstream chain within the process matrix
model is small (0.037 MJ).
The Air, carbon dioxide, fossil, column (number 231 out of 949 flows) shows the estimate of total
emissions of fossil CO2 across the entire process matrix, 1.0334 kg CO2 (with apologies for
the abuse of significant figures). While larger, this result is only marginally more than the result
from the process flow diagram approach. This is not surprising, though, because it is well
known that the main contributor of CO2 emissions in fossil electricity generation is the
combustion of fuels at the power plant, which was included in the process flow diagram. If
we were to choose a different product for analysis, we may see substantially higher
environmental flows as a result of having the greater boundary within the process matrix.
Note that the US LCI data provides information on various other carbon dioxide flows which
have not been included in our scope. There are two “Raw” flows of CO2 (as inputs), as well
as 4 other air emissions. The only other notable one of these is the Air, carbon dioxide, biogenic
flow, which represents non-fossil emissions, such as from biomass management.
25 These flows are now referred to as “CUTOFF” processes, not “dummy”. The text and spreadsheet examples still say “Dummy”.
Output
Functional Value
Process Unit X
Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant/US MJ 3.637
Transport, train, diesel powered/US tkm 0.466
Bituminous coal, at mine/US kg 0.447
Dummy_Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to underground deposit/US kg 0.105
Electricity, at grid, US/US MJ 0.068
Transport, barge, average fuel mix/US tkm 0.057
Dummy_Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to unspecified treatment/US kg 0.044
Transport, barge, residual fuel oil powered/US tkm 0.044
Transport, ocean freighter, average fuel mix/US tkm 0.037
Transport, ocean freighter, residual fuel oil powered/US tkm 0.033
Electricity, nuclear, at power plant/US MJ 0.015
Dummy_Disposal, ash and flue gas desulfurization sludge, to unspecified kg 0.014
reuse/US
Transport, barge, diesel powered/US tkm 0.012
Electricity, natural gas, at power plant/US MJ 0.012
Crude oil, at production/RNA kg 0.008
Dummy_Transport, pipeline, unspecified/US tkm 0.007
Dummy_Electricity, hydropower, at power plant, unspecified/US MJ 0.005
Transport, ocean freighter, diesel powered/US tkm 0.004
Transport, combination truck, diesel powered/US tkm 0.003
Dummy_Transport, pipeline, coal slurry/US tkm 0.002
Electricity, residual fuel oil, at power plant/US MJ 0.002
Electricity, lignite coal, at power plant/US MJ 0.002
Natural gas, at extraction site/US m3 0.001
Natural gas, processed, at plant/US m3 0.001
Electricity, biomass, at power plant/US MJ 0.001
Figure 9-4: Total technological flows (X) from 3.6 MJ (1 kWh) of Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant in
US LCI Process Matrix, abridged
Figure 9-5 shows the top products that emit CO2 in the upstream process chain of bituminous
coal-fired electricity. As previously discussed, the combustion of coal at the power plant results
in 97% of the total estimated emissions. The emissions from rail transport by train are another
1%. Thus, our original process flow diagram model from Chapter 5, which we motivated as a
simple example, ended up representing 98% of the CO2 emissions from coal-fired electricity
found in the more complex process matrix model.
Process Emissions Percent of

(kg) Total
Total 1.033
Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant/US 1.004 97.2%
Diesel, combusted in industrial boiler/US 0.011 1.0%
Transport, train, diesel powered/US 0.009 0.9%
Electricity, natural gas, at power plant/US 0.002 0.2%
Residual fuel oil, combusted in industrial boiler/US 0.002 0.2%
Transport, barge, residual fuel oil powered/US 0.001 0.1%
Natural gas, combusted in industrial boiler/US 0.001 0.1%
Gasoline, combusted in equipment/US 0.001 0.1%
Electricity, lignite coal, at power plant/US 0.001 0.1%
Transport, ocean freighter, residual fuel oil powered/US 0.001 0.1%
Bituminous coal, combusted in industrial boiler/US 0.001 0.0%
Figure 9-5: Top products contributing to emissions of fossil CO2 for 1 kWh of bituminous coal-fired
electricity. Those representing more than 1% are bolded.
One of the aspects of the ISO Standard that we did not discuss in previous chapters is the use
of cut-off criteria, which define a threshold of relevance to be included or excluded in a study.
For example, the cut-off may say to only include individual components that are 1% or more
of the total emissions. The Standard motivates the use of cut-off criteria for mass, energy, and
environmental significance, which would mean that we could define cut-off values for these
aspects for which a process is included within the boundary (and can be excluded if not). As
an example, if we set a cut-off criterion of 1% for environmental significance, and our only
inventory concern was for fossil CO2 to air, then we could choose to only consider the first
two processes which comprise 98.2% of the total (three processes if we rounded off
conservatively to 99.1%) listed in Figure 9-5. Likewise, with a cut-off criterion of 0.1%, we
would only need to consider the first 10. Neither of these cut-off criteria significantly affects
our overall estimate of CO2 emissions.
Cut-off criteria could be similarly applied for other effects. Mass-based cut-off criteria could
be evaluated by considering the mass of subcomponents of a product. In all cases, the cut-off
criteria apply to the effects of the whole system boundary, not to each product or process in
the system, so if the product system were fairly large, it is possible that many initially scoped
parts of the system could be excluded based on the cut-off criteria. For example, if the system
studied is the life cycle of an automobile, and the scope is fossil CO2 emissions (which would
likely be dominated by burning fuels in the use phase), then electricity use in production of
the vehicle may not be large enough to matter. In that case, all the results in the example above
would be excluded.
The other side of the cut-off criteria selection decision issue is that of truncation error. LCI
models are inevitably truncated when arbitrary or small boundaries are used. Thus, studies
showing the effects of truncation can compare the results from within a selected boundary
(e.g., a process flow diagram approach) as compared to those with a complete (e.g., process
matrix or IO system) boundary. In the example above, the truncation error is very small as
long as the ‘at power plant’ effects are within the boundary, but such errors can sometimes be
substantial as analysts define boundaries based on what they think are the important
components without knowledge of which are the most important. In the end, the process
matrix approach is yet another valuable screening tool, albeit one with substantial process-
based detail, to be used in setting analysis boundaries.
Truncation error in LCA models
The process flow diagram approach is particularly vulnerable to missing data resulting
from choices of analytical boundaries, also called truncation error. Lenzen (2000) reports
that truncation errors on the boundaries will vary with the type of product or process
considered, but can be on the order of 50% (i.e., 50% of the effects may be truncated). To
make process-oriented LCA possible at all, truncation of some sort is essential. From your
observations of the components of process matrix models, you may have noticed that they
are often dominated by manufacturing and energy production processes, with limited or
no data associated with support services. This becomes less important for studies with
narrow scopes that exclude such ancillary services, however, such studies become
necessarily limited in value.
As you have seen in this chapter, the process matrix approach provides an innovative way to
use our process data models. The results from using the matrix approach will generally be
larger and more comprehensive compared to the simpler process diagram approach, in the
same way as when we used IO models. This is because the process flow diagram approach is
inherently limited by what is included in the boundary. To some extent, a process flow diagram
approach assumes by default that everything excluded from the diagram doesn’t matter. But
as we have seen with the process matrix (and IO) approaches, it is difficult to determine what
matters until you have considered these larger boundaries. We should generally expect IO
models to estimate the largest amount of flows, as they comprise the whole economy within
the boundary, including overhead and service sectors, which are rarely included in LCI
databases. It is for this reason that IO models are often used to pre-screen the needed effort
for a more comprehensive process-based analysis.
Note though that process matrix approaches based solely on information from databases may
not be significantly better than a process flow diagram model. Databases are often populated
with average data (like IO models) and if assessing a system with processes significantly
different than the average, the model will not yield relevant results. In those cases, it may be
beneficial to build a parallel process matrix that replaces values in the process matrix from the
database with updated information like primary data collected for the study.
Extending process matrix methods to post-production stages

In our examples above, the boundaries have only included the cradle to gate (including
upstream) effects. We can extend our linear systems methods to include downstream effects
as well, such as use and end-of-life management, since again this will merely involve adding
rows and columns, as well as additional coefficients, to the matrices.
In this case, lets build on the example from Figure 9-1 but where we make alternative
descriptions of the processes involved. Assume that we want to make a lamp product requiring
fuel and electricity to manufacture it, and that it will be disposed of in a landfill by a truck. We
had previously referred to fuel production as process 1, and electricity production as process
2. Now we add lamp production as process 3, and disposal as process 4. Specifically, lets
assume that producing each lamp requires 10 litres of fuel and 300 kWh of electricity (and
emits 5 kg CO2), and finally that disposing of the lamp at the end of its life consumes 2 litres
of fuel (and emits 1 kg CO2).
Our linear system can be written as in system 9-5:
20 X1 - 2 X2 - 10 X3 - 2 X4 = Y1
0 X1 + 10 X2 - 300 X3 + 0 X4 = Y2
0 X1 + 0 X2 + 1 X3 + 0 X4 = Y3
0 X1 + 0 X2 + 0 X3 + 1 X4 = Y4 (9-5)
where
20 −2 −10 −2
0 10 −300 0
Ç=õ ú
0 0 1 0
0 0 0 1
In this case, when we have an input (Y) to the system of one produced lamp and one disposed
lamp, the total production is:
. 05 . 01 3.5 0.1 0 3.6

Ö+0 0.1 30 0 ú õ0ú õ 30 ú
ó=Ç î=õ =
0 0 1 0 1 1
0 0 0 1 1 1
Thus, in order to produce 1 lamp (the output of 1 lamp unit process), 3.6 units of fuel and 30
units of electricity are also needed. If we only model CO2 emissions, then
ò = [10 1 5 1]
and E = 72 kg of CO2. While the system has few interrelationships, it may not be as easy to
validate this result as before, but if we think through our production, we need to make 72 litres
of fuel (12 litres from producing the lamp and disposing of it, and 60 litres from making
electricity), 300 kWh of electricity (all for making the lamp), and 1 lamp for every lamp
produced. The total emissions of 72 kg come from 36 kg of CO2 from fuel production, 30 kg
CO2 from electricity production, 5 kg from lamp production, and 1 kg from disposal. Thus,
our results make sense.
While not shown here, we could add another row and column to represent use of the lamp.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Process and IO Life Cycle Methods

Before considering other advanced LCA methods, we summarize the strengths and
weaknesses of process and IO methods. Both IO-LCA and process modeling have their
advantages and drawbacks. In principle, they can yield quite different results. If so, the analyst
would need to make a closer examination to determine the reasons for the differences and
which one or combination of the two gives the best estimate. Figure 9-6 compares the
strengths and weaknesses of the two types of LCA models.
Process Models Input-Output
Detailed process-specific analyses Economy-wide, comprehensive assessments (direct

and indirect environmental effects included)
Specific product comparisons
Advantages System LCA: industries, products, services, national
Process improvements, weak point economy
analyses
Sensitivity analyses, scenario planning
Future product development
assessments Publicly available data, reproducible results
Future product development assessments
Information on every commodity in the economy
System boundary setting subjective Some product assessments contain aggregate data
Tend to be time intensive and Process assessments difficult

costly
Difficulty in linking dollar values to physical units
New process design difficult
Disadvantages
Economic and environmental data may reflect past

