Abstracts - ALCAS Conference - Australian Life Cycle Assessment ...

The process has met hurdles, as is it seen to have potential implications for international trade, for example,
disadvantaging developing countries that have little capacity to improve their GHG-intensive energy systems.
There has also been uneasiness about communication based on a single impact category.
Thus the development has been a protracted exercise, taking five years from inception.
The final draft did not find agreement for release as an international standard, however, there was sufficient
support to release it as a Technical Specification. Thus ISO/TS 14067 Greenhouse gases — Carbon footprint of
products — Requirements and guidelines for quantification and communication has been approved, and is due
for imminent release.
The standard encourages use of Product Category Rules, in order to increase consistency in calculation of
carbon footprints for similar products produced by different organisations.
The GHG emissions and removals from some sources and sinks are reported separately in addition to being
included in the calculation of the carbon footprint. This applies to fossil and biogenic carbon sources and sinks,
emissions and removals due to direct land use change, aircraft emissions, and non-CO2 emissions from
livestock, manure and soils. The standard does not require inclusion of emissions due to indirect land use
change.
The climate change impacts of timing of emissions and removals has been a particular point of debate, and is
an issue which has been largely neglected in LCA to date. There was no consensus on whether delayed
emissions and temporary sequestration do indeed deliver a benefit. Nevertheless this was recognised as a
potentially important feature for some products, and therefore it was agreed that the timing of emissions
across a product’s life cycle must be documented as part of the carbon footprint. No guidance is provided on
how to quantify the impacts of timing of emissions and removals.
The committee that developed ISO/TS 14067 is aware of limitations with this document, and there is strong
desire from some members to reconvene the committee in the near future, in order to revise the TS and work
towards approval of an International Standard.
Miss Kelly Cox
Researcher, Boeing Research and Technology Australia
Life Cycle Assessment of Jetfuel Production in Queensland: A Comparison of Three Potential
Feedstocks
The aim of the Queensland Sustainable Aviation Fuel Initiative is to detail the potential costs and
environmental impacts or benefits that might arise if a supply chain is established to produce a realistic
amount of aviation fuel for use in a commercial aviation setting, from feedstocks that are capable of being
grown in Queensland. The feedstocks considered for this project include molasses from sugarcane, the oilseed
plant Pongamia and autotrophic algae.
This information may be used to build support for financial commitments from government or private
investors to implement the modeled supply chains. Two models were developed for each feedstock, a baseline
model showing the potential process flow based on published and publicly available data which incorporates
the use of a digestion and cogeneration system for disposal of waste and by-products, and a variation model
which removes the use of the cogeneration system and relies on the protein value of any potential co-