Does anyone know the range of kg carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in the life cycle of a standard car/vehicle production, especially manufacturing/assembly process?
Thanks in advance,
Hamzeh
All significant car manufacturers publish their cars LCAs: https://www.audi.com/content/dam/com/EN/corporate-responsibility/product/audi_a6_life_cycle_assessment.pdf
Also, you can find the abundance of scientific literature of car LCAs on google scholar: http://papers.sae.org/971166/
In the case of car manufacturing, CO2 causes the global warming impact and not other GHGs. You look up the used LCA model and can calculate the CO2 if it is not explicitly presented in the study.
You can get the data from scratch as well. Draw the process map. Look up steel production, transportation, manufacturing CO2 releases from available databases (EPA, EU stat) and add together. It takes time.
Please find my study about a simpler product (torrefied wood). I built the emissions from bottom up by using EPA databases, the process map and calculated mass/energy balances: Article Use of Linear Programming to Optimize the Social, Environmen...
Dear Prof. Robert,
Thanks for your valuable comments.
I have sent you a private message.
Thanks again,
Hamzeh
for more information, I mean total CO2 emission from electricity and natural gas consumption in assembly process of a car/vehicle.
Thanks
Dear all,
Thank you all so much.
I've found almost the answer of my question! In our company, the amount of carbon dioxide emission (Kg CO2 eq) known as global warming potential generated by electricity and natural gas consumption was obtained as 313 Kg CO2 eq per car produced. We have not considered the other inputs including raw materials, fossil fuels and etc. Surely, by considering these factors, this amount will be increased.
In 2016, a review article was published by the Journal of Environmental Management. Where it is stated:
"Automotive assembly plants worldwide are facing increasing pressures in the environmental arena recently. These pressures come in the form of stringent, complex and costly regulations and demands from a growing number of stakeholders for improved
environmental performance (Geffen and Rothenberg, 2000). Manufacturers
constantly work on decreasing the environmental load of an individual vehicle. The CO2 emissions per vehicle produced was reported to have dropped by 14.1% between 2005 and 2013, 0.85 ton/car in 2005 and 0.71 ton/car in 2013 (ACEA, 2015). Table 1 shows the variations for different vehicles, with CO2 emissions ranging from 0.23 to 1.50 ton CO2/vehicle,....."
Also, the contribution of global warming potential for car production phase is 16% of all life cycle of a car. The highest of global warming potential allocate to use phase of car.
Please find attached file.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes
Hamzeh.
For conventional gasoline vehicles in the United States, greenhouse gas emission associated with vehicle production is roughly 7 ton CO2e (including components, assembly, disposal, recycling, batteries, and fluids). However, per mile basis, vehicle related emission is less than 10%, and the rest can be attributed to the emissions of fuel production and combustion.
You may want to check the GREET developed by Argonne National Laboratory, which is specifically intended for the lifecycle analysis (LCA) of the transportation sector. It is freely available, and you may be able to check which process contributes the most.
https://greet.es.anl.gov/
Dear Uisung,
Thank you so much for your comment.
it was a good information in transportation chain.I will definitely check it.
Do you know exactly how much percent of CO2e is related to the assembly stage of a car?
Thanks your attention,
Hamzeh
Hamzeh,
Based on GREET, GHG emissions associated with vehicle assembly (painting, lighting, heating, material handling, welding, and compressed air) is only 765 kgCO2e/vehicle. Since emissions for total vehicle stage (mostly for material production) is around 7 ton CO2e, assembly related GHG emission is around 12% of vehicle production. And considering that vehicle related emission is less than 10% of total life-cycle GHG emission, assembly related GHG emission would be around 1% of total life-cycle GHG emissions.
You may check the detailed values for each category even for other vehicle types using GREET. https://greet.es.anl.gov/
Thank you.
Dear Uisung,
I appreciate you for taking time out to answer my question and valuable feedback.
Best wishes,
Hamzeh