Use of proprietary data practices
Cannot be replicated if Imports treated as U.S. products

confidential data are used
Difficult to apply to an open economy (with
Uncertainty in data substantial non-comparable imports)
Non-U.S. data availability a problem
Uncertainty in data
Figure 9-6: Advantages and Disadvantages of Process and IO-Based Approaches
The main advantage of a process model is its ability to examine, in whatever detail is desired,
the inputs and discharges for a particular process or product. The main disadvantage is that
gathering the necessary data for each unit process can be time consuming and expensive. In
addition, process models require ongoing comparison of tradeoffs to ensure that sufficient
process detail is provided while realizing that many types of relevant processes may not have
available data. Even though process matrix methods are quick and comprehensive, their
boundaries still do not include all relevant activities. Process models improve and extend the
possibilities for analysis, but we often cannot rely wholly on process models.
The main advantage of an IO approach is its comprehensiveness, it will by default include all
production-based activities within the economy. Its main disadvantage is its aggregated and
average nature, where entire sectors are modeled as having equal impact (e.g., no
differentiation between types of electricity). IO-based models simplify our modeling effort
and avoid errors arising from the necessary truncation or boundary definition for the network
of process models. An IO model’s operation at this aggregate level fails to provide the detailed
information required for some analyses.
Categories of Hybrid LCA Models

An inevitable goal is thus to develop hybrid LCA methods that combine the best features of
process and IO-based approaches. In general, hybrid approaches use either a process-based
or IO model as the core model, but use elements of the other approach to extend the utility
of the overall model.
While Bullard (1978) was perhaps the first to discuss such hybrid methods, Suh (2004)
categorizes the types of hybrid models in LCA as follows: tiered, input-output based, and
integrated hybrid analysis.
In a tiered hybrid analysis, specific process data are used to model several key components
of the product system (such as direct and downstream effects like use phase and end of life),
while input-output analysis is used for the remaining components. If the process and IO
components of a tiered hybrid analysis are not linked, the hybrid total results can be found by
summing the LCI results of the process and IO components without further adjustment (but
identified double counted results should be deducted). The point or boundary at which the
system switches from process to IO-based methods is arbitrary but can be affected by
resources and data available. This boundary should thus be selected carefully, to reduce model
errors. Note that unlike many of the other methods discussed in this book, there are no
standard rules for performing the various types of hybrid analysis.
In tiered hybrid models, the input–output matrix and its coefficients are generally not
modified. Thus, analysis can be performed rapidly, allowing integration with design procedures
and consideration of a wide range of alternatives. Process models can be introduced wherever
greater detail is needed or the IO model is inadequate. For example, process models may be
used to estimate environmental impacts from imported goods or specialized production.
The most basic type of tiered hybrid model is one where the process and IO components are
not explicitly linked other than by the functional unit. An example of such a tiered hybrid
model could be in estimating the life cycle of a consumer product. In this case, one could use
an IO-based method, e.g., EIO-LCA, to estimate the production of the product (and
depending on which kind of IO model used, the scope of this could be cradle to gate or cradle
to consumer). Process based methods could then be used to consider the use phase and
disposal of the product.
Example 9-1: Tiered separable hybrid LCA of a Washing Machine
To estimate the flows of a washing machine over its life cycle, we could assume that an EIO-LCA
purchaser basis model is able to estimate the effects from cradle to the point at which the consumer
purchases the appliance. Likewise, we could assume that process data can be used to estimate the
effects of powering the washing machine over its lifetime. We use the data shown in Chapter 3 for
“Washing Machine 1”.
IO component: Assuming that the purchaser price of a new washing machine is $500, we could
estimate the fossil CO2 emissions from cradle to consumer via the 2002 US purchaser price basis
model in EIO-LCA (Household laundry equipment manufacturing sector) as 0.2 tons.
Process components: Using the US-LCI process matrix Excel spreadsheet, we can consider the
production and upstream effects of 10 years’ worth (8,320 kWh) of electricity. Since the functional
unit is MJ, we convert by multiplying by 3.6 (30,000 MJ), and the resulting fossil CO2 emissions are
6,140 kg (6.1 tons).
Note: The US-LCI process matrix has no data on water production and landfilling, so these stages
are excluded from this example.
Total: 6.3 tons fossil CO2.
The description of tiered hybrid methods noted the possibility that the process and IO
components could both be estimating some of the same parts of the product system diagram.
In these cases, common elements should be dealt with by subtracting out results found in the
other part of the model. In Williams et al (2004), the authors performed a hybrid LCA of a
desktop computer. The three main subcomponents of the hybrid model are shown in Figure
9-7, where most of the major pieces of a desktop computer system were modeled via process-
based methods, capital equipment and feedstocks were modeled with IO methods, and the
net “remaining value” of the computer systems not otherwise considered in the two other
pieces were also then modeled with IO methods.
The overall result from Williams is that the total production energy for a desktop computer
system was 6400 MJ, 3140 MJ from the process-sum components, 1100 MJ from the additive
IO component, and 2130 MJ from the remaining value. Common elements were subtracted
but not represented in the values listed above.
Figure 9-7: Subcomponents of Hybrid LCA of Desktop Computer (Source: Williams et al 2004)
Others have used tiered hybrid methods to consider effects of goods and services produced
in other countries when using IO models, which would otherwise assume that impacts of
production would be equal to domestic production.
In an input-output based hybrid analysis, sectors of an IO model are disaggregated into

multiple sectors based on available process data. A frequently mentioned early discussion of
such a method is Joshi (2000), where an IO sector was disaggregated to model steel and plastic
fuel tanks for vehicles. In this type of hybrid model, the process level data allows us to modify
values in the rows or columns of existing sectoral matrices by allocating their values into an
existing and a disaggregated sector.
In Chapter 8, we discussed various aggregated sectors in the US input-output tables, such as

Power generation and supply, where all electricity generation types (as well as transmission and
distribution) activities are all in a single sector. If one could collect sufficient data, this single
sector could be first disaggregated into generation, transmission, and distribution sectors, and
then the generation sector further disaggregated into fossil and non-fossil, and then perhaps
into specific generation types like coal, gas, or wind. Another example of disaggregation that
could be accomplished with sufficient process data is the Oil and gas extraction sector (which
could be disaggregated into oil extraction and gas extraction). Any of these would be possible
with sufficient data, but only if the resulting models would be better than what process-based
methods could achieve.
Of course when disaggregating, all relevant matrices need to be disaggregated and updated,
and to use the disaggregated results in a model, the A matrix and R matrix values need to be
adjusted based on the process data. Since the A and R matrices are already normalized per
unit of currency, it is usually easier to modify and disaggregate make, use, or transaction
matrices for economic values (and then re-normalize them to A) and to disaggregate matrices
with total un-normalized flows to subsequently make R matrices.
Let us consider that we want to build a hybrid LCI model based on Example 8-3 in Chapter
8. At the time a two-sector economy was defined as follows (values in billions):
1 2 Y X
1 150 500 350 1000
2 200 100 1700 2000
V 650 1400
X 1000 2000
Assume that sector 1 is energy and sector 2 is manufacturing, and that we have process data
(not shown) to disaggregate sector 1 into sectors for fuel production (1a) and electricity (1b).
The data tells us that most of the $150 billion purchased by sector 1 from itself is for fuel to
make electricity, and how the value added and final demand is split between the fuel and
electricity subsectors. We verify that the X, V, and Y values for sector 1 in the original example
are equal to the sum of the values across both sectors in the revised IO table.
1a: Fuel 1b: Elec 2: Manuf Y X

