Life Cycle Assessment of Transportation Fuels and GHGenius

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a "cradle-to- grave" (or "well-to-wheels") approach for assessing industrial systems. "Cradle-to-grave" begins with the gathering of raw materials from the earth to create the product and ends at the point when all materials are returned to the earth. LCA evaluates all stages of a product's life from the perspective that they are interdependent (i.e. meaning that one operation leads to the next). LCA enables the estimation of the cumulative environmental impacts resulting from all stages in the product life cycle, often including impacts not considered in more traditional analyses (e.g. raw material extraction, material transportation, ultimate product disposal). By including the impacts throughout the product life cycle, LCA provides a comprehensive view of the environmental aspects of the product or process and a more accurate picture of the true environmental trade-offs in product selection.