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Progress in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Hydrogen Energy Systems
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Progress in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Hydrogen Energy Systems

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2021) | Viewed by 14002

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Antonio Valente

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Interests: life cycle assessment; life cycle costing; bioeconomy; sustainability assessment; energy systems; hydrogen; industrial ecology
Dr. Diego Iribarren

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Systems Analysis Unit, IMDEA Energy, Av. Ramón de la Sagra 3, E-28935 Móstoles, Spain
Interests: data envelopment analysis; energy systems modelling; life cycle assessment; life cycle costing; multi-criteria decision analysis; sustainability assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urgent action is needed from industry actors as well as policy- and decision-makers to stimulate the transition towards a sustainable economy. The 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development identifies key interrelated issues and actions to foster this transition within the current economic, social, and environmental contexts.

When focusing on the energy sector, the main challenge is represented by the affordable integration of large-scale renewable sources. According to technology roadmaps, hydrogen plays a key role in enabling this energy transition. It can be produced through different technological pathways using a wide range of feedstocks and types of energy. However, the suitability of hydrogen energy systems has to be comprehensively checked from a life-cycle prospective and involving in the analysis environmental, economic, and social aspects. Their sound evaluation is a key requirement to support energy planning. However, there is a scarcity of studies addressing the joint interpretation of environmental, economic, and social aspects in the field of hydrogen energy systems; this is a significant scientific gap that we want to fill with this Special Issue.

The main goal of this Special Issue is to collect scientific articles in the field of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) of hydrogen energy systems. These articles are expected to include analyses of the quantification of life-cycle indicators, belonging to at least two of the three dimensions of sustainability. In this sense, the application of the methodologies of life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC), and social life cycle assessment (SLCA) for the quantification of specific indicators is welcome. Furthermore, the use of methodologies aimed at aggregating the different dimensions/indicators, e.g., the standardized eco-efficiency assessment and multicriteria decision analysis tools is considered an added value within the scope of this Special Issue.

Dr. Antonio Valente
Dr. Diego Iribarren
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • renewable energy
  • life cycle assessment
  • life cycle costing
  • social life cycle assessment
  • eco-efficiency
  • life cycle sustainability assessment
  • hydrogen production technologies
  • hydrogen fuel
  • fuel cells
  • hydrogen storage
  • hydrogen distribution

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 1488 KiB  
Article
Solar Thermochemical Hydrogen Production in the USA
by Christoph Falter and Andreas Sizmann
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7804; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13147804 - 13 Jul 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2506
Abstract
Hydrogen produced from renewable energy has the potential to decarbonize parts of the transport sector and many other industries. For a sustainable replacement of fossil energy carriers, both the environmental and economic performance of its production are important. Here, the solar thermochemical hydrogen [...] Read more.
Hydrogen produced from renewable energy has the potential to decarbonize parts of the transport sector and many other industries. For a sustainable replacement of fossil energy carriers, both the environmental and economic performance of its production are important. Here, the solar thermochemical hydrogen pathway is characterized with a techno-economic and life-cycle analysis. Assuming a further increase of conversion efficiency and a reduction of investment costs, it is found that hydrogen can be produced in the United States of America at costs of 2.1–3.2 EUR/kg (2.4–3.6 USD/kg) at specific greenhouse gas emissions of 1.4 kg CO2-eq/kg. A geographical potential analysis shows that a maximum of 8.4 × 1011 kg per year can be produced, which corresponds to about twelve times the current global and about 80 times the current US hydrogen production. The best locations are found in the Southwest of the US, which have a high solar irradiation and short distances to the sea, which is beneficial for access to desalinated water. Unlike for petrochemical products, the transport of hydrogen could potentially present an obstacle in terms of cost and emissions under unfavorable circumstances. Given a large-scale deployment, low-cost transport seems, however, feasible. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Hydrogen Energy Systems)
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21 pages, 1601 KiB  
Article
Setting Thresholds to Define Indifferences and Preferences in PROMETHEE for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of European Hydrogen Production
by Christina Wulf, Petra Zapp, Andrea Schreiber and Wilhelm Kuckshinrichs
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7009; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13137009 - 22 Jun 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 10871
Abstract
The Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is a proven method for sustainability assessment. However, the interpretation phase of an LCSA is challenging because many different single results are obtained. Additionally, performing a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is one way—not only for LCSA—to gain [...] Read more.
The Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is a proven method for sustainability assessment. However, the interpretation phase of an LCSA is challenging because many different single results are obtained. Additionally, performing a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is one way—not only for LCSA—to gain clarity about how to interpret the results. One common form of MCDAs are outranking methods. For these type of methods it becomes of utmost importance to clarify when results become preferable. Thus, thresholds are commonly used to prevent decisions based on results that are actually indifferent between the analyzed options. In this paper, a new approach is presented to identify and quantify such thresholds for Preference Ranking Organization METHod for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) based on uncertainty of Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods. Common thresholds and this new approach are discussed using a case study on finding a preferred location for sustainable industrial hydrogen production, comparing three locations in European countries. The single LCSA results indicated different preferences for the environmental, economic and social assessment. The application of PROMETHEE helped to find a clear solution. The comparison of the newly-specified thresholds based on LCIA uncertainty with default thresholds provided important insights of how to interpret the LCSA results regarding industrial hydrogen production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Hydrogen Energy Systems)
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