1a: Fuel 15 100 300 110 525
1b: Elec 10 25 200 240 475
2: Manuf 100 100 100 1700 2000
V 400 250 1400
X 525 475 2000
The direct requirements matrix for the updated system (rounded to 2 digits) is:
. 03 . 21 . 15
ï
Ç = . 02 . 05 .1 ñ
. 19 . 21 . 05
Finding values for the disaggregated R requires more thought. Emissions of waste per $billion
were 50 g in the original (aggregated) sector 1 and 5 g for sector 2. Thus, the total emissions
of sector 1 were originally (50 g/$billion)($1,000 billion) = 50,000 g. If our available process
data suggests that emissions are 20% from fuel extraction and 80% from electricity, then there
are 10,000 g and 40,000 g, respectively. Given disaggregated sectoral outputs of fuel and
electricity of $525 and $475 billion, the waste factors for sectors 1 and 2 are 19 g and 84 g,
respectively (sector 3’s value is unchanged). The disaggregated R matrix is:
19 0 0
Ü=ï0 84 0ñ
0 0 5
Following the same analysis as done in Example 8-3 ($100 billion into each of the sectors), the
total waste generated by each of the (now 3) sectors are 2.5, 9.9, and 2.0 kg, respectively. The
new emissions for the disaggregated energy sectors are both fairly different than the original
aggregated sector 1’s emissions of 6.4 kg. The emissions from sector 2 are slightly less (2 kg
compared to the previous 2.2 kg), since the revised A matrix from our hybrid analysis splits
the purchases of energy by sector 2 differently, with relatively less dependence on the more
polluting electricity sector.
This example is intended to demonstrate the method by which one could mathematically
disaggregate an A matrix with process data. Note that complete process data is not required,
and that even limited process data for some of the transactions, coupled with assumptions on
how to adjust other values, can still lead to interesting and relevant hybrid models. For
example, if disaggregating an electricity sector into generation, transmission, and distribution,
purchases of various services by the three disaggregated sectors may not be available.
Assumptions that purchases of services are equal (i.e., divide the original sector’s value by 3),
or proportional to the outputs of the disaggregated sectors (i.e., distribute the original value
by weighted factors) are both reasonable. Given the ultimate purpose of estimating
environmental impact, it’s unlikely any of these choices on how to redistribute effects of a
service sector would have a significant effect on the final results of the hybrid model.
In the final category are integrated hybrid models, where there is a technology matrix that
represents physical flows between processes and an economic IO matrix representing
monetary flows between sectors. The general rationale for wanting to build an integrated
hybrid model is that IO data may be comprehensive but slightly dated, or too aggregated to
be used by itself. Use of process data can attempt to overcome both of these shortcomings.
Both the process and IO matrices in this kind of model use make-use frameworks (see
Advanced Material for Chapter 8), and are linked via flows at the border of both systems.
Unlike the tiered or IO-based approached above, the models are called integrated because the
process level data is fully incorporated into the IO model. Double counting is avoided by
subtracting process-based commodity flows out of the IO framework. Integrated models
require substantially more effort than the other two types of hybrid models because of the
need to manage multiple unit systems (physical and monetary) as well as the need to avoid
double counting of flows through subtraction. They may also require sufficiently detailed
estimates of physical commodity prices across sectors. In general, the goal of an integrated
hybrid model is to form a complete linear system of equations, physical and monetary, that
comprehensively describe the system of interest.
The general structure of such a model, analogous to Equation 8-5, is:
x1m = z11
m m
+ z12 +...+ z1jm +...+ z1n
m
+ y1m (mass)
x 2m = z 21
m m
+ z 22 +...+ z 2jm +...+ z 2n
m
+ y 2m (mass)
x $3 = z $31 + z $32 +...+ z $3j +...+ z $3n + y $3 (dollar)
:
$ $ $
x =z
n n1
+z n2
+...+ z $nj +...+ z $nn + y $n (dollar)
which leads to an A matrix with mixed units which has four separate partitioned matrices
representing fully physical flows, fully monetary flows, and two connecting matrices for the
interacting flows from the physical to monetary and monetary to physical sectors. The models
can be “run” with inputs (Y) of physical and/or monetary flows, and outputs are then physical
and monetary.
Hawkins, et al. (2007) built an integrated hybrid model to comprehensively consider the
implications of lead and cadmium flows in the US. Data on material (physical) flows were
from USGS process-based data. The economic model used was the US 1997 12-sector input-
output model (the most aggregated version of the benchmark model).
E-resource: The Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for the Hawkins (2007) lead and cadmium
models is available on the course website as a direct demonstration of the data needs and
calculation methods for an integrated hybrid model (see the paper for additional model
details).
From the Hawkins model, Figure 9-8 shows direct and indirect physical and monetary flows
from an input of final demand of $10 million into the manufacturing sector in 1997. Since the
focus of this model is on lead, the left side of the graph summarizes flows (kg) through the
physical lead-relevant sectors of the mixed-unit model while the right side of the graph
summarizes monetary flows ($ millions) through the economic model. While the
manufacturing sector is highly aggregated in this model, it shows the significant flows of lead
through various physical sectors needed in the manufacturing sector. While a more
disaggregated IO model may provide higher resolution insights into the specific flows of lead
through manufacturing sectors, even this highly aggregated model required a person-year of
effort to complete, and pushed the limits of the available USGS physical flow data. Given the
specific data needs of these models, it is likely that a more disaggregated model is not possible
given available process data.
tonnes million $
16.7
13.7
8 2.0
Monetary Requirements
6 1.5
(million $)
(tonnes)
million
Lead
4 1.0
2 0.5
0 0.0
er
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ar me g
O s
al S ge ox er
so ag a es
ac n
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L s g
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Figure 9-8: Physical Lead And Monetary Output Required For $10 Million Final Demand Of
Manufacturing Sector Output, 1997 (Source: Hawkins 2007). Output Directly Required Is
Represented By The Hashed Areas While Dotted Gray Regions Depict The Indirect Output.
Chapter Summary
Mathematics allows us to organize generic process data into matrices that can be used to create
process matrix models. These process matrix models share some of the desirable features of
input-output based models such as fast computation and larger boundaries while preserving
desirable process-specific detail. Process matrix models are generally implemented with
existing LCI databases, which only model representative or average processes. However, such
models can be adapted with data for specific processes as needed. As LCA needs evolve,
process and IO models can be combined in various ways resulting in hybrid LCA models that
leverage advantages of the two model types while overcoming some of the disadvantages.
Hybrid LCA models vary with respect to the amount of resources and data needed, integration,
and model development involved. All hybrid models will generally yield more useful results
than a single model. Now that we have introduced all of the core quantitative models behind
LCA, we can learn how to take the next step, impact assessment.
Note that the E-resources provided with this book do not provide spreadsheet forms
of the ecoinvent database, as it is a commercial product. However, if you have a license
for ecoinvent directly from the website, you can request the files needed to construct a process
matrix. If you have an ecoinvent sublicense through purchase of SimaPro, you can use the
“Export Matrix” option mentioned above to create your own Microsoft Excel-based
ecoinvent process matrix. Note that the dimensions of the A matrix for ecoinvent 2.0 will be
roughly 4,000 x 4,000, and the spreadsheet files will quickly become large (the B matrix
dimensions will be 1,600 x 4,000). If trying to use ecoinvent data in a process matrix form, it
is better to use MATLAB or other robust tools given issues in working with matrices of that
size in Excel (see Advanced Material at the end of this chapter).
References for this Chapter

Bullard C. W., Penner P. S., Pilati D.A., “Net energy analysis: handbook for combining process
and input-output analysis”, Resources and Energy, 1978, Vol. 1, pp. 267-313.
Hawkins, T., Hendrickson, C., Higgins, C., Matthews, H. and Suh, S., “A Mixed-Unit Input-
Output Model for Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment and Material Flow Analysis”,
Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 1024 - 1031, 2007.
Heijungs, R., “A generic method for the identification of options for cleaner products”,
Ecological Economics, 1994, Vol. 10, pp. 69-81.
Joshi, S., “Product environmental life-cycle assessment using input-output techniques”, The
Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2000, 3 (2, 3), pp. 95-120.
Suh, S., and Huppes, G., Methods for Life Cycle Inventory of a Product, Journal of Cleaner
Production, 13:7, June 2005, pp. 687 697.
Suh, S., Lenzen, M., Treloar, G., Hondo, H., Horvath, A., Huppes, G., Jolliet, O., Klann, U.,
Krewitt, W., Moriguchi, Y., Munksgaard, J., and Norris, G., “System Boundary Selection in
Life-Cycle Inventories Using Hybrid Approaches”, Environmental Science and Technology, 2004,
38 (3), pp 657–664.
Williams, Eric, “Energy Intensity of Computer Manufacturing: Hybrid Assessment

Combining Process and Economic Input−Output Methods”, Environmental Science and
Technology, 38 (22), pp. 6166–6174, 2004.
End of Chapter Questions
Objective 1. Define, build, and use a process matrix LCI model from available
process flow data.
Objective 2. Describe the advantages of a process matrix model as compared to a

process flow diagram based model and an input-output based model.
1. Modify the two-process example from the Chapter (Eq. 9-1), and estimate E, if process 1
also requires 1 kWh of electricity as an input.
2. In the three-process linear system (Eq. 9-4), the coal mining process had no electricity input.
Full inputs to the US LCI database for Bituminous coal, at mine are shown in the table below.
Assume that the electricity used in the coal mining process is from bituminous coal-fired (not
grid) electricity. How different are X and E from the original example in the chapter that
produced 1 kWh of electricity? If you instead update the system to use grid electricity how
would you expect your E result to change and why?
Input Unit Amount

Bituminous coal, combusted in industrial boiler kg 0.00043
Diesel, combusted in industrial boiler L 0.0088
Electricity, at grid, US, 2000 kWh 0.039
Gasoline, combusted in equipment L 0.00084
Natural gas, combusted in industrial boiler m3 0.00016
Residual fuel oil, combusted in industrial boiler L 0.00087
Dummy, Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to underground deposit kg 0.24
3. Further expand the three-process system adjusted in Question 2 by adding the Bituminous
coal, combusted in industrial boiler process (and its input at the mine) from US LCI. The table
below shows an abridged list of relevant inputs and outputs for that process for a product
flow of 1 kg of combusted coal in a boiler. Assume other flows are outside of your scope.
What is your updated X and E across the new four-process system for producing 1 kWh?
Input Unit Amount

Bituminous coal, at mine kg 1
Output
Carbon dioxide, fossil kg 2.63
4. The US LCI database contains many unit process models relevant to energy systems
modeling in the United States. Many of these models are physical flow models as opposed to
the economic models we have been discussing lately. In this question, we will create a
streamlined ‘physical flow’ process matrix model of energy production that incorporates the
production from several processes in the US LCI database (from a previous version, pre-SI
units). This problem will test whether you understand process matrix model theory.
We will streamline by only focusing on distillate oil, electricity, gasoline, natural gas, residual
oil, and coal. All other inputs will be ignored. Summarized from the US LCI database are the
following streamlined production functions:
0.375 pounds coal + 0.436 gallons of distillate oil + 9.61 kWh electricity + 0.0321 gallons
gasoline + 3.72 cubic feet natural gas + 0.161 gallons residual oil = 1000 pounds of coal
0.01 gallons distillate + 1.2 kWh electricity + 0.004 gallons gasoline + 49.6 cubic feet of natural
gas + 0.005 gallons residual oil = 1000 cubic feet of natural gas
13.7 kWh electricity + 32.1 ft3 natural gas + 0.589 gals residual oil = 30 gals. of distillate oil
26.4 kWh electricity + 61.7 ft3 natural gas + 1.13 gals residual oil = 65 gallons of gasoline
3.07 kWh electricity + 7.18 ft3 natural gas + 0.132 gals residual oil = 6.3 gallons residual oil
0.75 pounds of coal + 2.56 ft3 natural gas + 0.003 gals of residual fuel oil = 1 kWh of
electricity26
a) Using the production equations above, make a process matrix model to estimate the total
amount of energy (in BTU) needed to produce:
1) 5,000 kWh of electricity (equivalent for one US citizen in a year)
2) 230 gallons of gasoline (rough average per household driving for a year)
Report your A matrix in order of: coal, gas, distillate, gasoline, residual fuel, and electricity.
For consistency purposes, please only use the conversion factors given at the end of
this question.
b) Validate your results by comparing to data in the EIO-LCA 2002 Benchmark model (the
default model). Explain the differences you find.
Conversion Factors (continued on next page):
Distillate Oil: 138,700 BTU/gallon Electricity: 3,412 BTU/kWh

Gasoline: 125,000 BTU/gallon Natural Gas: 1,000 BTU/ft3
Residual: 150,000 BTU/gallon Crude Oil: 18,600 BTU/pound
26 Note that since some renewable/other sources make electricity in the US, which have been excluded from this
streamlined model, and since coal + natural gas + residual is only 71% of the US electricity fuel mix, each of the NREL
LCI numbers were scaled up by 100/71 to get the production equations above.
Coal: 12,000 BTU/pound Distillate: 18,600 BTU/pound

