Environmental impact and energy assessment tool to aid decision making

R&D Focus Areas:
Emissions and atmospheric impacts, Materials modelling, Energy systems integration

Lead Organisation:
Monash University

Partners:
Woodside Energy

Status:
Completed

Start date:
February 2021

Completion date:
February 2022

Key contacts:
Professor Damon Honnery (Damon.Honnery@monash.edu)
Dr. Graham Palmer (Graham.Palmer@monash.edu)

Funding:
Woodside Monash Energy Partnership

Project total cost:
Not applicable

Project summary description:
There is a need to develop a methodology to enable high level decision making on the net-energy flows and environmental impacts of proposed and future energy projects that take advantage of new technologies.  This project develops the framework of a life cycle analysis (LCA)-based decision-making method, which will be used to underpin the future development of a decision support tool.

While the framework is based on an LCA approach, it is not limited solely to consideration of environmental impacts, such as natural resource extractions and emission outflows. Rather, an important goal of the project is to evaluate net-energy flows using direct and indirect (embodied) energy flows. The framework will enable an assessment of impacts and energetics of a prospective hydrogen supply chain, and therefore enable a comparative assessment among competing supply options.

Related publications and key links:
Palmer, G., Roberts, A., Hoadley, A., Dargaville, R. & Honnery, D. Life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions and net energy assessment of large-scale hydrogen production via electrolysis and solar PV. Energy Environ. Sci. 14, 5113–5131 (2021).
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/ee/d1ee01288f

Higher degree studies supported:
A Research Fellow is supported.

 

Reviewed: December 2022