Gasoline: 18,900 BTU/pound Residual: 17,800 BTU/pound
Objective 2. Describe the advantages of a process matrix model as compared to a
process flow diagram based model and an input-output based model.
Objective 3. Describe the various advantages and disadvantages of process-based

and IO-based LCA models.
Use the E-resource of the 746 x 949 US LCI process matrix model for Questions 5-8. Be
careful not to over-write results of the files (perhaps do not save any of your changes).
5. What final demand of electricity (in $) is needed in the 2002 EIO-LCA producer price model
to yield total fossil CO2 results equivalent to those in the US LCI process matrix Excel
spreadsheet for Electricity, at grid, US? What final demand is needed to yield equivalent total
SO2 air emissions? Discuss how these results provide insight into the challenges of using each
type of model, and why each model type is limited.
6. Compare fossil CO2 sectoral contribution results of the 2002 EIO-LCA producer price
model Power generation and supply sector with the process contribution results of the US LCI
Electricity, at grid US process. Describe the differences in results of these two models, and how
your choice of model would affect results of an LCA study.
Objective 4. Classify various types of hybrid models for LCA, and understand how
they combine advantages and disadvantages of process and IO-based LCA models.
Objective 5. Suggest an appropriate category of hybrid model to use for a given

analysis, including the types of data and process-IO model interaction needed.
7. Estimate the fossil CO2 emissions of 1kg alumina, at plant/US using the US-LCI 746x949
process matrix model. How does your estimate of fossil CO2 emissions change if you apply a
cut-off criterion of 1%, 5%, and 10%? Given these findings and continuing to only be
concerned with fossil CO2, what might be an appropriate cut-off criterion here? What
conditions might apply to your answer?
[Use the full, not ‘smaller’ US LCI Excel model E-resource for Question 8]
8. Similar to question 2, update the US LCI process matrix spreadsheet so that the electricity
input used for Bituminous coal, at mine is Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant (not Electricity, at
grid, US). Now for 1 kWh of Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant, how different are X and
ECO2 from those in Figures 9-3 through 9-5 and from Question 2? Note: recall the US LCI
spreadsheet models electricity flow in MJ not kWh (3.6 MJ = 1 kWh)!
Have a problem where I truncate by hand the process matrix and have them run the same
input into each and discuss results and effects of truncation?
AIV question 1 from HW 3 (EIO, Simapro)
Ecoinvent Example here?
Advanced Material for Chapter 9 – Section 1 – Process Matrix Models

in MATLAB
In this section, we build on the material presented in the chapter about process matrix models,
which have already been demonstrated in Microsoft Excel, by showing how to implement
them in MATLAB.
One of the benefits of using MATLAB is that it is well suited for manipulating a series of
consecutive operations quickly and in real-time, without needing to save versions of
normalized or inverted matrices for later use (e.g., as required for the Excel version of the
model introduced in the chapter, leading to its large file size).
E-resource: In the online supplemental material for Chapter 9 is a ZIP file containing
matrix files and an .m file for the US LCI database (746 processes, 949 flows) that can be used
in MATLAB. The A and B matrices are identical to those used in the Excel US LCI model.
A subset of code in USLCI_process_matrix_code.m is below, which shows the MATLAB

implementation of the same US LCI process matrix model as in the US LCI process matrix
spreadsheets discussed in the chapter. Since the models were developed with the same
parameters exported from SimaPro and using the same algorithm, results are identical.
% matrices assumed to be in workspace (USLCI.mat):

% USLCI_Atech_raw - technology matrix from exported matrix (A)
% env_factors - environmental coefficients in exported matrix (B)
% funct_units - row of functional units from exported Matrix
clear all
load(‘USLCI.mat’)
% makes a “repeated matrix” with funct_units down columns
funct_units_mat=repmat(funct_units,746,1);
norm_Atech_raw=USLCI_Atech_raw./funct_units_mat; % normalizes the
A matrix by functional units
L=inv(eye(746)-norm_Atech_raw); % this is the I-A inverse matrix
y=zeros(746,1);
funct_units_env=repmat(funct_units,949,1); % same as above except
has 949 rows
env_factors_norm=env_factors./funct_units_env;
co2fossil=env_factors_norm(231,:); % row vector for the fossil CO2
flow
% as example, enter a value into the y vector to be run through

the model
% default example here is 1 kWh into the bituminous coal-fired
electricity process, which is process number 416 out of 746
y(416,1)=3.6; %% funct unit basis is in MJ, this is MJ per kWh
(so 1 kWh)
out=L*y; % analogous to x = [I-A]inverse * y
co2out=co2fossil*out;
co2outcols=diag(co2fossil)*out;
sum(co2outcols) % result of running this script will be the sum
of fossil CO2 emissions throughout the upstream process matrix
This example code considers the effects of 1 kWh of Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant as
done in the chapter. As the comments in the code show, a value of 3.6 MJ is used as an input
into the vector y in row 416, which is the row index in the model for the coal-fired electricity
sector in the US LCI model.
If we run the .m code either by double clicking it in the MATLAB window, or selecting it and
choosing the “Run” menu option, the result is 1.0334, which matches the Microsoft Excel
version of the model.
Like the US LCI Excel model, the intermediate and final matrix results can be viewed. While
all numerical results are visible, they are less user-friendly than in Excel, where the lists and
names of processes can be kept in rows and columns (but are not available in MATLAB). You
need to separately track or memorize row and column indices in MATLAB. However, the
MATLAB files consume considerably less space because they can quickly generate all
intermediate matrices needed while running the code.
End of Section Questions
Use the US LCI MATLAB environment E-resource (and writing or editing MATLAB code
as needed) to answer these questions.
1. Estimate the fossil CO2 emissions of 1 kg Alumina, at plant/US using the US-LCI 746x949
process matrix model.
2. Make changes to the process matrix so that the electricity input used for Bituminous coal, at
mine is Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant (not Electricity, at grid, US). Now for 1 kWh of
Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant, how different are X and ECO2 from those in Figures 9-3
through 9-5? Note: recall the US LCI data models electricity flow in MJ not kWh (3.6 MJ =
1 kWh)!

in SimaPro
In the Advanced Material for Chapter 5, demonstrations were provided on how to find
process data in SimaPro. Here we show how the process matrix LCI results of a particular
process can be viewed in SimaPro – this is not the same as building a model in SimaPro, but
is an important first step. Recall that SimaPro uses the same process matrix-based approach
as shown for Microsoft Excel in the chapter.
Using the same steps as shown in Chapter 5, find and select the US LCI database process for
Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant. Click the analyze button (shown highlighted by the
cursor in Figure 9-9 below).
Figure 9-9: Analyze Feature Used in SimaPro to View Data
The resulting window allows you to set some analysis options, as shown in Figure 9-10.
Figure 9-10: New Calculation Setup Window in SimaPro
If needed, change the amount from 1 to 3.6 MJ in the calculation setup window. Click the
Calculate button. In the resulting window (shown in Figure 9-11), click the “Process
contribution” tab. This shows the total technical flows from other products / processes
needed to make the chosen (3.6 MJ) amount of electricity. Note the default units checkbox
ensures the normally used units (e.g., kg) are displayed, otherwise SimaPro will try to maintain
3 digits and move to a higher or lower order unit (e.g., grams).
Figure 9-11: Results of Process Contribution Analysis for Process in SimaPro
You will see that these values are the same as those presented by the Microsoft Excel
spreadsheets for the US LCI database (shown in Figure 9-4), but SimaPro tends to maintain
three significant digits, so the results may be slightly different due to rounding. Clicking on the
inventory tab of the results window shows the E matrix results for all tracked flows (Figure
9-12). Substances, compartments, and units are presented. While not all are shown, the results
from the US LCI process matrix Excel spreadsheet would match those here. Note that
SimaPro shows the same value for fossil CO2 (1.03 kg/kWh).
Figure 9-12: Inventory Results in SimaPro
The final part to explore is the Network tab view. This tool creates a visualization of flows for
the entire network of connected processes (as summarized in the process contribution tab).
By default, SimaPro will truncate the Network display so as to reasonably draw the network
system without showing all flows. Figure 9-13 shows a default network diagram for fossil CO2,
with an assumed cut-off of about 0.09%. This cut-off can be increased or decreased to see
more or less of the network.
There will be more discussion of how network analysis works in Chapter 12.
Figure 9-13: SimaPro Network view of process outputs (excerpt)
Further discussion of modeling with SimaPro is in a later chapter, but the analysis of LCI and
LCA results uses this same analyze feature.

in openLCA
As with SimaPro, openLCA also uses a process matrix approach behind the scenes of the tool.
Again the focus on this Section will be on how to view LCI results.
To do this, start openLCA as described previously, and click on the “Product systems” folder
under the US LCI data folder. Choose the “Create a new product system” option. You may
name it whatever you like, and optionally give it a description. In the reference process
window, drill down through Utilities and then Fossil Fuel Electric Power Generation to find
the Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant process. Keep both options at the bottom of the
window selected (as shown in Figure 9-14).
Figure 9-14: Creation of a New Product System in openLCA
You may then choose the calculate button at the top of the window (the green arrow with x+y
written on it) to do the analysis of the process, as shown in Figure 9-15.
Figure 9-15: Product System Information in openLCA
In the calculation properties dialog box, choose the “Analysis” calculation type, then click the
Calculate button as shown in Figure 9-16.
Figure 9-16: Calculation Properties Window in openLCA
The resulting window (not shown) has various tabs to display tables and graphs of the process
matrix-calculated upstream results for your product system (your selected process in this case).
If you enable it in the openLCA preferences, you can also download a spreadsheet export of
analysis results here. The “LCI – Total” tab summarizes the inputs and outputs from the
process matrix calculation as shown in Figure 9-17. Again, these are very similar to the results
from the US LCI Excel spreadsheet or SimaPro. For our usual observation of the CO2 results,
openLCA seems to aggregate all carbon dioxide air emissions into a single value (the US LCI
database tracks 4 separate air emissions of CO2, including biogenic emissions).
Figure 9-17: LCI - Total Results for Product System in openLCA
The “Process results” tab shows the additional detail of the direct inputs and outputs from
the chosen process as well as the total upstream, as shown in Figure 9-18.
Figure 9-18: Process results view in openLCA
Advanced Material for Chapter 9 – Section 4 – Allocation in Process

Matrix Models
Chapter 6 had shown the relevant issues associated with multifunctional product systems, such
as the need to solve them through allocation or system expansion methods. However, Chapter
6 showed how to use such methods in the context of simple process flow diagram-based
models. With our new linear systems models introduced in this chapter, we have a better
structure in place to consider alternative methods and model designs. Figure 9-1 gave the
example of a two-product system - fuel and electricity - developed in a linear system of
equations (matrix) format. In this section, we demonstrate how the allocation and system
expansion techniques can be implemented in a process matrix system.
Figure 9-19 shows a modified two-product system, where the second unit process is
multifunctional, in that it produces heat and electricity through cogeneration.
Figure 9-19: Process Diagrams for Two-Process System with Heat
For such a system, we would have a third process representing the production of heat, and
the A matrix would be
20 −2
Ç=ï0 10 ñ
0 18
but this is an over-determined system of equations, and A can not be inverted. Clearly we can
not use this system description to find a solution.
As discussed in Chapter 6, it is possible that the additional production of 18 MJ of heat avoids

the production of 18 MJ of heat from some standalone heat generation process. The method
in which the multifunctional problem is solved using this intuition is referred to as the
substitution method. In this method, we assume there is a standalone unit process (as shown
in Figure 9-20) for the avoided production of the function heat.
Figure 9-20: Process Diagram for Standalone Heat Process
If we again assume that heat is the third unit process in the system of equations, then we have
a new A matrix for the system of equations:
20 −2 −5
ï
Ç = 0 10 0ñ
0 18 90
so the total production across the system for making 1,000 kWh of electricity is:
. 05 0.005 0.0028 0 5
ó = ÇÖ+ î = ï 0 0.1 0 ñ ï1000 ñ = ï 100 ñ
0 −0.02 0.011 0 −20
Compared to the X result from this chapter ([10; 100]), we see that the scale factor of
production from process 1, fuel, is half – 5 versus 10 – and that the scale factor of process 2,
electricity, is identical (i.e., 100, which produces 1,000 kWh). The significance of the negative
value (-20) for process 3 is a reminder of the substitution effect, or as discussed in this chapter,
the ‘credit’ as a result of the provision of heat as a multifunctional output of process 2. In our
case, given a scaling factor of 100 for electricity (which produces 1,000 kWh) we co-produce
1,800 MJ of heat, which is equal to a substitution of a scale factor of 20 for process 3 (i.e., 20
times 90 MJ).
These results should be expected. In the substitution method, we should expect that our scale
factor from the multifunctional process (P2) will be the same. Since the substituted process
(P3) has fuel (P1) as an input, the production of fuel should decrease. Finally, we should expect
a negative scale factor for the standalone unit process that makes heat.
The updated B matrix representing flows of crude oil, SO2, and CO2 is shown by:
−50 0 0
ò=ï 2 0.1 0ñ
10 1 3
and E is found using the same method as in the chapter:
−250
ô = ùó = 20 ñ
ï
90
Here, the quantity of crude oil input needed is half as much as before (which makes sense
given the half as big scale factor for process 1), that the emissions of SO2 are about 1/3 less.
The CO2 emissions decrease by more than half (90 versus 200 kg), mostly because we have
‘credited’ our electricity generation process for the substitution of separately produced heat (-
60 kg) but also because we only produced half as much fuel (-50kg).
These are the same results we would have achieved by doing the same problem without a
linear system or matrices, but the matrix arrangement helps to organize the answer. In
addition, as we have noted throughout Chapter 9, the process matrix method connects
upstream technology processes, so that circularity or other interconnected technological flows
(and thus environmental flows) are considered. Thus the matrix method would ensure these
effects were considered within the boundary of the system, and would not have to be
separately accounted for by hand.
E-resource: Examples in this Advanced Material Section are also included in the ‘Chapter
9 Excel Matrix Math’ spreadsheet.
Matrix-Based Allocation
As discussed in the Chapter, it is these types of results that leads to considerations or desires
to allocate flows. While partitioning and system expansion are preferred, allocation is still
sometimes needed. From a matrix perspective, allocation is straightforward.
In a system such as the one shown in Figure 9-19, where there are only 2 product outputs in
a multifunctional unit process (P2), we only need a single variable (e.g., l) to represent the
effect of allocation. Since the sum of allocation factors must equal 1, the allocation factors for
the two products are l and (1- l)27. In such a system, we would consider the original processes
P1 and P2, and separate P2 into a process P2’ that produces electricity and P3’ that produces
heat. The input and output flows from the original P2 are allocated (by l) across the revised
processes P2’ and P3’.
For the modified three unit process system of equations, the A matrix is generally
20 −2ü −2(1 − ü) −50 0ü 0(1 − ü)

Ç′ = ï 0 10 0 ñ and ò′ = 2
† 0.1ü 0.1(1 − ü)°
0 0 18 10 1ü 1(1 − ü)
27The approach is independent of the type of allocation done (mass, energy, volume, etc.). For unit processes with more than two
products, the approach is similar, but additional variables are needed. Allocation factors must still sum to 1.
Considering, for example, the specific case of l=0.7,
20 −1.4 −0.6 −50 0 0

Ç′ = ï 0 10 0 ñ and ò′ = ï 2 0.07 0.03ñ
0 0 18 10 0.7 0.3
Using the same final demand of 1,000 kWh of electricity,
. 05 0.007 0.002 0 7 −350

ó = Ç′Ö+ î = ï 0 0.1 0 ñ ï1000 ñ = ï100ñ and ô = ï 21 ñ
0 0 0.056 0 0 140
Similar to what was noted above, the scale factor for electricity is unchanged from our previous
examples, which is expected. The scale factor for fuel production is decreased, which makes
sense since the mono-functional P2’ now needs less fuel input. Finally, the scale factor for
mono-functional heat process P3’ is zero, which is not a surprise since it is not needed to
produce electricity and is disconnected from the rest of the system. In this particular case (for
generating electricity), it could have been left out of consideration. On the other hand, if we
ran the model for a final demand of heat, it would be relevant.
This section has shown how we can use our newly developed process matrix systems of
equations to more efficiently solve the multifunctional system challenges motivated in Chapter
6.
Advanced Material for Chapter 9 – Section 5 – Hybrid EIO-LCA

Models
In this section we briefly demonstrate an advanced feature of the EIO-LCA website which
allows a user to estimate the effects of adjusted purchase requirements for existing sector. This
is one of two custom advanced models available (the other was described in the Advanced
Material of Chapter 8).
From the ‘Use the Model’ page of EIO-LCA, select the ‘Create Custom Model’ tab in the top
center of the page (as shown in the screenshot below). On the resulting page, select the ‘hybrid
product’ link.
The hybrid product tool allows you to perform a hybrid life cycle assessment (LCA) for a
product. The term ‘hybrid’ here indicates that you will be able to create your own theoretical
sector through which you will be able to model a different production process based on input-
output data from the EIO-LCA model and process LCA data to which you may have access.
This feature will allow you to look beyond the aggregation of existing EIO-LCA sectors and
towards a more fine-tuned analysis of various custom products, including early development,
hypothetical, or existing products that may not be adequately modeled with the existing
aggregation of the input-output sector in question (i.e., an electric car, hydrogen fuel cell, or
specific existing product).
This tool works by allowing you to modify the default input purchase requirements of an
existing IO sector in order to simulate production of the related production process (as
opposed to the custom builder described in Chapter 8 which allows for multiple final demand
entries). In other words, this tool provides different cells for the A matrix, as opposed to
additional entries for the Y vector.
To use the custom product builder, step one is to choose the EIO-LCA ‘model year’ to be
used (e.g., 1997 or 2002, producer or purchaser basis) and click the ‘Change Model’ button, as
shown in the screenshot below.
In step two, you choose an existing sector for which you assume production is similar (in
order to build your adjusted model from). The sector selection interface works similarly as
other EIO-LCA models already discussed. Once the sector has been chosen, you enter a
relative amount of final demand on which to base the model. As with other models shown, it
may be relevant to choose a higher level of demand than you are interested in modeling, and
then scale results back down since IO models are linear (see below). Once the amount of
economic activity has been entered, click the “Select this Sector” button. This generates a web
page where each of the default level of purchases from the other sectors in the model are
shown on the basis of the input economic activity, and each of the sectoral purchase inputs
can be modified (or left as is). The screenshot below shows an abridged page resulting from
$300,000 ($0.3 million) of Automobile manufacturing in the 2002 EIO-LCA producer model
(many of the 428 rows in the middle of the resulting page have been deleted from the
screenshot). This level of scaling helps to provide data in a unit that is feasible to consider,
and approximately shows the requirements of making ten $30,000 average vehicles in the US
in 2002.
This excerpt shows that for $300,000 of default purchases in the Automobile manufacturing
sector, amongst many other purchases, there are about $430 of production needed from the
two battery sectors, and about $152,000 of motor vehicle parts. If instead of producing a
default average vehicle using the 2002 data, we could, for example, consider the case of
producing a hybrid gas-electric vehicle. Assume that we had information from a separate
process-based source or inventory that hybrid cars as compared to typical internal combustion
engine on the relative amount of batteries versus engines.
For ten hybrid vehicles (as we noticed above given the $300,000 economic input), the vehicles
would likely need more batteries and relatively less in terms of engines (which are in the motor
vehicle parts sector). If we wanted to keep the $300,000 basis we could then shift some of the
$152,000 purchases (which includes engines) into the storage battery sector (which is where
rechargeable batteries are categorized). For example we could split it in half and replace
adjusted values of $76,000 for the Storage battery manufacturing sector and $76,000 in the Motor
vehicle parts manufacturing sector.
The final step is when all needed components of purchases have been modified, you click the
‘Continue’ button at the bottom of the screen, which leads to the usual display of results.
The screenshot below shows the results, and first notes the basis used ($300,000 for the
automobile production sector), then the adjustments made – i.e., nearly $76,000 more to the
battery sector (net of what was already being purchased) and about $76,000 less in
engines/parts.
Comparing these results to those of Figure 8-4, which was total supply chain energy per $1
million of automobiles (8.3 TJ/$1 million), this hybrid combination would consumer more
energy (about 9.2 TJ/$1 million).
If you need additional help with the custom builder tool, see the online EIO-LCA screencasts
(at http://www.eiolca.net/tutorial/ScreencastTutorial/screencasts.html).
Advanced Material for Chapter 9 – Section 6 – Connections in Process

Matrix Models: Comparison of US LCI and EIO-LCA
Definitions of connections and processes
Chapter 8 discussed input-output models, which have a substantial scope in terms of by default
including the entire economy of effects, while we have generally shown that process-based
methods (and by extension, process matrix based methods) as being more limited. In the first
part of this section, we quantitatively show the difference in ‘connections’ that exist in the two
types of models using a specific comparison of the EIO-LCA model and the US LCI database
(as a matrix model).
As the LCI for each process only provides direct inputs or outputs, the indirect inputs or
outputs calculated from the matrix-based LCA method rely on the interconnections between
processes in the system under study. These interconnections are links between processes based
on their respective inventories. In the matrices, a link between two processes is represented
by a non-zero value. In recent years, the interconnections in the LCI database have become
interesting to LCA practitioners. Using graphical methods, Kuczenski (2015) estimated the
interconnections between processes in several LCI databases; this study concluded that all the
databases under consideration shared similar internal structure. Network analysis methods
have also been used in input-output models to determine the key processes in the system
(Singh and Bakshi 2011; Kagawa et al. 2013; Nuss et al. 2016). These studies generally focused
on determining the strongly connected processes in the system with the purpose of
categorizing processes in the databases, and identifying important processes in particular
industries. However, the question of how the database interconnections affect the results from
matrix-based LCA method remains unanswered.
Substantial connections are crucial to evaluate direct and indirect environmental effects. The
coverage of connections determines whether the indirect environmental effects can be fully
captured. This study demonstrates a method to evaluate the effects from the interconnections
in matrix-based methods. The US LCI database is used as a case study. The latest version of
the US LCI database provides 1,060 unit processes. These unit processes have inputs or
outputs from 1,466 elementary flows and other processes. In this study, first, the processes
from the US LCI database were mapped on to the A and B matrices. Then, the inputs and
outputs for each process were evaluated and quantified to demonstrate the coverages of
connections in the database. Last, we compared the connections with the input-output table
and the results from EIO-LCA (Environmental Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment) model
to identify possible missing connections for some processes. In addition, the uncertainties
were analyzed resulting from using alternative utilities for each process.
Matrices mapped from unit processes in the US LCI database
When I conducted the analysis, the US LCI database at that time provided 701 unit processes.
The inventories of these unit processes could be obtained individually from the US LCI
website compiled by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL 2012). To apply the
inventories into matrix-based LCA model, I downloaded the inventory data for all 701 unit
processes and used Matlab software to map their inventories into the A and B matrices.
Following the terminology from above, the results from the mapping showed n=1,471 process
flows and m=2,701 elementary flows in the matrices. I observed some potentially problematic
processes in the matrix mapping and results. These problematic processes affect the
consistency of the inventories in the matrices and could result in inaccurate interpretations in
the matrix-based LCA model. Therefore, before the interconnections in the matrices were
evaluated, I screened potential problematic processes according to three categories: the cut-
off processes, the system boundary, and the flow types.
Cut-off processes
In US LCI, “cut-off” processes, previously labeled as “Dummy” processes, are input products
whose inventories are not yet provided in the current version of the database. For example,
the inventory information of one secondary steel production process (“CUTOFF Steel,
secondary, at plant”) is not yet included in the database. Currently, 525 or 35% of the total
number of processes in US LCI database are cut-off processes. When the database is applied
to a matrix-based LCA model, the presence of cut-off processes, as inputs to a process under
study, results in the neglect of upstream effects. This is because the cut-off processes do not
contribute to the indirect effects.
Cradle-to-gate and gate-to-gate processes
Based on the inclusiveness of the processes’ system boundaries, data in the US LCI database
is associated with two different types of unit processes: “gate-to-gate” and “cradle-to-gate”.
Gate-to-gate processes are unit processes for the production only; the word “gate” indicates
the entry or exit threshold of a factory. Whereas the cradle-to-gate processes also include
upstream inputs and outputs; the word “cradle” indicates the origin of a product.
Let us consider Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as an example product to illustrate how the
two types of processes are listed in the US LCI database. The cradle-to-gate and gate-to-gate
inventories for producing PET were provided in a LCA study (Franklin Associates 2010), and
are shown in Figure 9-21. For PET, the cradle-to-gate process and gate-to-gate process differ
in their material usage and transportation inputs. The four material inputs for the gate-to-gate
process are products from other factories that are incorporated to the production of PET.
The cradle-to-gate PET process is composed of crude oil, natural gas, and oxygen; these are
the raw production materials for the four inputs in the gate-to-gate process. There are
transportation inputs in the cradle-to-gate process, because compared to the gate-to-gate
process, there are more product exchanges between factories or industrial sites.
In the US LCI database, the published inventories in Figure 9-21 were modified to produce
two different unit processes, as shown in Figure 9-22.
Figure 9-21: Inputs in the gate-to-gate and cradle-to-gate processes for PET production from Franklin
Associates’ original LCA study. The two processes differ in material usage and inputs.
Gate-to-gate PET inventory, for 1000kg PET, Cradle-to-gate PET inventory, for 1000kg
provided by Franklin Associates study PET, provided by Franklin Associates study
Material Material
Paraxylene 521 kg Crude oil 568 kg
Ethylene glycol 322 kg Natural gas 215 kg
Acetic acid 37.2kg Oxygen 223 kg
Methanol 35.2 kg
Water consumption 0.537 m3
Energy use Energy use
Electricity (grid) 558 kWh Electricity (grid) 882 kWh
Electricity 9.59 m3 Electricity (cogeneration) 12.1 m3
(cogeneration) 98.1 m3 Natural gas 352 m3
Natural gas 18.9 kg Bit./Sbit. Coal 35.9 kg
Bit./Sbit. Coal 12.8 liter Distillate oil 13.8 liter
Distillate oil 26.8 liter Residual oil 80.1 liter
Residual oil
Transportation
Combination truck 28.5 tkm
Rail 1633 tkm
Barge 139 tkm
Ocean freighter 2717 tkm
Pipeline-natural gas 382 tkm
Pipeline-petroleum 395 tkm
Figure 9-22: Inputs in the gate-to-gate and cradle-to-gate (CTG) processes for PET production
provided by US LCI. Italics used to mark differences from Figure 9-21. Inputs for the CTG process are
broken into upstream raw elementary flows, as opposed to inputs as process flows from original study.
Gate-to-gate PET inventory, for 1000kg PET, provided Cradle-to-gate PET inventory, for 1000kg PET,
by the US LCI database provided by the US LCI database
Material Material
Paraxylene, at plant 521 kg Coal, lignite, in ground 25.3 kg
CUTOFF Ethylene glycol, at plant 322 kg Coal, unprocessed bituminous, in ground 326 kg
Acetic acid, at plant 37.2kg Gas, natural, in ground 222 kg
Methanol, at plant 35.2 kg Oil, crude, in ground 587 kg
Oxygen, in air 243 kg
Uranium oxide, 332 GJ per kg, in ore 6.46 g
Water, process, unspecified natural origin/m3 0.244 m3 Water, process, unspecified natural origin/m3 12.1 m3
Energy use Energy use
Electricity, at grid, US, 2008 558 kWh Gas, natural, in ground 504 m3
Electricity, at cogen, for natural gas turbine 9.59 m3 Oil, crude, in ground 151 kg
Natural gas, combusted in industrial boiler 98.1 m3 Energy, from biomass 5.37 MJ
Bituminous coal, combusted in industrial boiler 18.9 kg Energy, from hydro power 24.8 MJ
Diesel, combusted in industrial equipment 12.8 liter Energy, geothermal 13 MJ
Residual fuel oil, combusted in industrial boiler 26.8 liter Energy, kinetic (in wind), converted 12.9 MJ
Energy, solar 0.547 M
Energy, unspecified 17.4 MJ
Transportation Transportation
Transport, barge, diesel powered 0.655 tkm
Transport, barge, residual fuel oil powered 2.18 tkm
Transport, pipeline, natural gas 0.0876 tkm
Transport, train, diesel powered 1610 tkm
Disposal Disposal
CUTOFF Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to 0.31 kg CUTOFF Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to 128 kg
municipal incineration municipal incineration
CUTOFF Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to 4.19 kg CUTOFF Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to 31.8 kg
sanitary landfill sanitary landfill
CUTOFF Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to 0.59 kg CUTOFF Disposal, solid waste, unspecified, to 0.595 kg
waste-to-energy waste-to-energy
CUTOFF Disposal, solid waste, process, to 1.03 kg

municipal incineration
The US LCI database shows that the gate-to-gate processes link to four other processes flows
in the model as inputs, and the inputs are identical to the inventory provided in the original
LCA study. On the other hand, cradle-to-gate processes in the US LCI database link to other
elementary flows as inputs, and do not have process flows. The US LCI database also includes
further decompositions, such as those derived from Figure 9-21, of the inputs’ raw materials
represented as only elementary flows. For example, “Electricity (grid)” is decomposed into
upstream inputs such as “energy from solar”, and “energy from geothermal”. This
decomposition requires additional assumptions on electricity generation methods. The grid
electricity used in the production is a mix of electricity generated from different types of power
plants. The power plants themselves use different energy sources, such as solar power, to
generate electricity. Thus, in this example, the resulting cradle-to-gate PET inventory is a mix
of unusual energy inputs. In general, this type of decomposition allows the cradle-to-gate
process to have only elementary flows as inputs.
The effects calculated from gate-to-gate processes can be separated into direct and indirect
effects in each upstream input. However, the necessary assumptions as well as the
decomposition methods are not documented in the US LCI database. As a result, the users
are unable to fully interpret the cradle-to-gate inventory. In addition, the decomposed
inventory in cradle-to-gate processes impedes the process-level separation of environmental
effects (i.e., noting where in the upstream chain they occur).
The cradle-to-gate processes and gate-to-gate processes have different system boundaries. The
two types of processes should be separated when mapped into matrices to avoid potential
scenario uncertainty in matrix-based LCA models. Hence, in this analysis I distinguish the
cradle-to-gate processes from the unit processes in the US LCI database.
The cradle-to-gate processes can provide total environmental effects without needing to use
the matrix-based method, making them seemingly more convenient to use than the gate-to-
gate processes. However, a disadvantage of the cradle-to-gate processes is that they fail to
provide effects on different stages of the production. For example, the cradle-to-gate PET
process provided in Figure 9-22 indicates that the total (direct and indirect) fossil CO:
emissions, for producing 1 kg of PET, is 2.419 kg. I cannot know the amount of fossil GC:
emissions from different inputs of the production (and thus cannot evaluate sources of
differences if there were alternative production processes). In comparison, by running the
gate-to-gate PET process in the matrix-based model, I calculate the direct and indirect
emissions from the upstream processes (the upstream processes with the highest 10 emissions
are listed in Figure 9-23). Gate-to-gate processes can take the full advantage of the matrix-
based method by separately listing the emissions from different stages. For the PET example,
the users can tell that the onsite fossil CO: emissions (excluding emissions from burning fossil
fuel) was 72.4 kg, only 6% of the total emissions, while the most intensive emissions were
from burning fossil fuel in the production or upstream energy use. As seen in this example,
gate-to-gate processes allow the LCA practitioners to efficiently interpret the LCA results. On
the contrary, cradle-to-gate processes fail to deliver an equivalent breakdown of results.
Another limitation of the undocumented cradle-to-gate processes is that when applied to the
matrix-based method, it is impossible to improve the inventory by reducing the uncertainty in
each input. For the PET example, the total fossil GC: emissions from the cradle-to-gate and
gate-to-gate differ by 1.242 kg, with the cradle-to-gate process (not surprisingly) having a larger
emission value. As the emissions by inputs from the cradle-to-gate process are not available,
it is impossible to identify what produced these discrepancies. Alternatively, in the case of
gate-to-gate processes, improving the data quality for an input also improves the uncertainty
in the total emission. For example, the largest part of fossil GC: emissions is from burning
natural gas in the production, therefore when this input is switched to another fuel, or the data
quality of emissions from the natural gas combustion is improved, the total fossil GC:
emissions can be updated accordingly. This update could not be possible for cradle-to-gate
processes, because their emission sources cannot be tracked.
Figure 9-23: Top ten fossil £§• emissions processes for producing 1 kg of Polyethylene terephthalate,
resin, at plant (PET), calculated from the gate-to-gate PET process.
Fossil CO2 emissions

Process name (g)
‘Natural gas, combusted in industrial boiler’ 508.18
‘Residual fuel oil, combusted in industrial boiler’ 140.02
‘Electricity, natural gas, at power plant’ 95.72
‘Bituminous coal, combusted in industrial boiler’ 94.78
‘Polyethylene terephthalate, resin, at plant’ 72.40
‘Electricity, bituminous coal, at power plant’ 44.94
‘Transport, ocean freighter, residual fuel oil powered’ 40.34
‘Diesel, combusted in industrial equipment’ 37.34
‘Transport, train, diesel powered’ 32.04
‘Methanol, at plant’ 29.28
As mentioned before, a gate-to-gate process should include all the possible inputs within the
technosphere. This would maximize the interconnections and include all possible indirect
effects. For example, when mapping the inventory from a coal power plant on the US LCI
database, one should make sure that all of the associated intermediate processes have been
included. For example, Coal power plants use coal as their energy input, thus a process flow
that represents coal combusted for energy should be chosen as one of the inputs. Choosing
“coal as a raw material” as an input would result in ignoring potentially large emissions from
the coal combustion process. Note that some cradle-to-gate processes in the US LCI database
have already included all inputs in the elementary flows, thus the cradle-to-gate processes do
not have the same problem.
In this study, 474 raw material input elementary flows were used to identify the processes that
had skipped intermediate process flows. First, I distinguished the processes with any of these
raw material flows as an input. Then, the distinguished processes were individually evaluated
to identify the processes that had used these raw material elementary flows directly without
the intermediate process.
Skipping intermediate processes can result in neglecting the upstream environmental effects.
The processes fail to reach the utmost connections for the matrix-based LCA studies. Hence
there is a need to resolve the inconsistencies in flow types in order to improve the database.
The next section will discuss additional connection issues found in the US LCI database.
Connections in the US LCI database
The results show that 791 out of 1471 process flows have no upstream connections; this
number includes 525 cut-off processes (Figure 9-24). The absence of upstream connections
neglects potential indirect effects, as discussed previously. Similarly, 503 out of the 1471
process flows had no downstream connections (Figure 9-25). The cut-off processes and non-
cut-off processes were separately identified. The lack of upstream connections in cut-off
processes is due to inventory unavailability, not zero inputs. The matrix-based models (and
databases) are less useful when the inventories include cut-off processes; when the cut-off
processes are replaced by other processes with full inventories, they will have non-zero
upstream connections. It is important to be aware of cut-off processes because they are used
as inputs in other processes’ inventories (but again, have no upstream inventory). Figure 9-25
shows that almost all cut-off processes have more than one downstream connection; in fact,
28 of them have more than 10 downstream connections – meaning 10 processes would
otherwise benefit from them having real inventories. These cutoff processes may hide total
environmental effects. Therefore, when new inventory data are incorporated in the US LCI
database, the cut-off processes’ inventories should be prioritized to maximize the utility and
completeness of the database, and avoid potentially missing total environmental effects.
The results also show that global average (upstream and downstream for all processes) was 4
connections. In general, processes had more downstream connections than upstream
connections; 69 processes had more than 20 downstream connections, one process (“Iron,
sand casted”) had 251 connections. In comparison, no process had more than 51 upstream
connections. Individual processes did not necessarily have more downstream than upstream
connections.
Figure 9-24: Number of upstream connections for each process in the US LCI database. The
inset provides greater detail for those processes with 10 or less process inputs. Values on the
x axis indicate the number of connections in which each process falls. For example, the third
bar on the main graph shows that there are 272 processes that have a range from 6 to 10
upstream connections. Results are shown separately for Cut-off (blue), and non-Cut-off
processes (orange). The bar on the zero value is the number of processes with no upstream
connection. All Cut-off processes have zero upstream connections, due to the inventory
unavailability.
Figure 9-25: number of downstream connections for each process in the US LCI database.
The inset shows processes with 10 or less downstream connections. Result are shown
separately for cut-off (blue) and non-cut-off processes (orange). Values on the x axis
indicate the number of connections in which each process falls. For example, the third bar
on the bottom graph shows that there are 19 processes that have connections ranging from
11 to 20; 9 of these processes are “cut-off” processes. The bar on the zero value is the
number of processes with no downstream connections.
Figure 9-26 lists the non-cutoff processes with more than 20 downstream connections. A
number of these processes represent very similar alternative processes, often with minor
differences. For example, “Electricity, at grid, US, 2000” (No. 15) and “Electricity, at grid,
US, 2008” (No. 11) each represent an overall US average grid mix of electricity. Here, the
connections are due to various electricity generation processes (such as coal, solar, and nuclear
power plants), and differ only by the year. If there are multiple versions for a given type of
electricity process, only one should be chosen as the input. Figure 9-27 includes the numbers
of downstream connections for some similar processes, such as the two electricity examples
discussed above. I aggregated the connections of these similar processes, they are listed by
their categories. The results show that energy or transportation accounted for the majority of
processes with large numbers of downstream connections. These processes are similar and
are often used as inputs by other processes. When one of these processes is used as an input,
it is possible to consider other similar processes as alternatives. Considering these possible
alternatives can potentially improve the inventories and the LCA results. This is the subject of
the second topic in this chapter.
Figure 9-26: Processes with more than 20 downstream connections in the US LCI database.
No. Number of
downstream
Process name connections
1 Transport, train, diesel powered 249
2 Transport, pipeline, unspecified petroleum products 191
3 Transport, barge, average fuel mix 176
4 Natural gas, combusted in industrial boiler 130
5 Transport, ocean freighter, average fuel mix 129
6 Diesel, at refinery 128
7 Transport, combination truck, diesel powered 102
8 Transport, combination truck, average fuel mix 93
9 Diesel, combusted in industrial equipment 89
10 Gasoline, combusted in equipment 83
11 Electricity, at grid, US, 2008 71
12 Electricity, residual fuel oil, at power plant 66
13 Liquefied petroleum gas, combusted in industrial boiler 63
14 Gasoline, at refinery 55
15 Electricity, at grid, US, 2000 54
16 Diesel, combusted in industrial boiler 45
17 Electricity, at grid, Eastern US, 2000 42
18 Residual fuel oil, combusted in industrial boiler 42
19 Transport, pipeline, natural gas 31
20 Natural gas, combusted in industrial equipment 30
21 Transport, barge, diesel powered 26
22 Electricity, at grid, Western US, 2000 25
23 Quicklime, at plant 25
24 Bituminous coal, combusted in industrial boiler 24
25 Transport, barge, residual fuel oil powered 23
Figure 9-27: Processes with more than 20 downstream connections in the US LCI database, sorted by
three industrial categories
Number of downstream
Category Process name
connections
Electricity, at grid 192

Natural gas, combusted 160
Diesel, combusted 89
Fossil fuel and
Gasoline, combusted 83
electricity as energy
Liquefied petroleum gas, combusted 63
Residual fuel oil, combusted 42
Bituminous coal, combusted 24
Transport, train 249
Transport, pipeline 222
Transportation Transport, barge 225
Transport, combination truck 195
Transport, ocean freighter 129
Diesel, at refinery 128
Materials Gasoline, at refinery 55
Quicklime, at plant 25
Figure 9-28 shows the different types of connections for the 1471 processes in the database.
Also included in Figure 9-28 is the analysis of energy and transportation inputs for the
processes that have at least one upstream or downstream connection. The results show that
342 (233+284-194+19) processes (23% of the total) have at least one upstream or downstream
connection. 248 (342-94) out of these 342 processes have either transportation or fuel as input.
If transportation is considered as an important input to decide whether a given process’
inventory is fully established, there are 76 (61+9+6) processes (5% of the total) that have both
energy and transportation as inputs. On the other hand, more than 50% of the total processes
have no upstream connections; this percentage includes the cut-off processes. I also note that
more than 34% of the total processes do not have downstream connections.
The results also show that 165 processes in the database have neither upstream nor
downstream connections. Most of these processes were by-products from the production of
other products, thus their inputs were not considered. For example, “Steam, at uncoated
freesheet mill” is a by-product of “uncoated freesheet”. For this production, I assumed that
allocation was not necessary. Thus, the number of inputs for this by-product was zero;
consequently, the number of upstream connections was also zero. Additionally, this by-
product was not used as an input in any other processes’ inventories, resulting in zero
downstream connections.
Figure 9-28: different types of connections among the 1471 processes in the US LCI
database. The chart on the right shows the different types of connections shared by the 1471
processes, the figure on the left shows processes that have fuel (green circle), electricity
(brown circle) or transportation (blue circle) as inputs, for the processes that have one or
more than one upstream or downstream connections.
Comparisons of the interconnections between the US LCI database and the EIO-LCA
model
The technology matrix (A) in the current US LCI database is structured by mapping the
physical inventory data from all processes; the processes are comprised of a wide range of
industries in the US. It is ordered alphabetically. However, the analyses above show that there
are processes without upstream or downstream connections, which suggests a lack of
interconnections in the technosphere. To better understand the interconnections in the
database, the 2002 US input-output table (IO table) is used as a reference to identify potentially
missed connections in the US LCI database.
The interconnections in the (A) matrix from the US LCI database were compared with the
interconnections in the IO table; both represent exchanges in the technosphere. The
interconnections in the US LCI database were then referenced with the hotspots of exchanges
between industries identified in the IO table. In the IO table, the exchanges between sectors
are based on direct requirements in dollar values. In this way, all purchases between industries
can be translated into product exchanges. These exchanges can be good references for
interconnections. In the US LCI database, the exchanges in the technosphere are based on
individual products or processes in physical unit operations. In the IO table, the exchanges
are based on industry sectors with purchase values in dollars. To compare the two models, I
categorized the processes in the US LCI database into industrial divisions via the ISIC code.
The industry-classified US LCI processes were aggregated and fitted into a new technology
matrix that can be more feasibly compared with the IO table.
Number of interconnections in the IO table
Let us first consider the number of connections from the detailed level industries in the IO
table; this should provide a general idea of how different the connections are at this detailed
level.
I used the same method provided in the section above to evaluate the number of upstream
and downstream connections of the sectors in the IO table. In the detailed level IO table,
there are 428 industrial sectors; 97 of these are service and government sectors that are not
part of the US LCI database. I focus on the remaining 331 agricultural, industrial, and
transportation sectors, because these categories are also present in the US LCI database, and
thus their connections can be compared.
Results show that the average number of connections in the IO table is 277 for both upstream
and downstream connections. I note that connection values less than $50,000 were not
provided in the table (rounded down to $0), thus the actual number of the connections could
be larger. Figure 9-29 shows the histograms of downstream and upstream connections for the
331 sectors. The majority of sectors had more than 250 upstream inputs, no sector had less
than 150 inputs in the IO table. On the other hand, 57 (5+15+18+6+13) sectors had less than
200 downstream connections, among which 5 had zero downstream connections (hunting,
and construction sectors).
Figure 9-29: Numbers of connections for agriculture, industrial and transportation sectors
(331 in total) in the IO table (service sectors not considered). The left histogram shows the
numbers of downstream connections; the right histogram shows the numbers of upstream
connections.
While the IO table benefits from aggregation of sectors, the results indicate that the IO table
differs from the US LCI database in number and pattern of connections. The number of
connections in the IO table are significantly larger (277 on average) than the connections in
the US LCI database (4 on average). The average number of connections in the US LCI
database is significantly smaller despite its larger total number of processes. The IO table also
differs on the pattern of connections. For instance, the majority of the sectors had upstream
inputs, and only a few sectors were not used as inputs to other sectors. The number of
processes with downstream connections in the IO table was higher than the number of
processes with upstream connections in the US LCI database. This indicates that unlike the
processes in the US LCI database, the IO table includes mostly foreground sectors (products
but not contributors).
Advanced Material for Chapter 9 – Section 7 – Uncertainty in Process

Matrix Models: Case Study of US LCI28
Scenario uncertainty estimation in the US LCI database
In the advanced material of Chapter 8, a range method was used to analyze the parameter
uncertainty in IO matrix-based LCA models. In this chapter, I introduce a method to estimate
the scenario uncertainty in process matrix models. Scenario uncertainty reflects the uncertainty
in the results caused by different choices in the LCA studies. In traditional LCA studies, during
the selection of allocation methods, different choices have to be made to draw the system
boundaries (Huijbregts et al. 2003). On the other hand, when using matrix-based LCA models,
the scenario uncertainty can be considered by simultaneously choosing different inventories.
In the current US LCI database, various processes have overly specific inputs. For example,
“Transport, combination truck, diesel powered”, is the only truck transportation input for the
“Lime, agricultural, corn production” process. This suggests that only diesel powered
combination trucks are used in the production of lime, excluding the possibility of using
gasoline or other powered trucks. These overly specific processes can cause scenario
uncertainty in traditional LCA studies, because the processes fail to provide other possible
choices as inputs. Typically, this is also a problem in the matrix-based LCA models where the
processes are connected, and potentially contribute to each other’s environmental effects.
Moreover, in matrix-based LCA models, the results only show the aggregated effects from
each process. Without a profound knowledge of all inventories in the database, the users are
unable to realize about the existence of overly specific processes. Thus, the scenario
uncertainties caused by these processes are likely to be ignored. In this study, I introduce
methods to consider scenario uncertainties in the matrix-based LCA model, using the US LCI
database is used as a case study.
Scenario uncertainty in US LCI processes
For the scenario uncertainty evaluation, I created a range of alternative scenarios while treating
each environmental effect separately. Each possible scenario is built by replacing alternative
inputs to a process; the replacement is based on similar inputs. Later on this section, I provide
more details about the similarity criteria. The range of alternative scenarios represents the
scenario uncertainty. I first calculate and visualize the uncertainty due to the alternative inputs
for each process. Then, for the purpose of understanding the overall ranges of the
environmental effects, I combine the inventory information within the same industrial
categories. Fossil CO: emissions are used as an example to demonstrate the results.
This section is excerpted from a chapter of Xiaoju (Julie) Chen’s dissertation, entitled “Uncertainty Estimation in Matrix-based Life Cycle
28
Assessment Models”.
When deriving scenario uncertainties, I used two separate methods to group similar inputs
and calculate total environmental effects. The first method was designed for utility or
transportation inputs; the second method was used for all industries in general.
In the first method, for a process, its specified upstream connections from electricity, truck,
or fossil fuel were replaced by all possible alternatives in the database; new results were
calculated based on these alternatives and used to form a range. When there were multiple
electricity, fossil fuel, or truck transportation inputs for a process in the original inventory, the
values of the common category inputs were summed for a single input value. For example,
the “Lime, agricultural, corn production” process mentioned above had three upstream truck
transportation inputs (112 ton-km combination truck (diesel powered), 14.6 ton-km single unit
truck (diesel powered), and 3.43 ton-km single unit truck (gasoline powered)) in the original
inventory. Thus, the total truck transportation was the sum of the three, or 130.03 ton-km.
Then, I fit the new inventory into a new ¶ matrix (A®©™ ). In ¶®©™ , the 130.03 tkm truck
transportation input for the lime process was iteratively replaced as a scenario by one of the
115 truck transportation processes in the database. Replacing the truck transportation input
by all available alternatives resulted in 115 different technology matrices (¶´ ®©™ , y =
1,2, … ,115 ) matrices. While all values in the inventory remain unchanged, the difference
between these 115 ¶´ ®©™ matrices was only due to the different truck transportation processes
used for the lime process. I calculated 115 different g vectors (g vector has one value, fossil
CO: , in this study) from the 115 different ¶´ ®©™matrices; the range generated was the final
result for producing 1 kg of lime in the US LCI database.
The overall uncertainties across all US LCI processes caused by choosing different electricity
inputs are shown in Figure 9-30. For each process, I calculated the fossil CO: emissions based
on 99 different scenarios. In each scenario, the process’ electricity inputs were assumed to be
one of the 99 electricity generation processes in the US LCI database. The percentage values
in Figure 9-30 were calculated based on the differences between each alternative and the
default scenarios, which was assumed as the emission calculated from using “Electricity, grid,
US 2008” as input. Note that cutoff processes had zero total CO: emissions.
The minimum and maximum values from all of these scenarios were used to calculate the
range uncertainty for each process. Without including outliers, the results show that the
average (across all US LCI processes) of the minimum and maximum scenario uncertainties is
-31% and 7%, respectively. If the outliers are included, the maximum average uncertainty
increases to 31%. In all cases, the outliers can be traced to using “Electricity, onsite boiler,
hardwood mill, average, NE-NC” as the electricity input. The reason why this particular
electricity input is causing outliers may be inferred from its nature. Onsite boilers are not as
efficient as power plants in generating electricity; they likely incur in higher CO: emissions. I
can thus assume that it is sensible to exclude “Electricity, onsite boiler, hardwood mill, average,
NE-NC” from the general scenario uncertainty estimation.
Figure 9-30: Overall scenario uncertainty by using alternative electricity inputs. The default
electricity input for each process was assumed to be “grid electricity, US, 2008”. Left: fossil
≠Æ• emissions, as percentage difference from the default, for 1401 gate-to-gate processes.
Right: same as the left panel, but without outliers caused by using “Electricity, onsite boiler,
hardwood mill, average, NE-NC”. Emissions for each process calculated by using 99
different scenarios.
In the US LCI database, the default scenario for fossil CO: emissions used “Electricity, grid
US, 2000” as the electricity input for the “Iron, sand casted” process. I chose this process as
example because across all US LCI processes, it has the largest numbers of inputs. The default
scenario resulted in 1120 kg of fossil CO: emissions. Figure 9-31 shows the fossil CO:
emissions for 1 metric ton of Iron, sand casted process, which resulted from all potential
scenarios. The top graph shows that the total CO: emissions vary between 240 and 1770 kg.
However, there was an outlier again at 19MT (not shown) that was also caused by using
“Electricity, onsite boiler, hardwood mill, average, NE-NC”.
Similar to the parameter uncertainty results shown in the Advanced Material of Chapter 8, I
listed the top 10 processes contributes to the total emission of Iron, sand casted process. In
the bottom graph, the rows show the CO: emissions results from different product
contributors sorted by their maximum value in descending order. I can see for the first and
third process, the maximum results are quite separated from the rest. Consequently, for these
processes, if the maximum values are excluded, the uncertainties are considerably reduced. On
the other hand, the uncertainty in the second row cannot be considerably reduced if the
maximum value is excluded, meaning the uncertainty resulted from different scenarios is large.
Thus, the process (Bituminous coal electricity) is also the most important contributor to the
uncertainty in producing sand casted iron. On the other hand, some processes only contribute
to the total emission, not the uncertainty. For example, “Bituminous coal, combusted in
industrial boiler” process has consistent emission value, indicating that the process contribute
the same amount of emission despite of the scenario chosen.
Figure 9-31: Fossil £§• emissions for one metric ton of “Iron, sand casted”. The top graph
shows the total emissions (direct and indirect). The bottom graph shows the results from the
top ten product contributors under 99 alternative scenarios (markers).
Because Iron, sand casted process excluded transportation as input, I choose another example
to show the uncertainty due to use alternative transportation inputs. Figure 9-32 shows the
total fossil CO: emissions for producing one metric ton of “Benzene, at plant”. The default
scenario used the processes specified in the current US LCI database as inputs. The markers
indicate the results from alternative scenarios in four electricity (99) and transportation (151)
industries. The number of scenarios is different in each industry. As in Figure 9-31, I excluded
the outlier results from “Electricity, onsite boiler, hardwood mill, average, NE-NC”. The
results from different scenarios ranged from 540 to 567 kg in truck transportation, and from
530 to 563 kg in electricity; in both industries, the scenario uncertainties are similar. Jointly,
truck transportation and electricity form a range (530 to 567 kg) that is only -2 to 5% different
from the results in the default scenario (540.6 kg). The range of results from alternative
scenarios in transportation barge and pipeline was much narrower; however, these industries
only had a few alternative scenarios (less than three each).
Figure 9-32: total fossil £§• emissions, in kg, for 1 ton of “Benzene, at plant” by using
alternative scenarios in electricity and transportation industries.
Conclusion
I used two methods to evaluate the scenario uncertainties in the US LCI database. The first
method focused on the uncertainties due to choices of alternative electricity and transportation
in the inventory. The second method evaluated the scenario uncertainties caused by choosing
different processes in each industrial category. The results from the first method indicate that
scenario uncertainties are generally within -30% and 10% from the default choice, and may
show some outliers. The second method results in bigger scenario uncertainties: by choosing
different processes within the same industrial category, the CO: emissions for 1 kg of industrial
product can vary between 0 and 100 metric tons. Both methods show that the scenario
uncertainties in matrix-based LCA models can be large. The results calculated based on the
current US LCI database are only preliminary as the connections between processes are rather
sparse. However, this method can provide better results on future database versions, which
ideally will include more well-connected inventories.

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Chapter 9: Advanced Life Cycle Models 299

Chapter 9 : Advanced Life Cycle Models

Learning Objectives for the Chapter

2. Describe the advantages of a process matrix model as compared to a process flow

3. Describe the various advantages and disadvantages of process-based and IO-based

Process Matrix Based Approach to LCA

Figure 9-1: Process Diagrams for Two-Process System

In this example, the inverse of A is:

Figure 9-2: Scaled-Up and Connected Two-Process System

So far, we have motivated the purely

Ecrude = −50 X1 ; ESO2 = 2 X1 + 0.1 X2 ; ECO2 = 10 X1 + X2

Connection Between Process- and IO-Based Matrix Formulations

and our modified matrix math system would be:

[W – A*]X = Y ó X=[W – A*]-1Y

Linear Systems from Process Databases

For this system,

Product Unit Flow

Process Emissions Percent of

Truncation error in LCA models

Extending process matrix methods to post-production stages

Our linear system can be written as in system 9-5:

. 05 . 01 3.5 0.1 0 3.6

Advantages and Disadvantages of Process and IO Life Cycle Methods

Process Models Input-Output

Detailed process-specific analyses Economy-wide, comprehensive assessments (direct

Future product development assessments

Information on every commodity in the economy

Tend to be time intensive and Process assessments difficult

Economic and environmental data may reflect past

Cannot be replicated if Imports treated as U.S. products

Non-U.S. data availability a problem

Categories of Hybrid LCA Models

Example 9-1: Tiered separable hybrid LCA of a Washing Machine

Total: 6.3 tons fossil CO2.

In an input-output based hybrid analysis, sectors of an IO model are disaggregated into

In Chapter 8, we discussed various aggregated sectors in the US input-output tables, such as

1a: Fuel 1b: Elec 2: Manuf Y X

The general structure of such a model, analogous to Equation 8-5, is:

uc and ina Info ilitie

References for this Chapter

Williams, Eric, “Energy Intensity of Computer Manufacturing: Hybrid Assessment

End of Chapter Questions

Objective 2. Describe the advantages of a process matrix model as compared to a

Input Unit Amount

Input Unit Amount

1) 5,000 kWh of electricity (equivalent for one US citizen in a year)

Conversion Factors (continued on next page):

Distillate Oil: 138,700 BTU/gallon Electricity: 3,412 BTU/kWh

Coal: 12,000 BTU/pound Distillate: 18,600 BTU/pound

Objective 3. Describe the various advantages and disadvantages of process-based

Objective 5. Suggest an appropriate category of hybrid model to use for a given

AIV question 1 from HW 3 (EIO, Simapro)

Ecoinvent Example here?

Advanced Material for Chapter 9 – Section 1 – Process Matrix Models

A subset of code in USLCI_process_matrix_code.m is below, which shows the MATLAB

% matrices assumed to be in workspace (USLCI.mat):

% as example, enter a value into the y vector to be run through

End of Section Questions

Advanced Material for Chapter 9 – Section 2 – Process Matrix Models

Figure 9-9: Analyze Feature Used in SimaPro to View Data

Figure 9-10: New Calculation Setup Window in SimaPro

Figure 9-11: Results of Process Contribution Analysis for Process in SimaPro

Figure 9-12: Inventory Results in SimaPro

[W – A]X = Y ó X=[W – A]-1Y