CATEGORIAS DE EVALUACIÓN DE IMPACTO DE CICLO DE VIDA VINCULADAS CON ENERGÍA: REVISIÓN Y PROSPECTIVA

Abstract

The environmental pollution is one of the problems associated with the energy life cycle: generation, use and degradation. In the way to sustainability, one of the challenges in productive systems is the efficiency and development of technologies to minimize the negative impacts over the ecosystem and foster its economic profitability. The establishment phase of the LCA is the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) which values the magnitude and the significance of the environmental effects and classifies them into categories. Energy use, Depletion of abiotic resources, Mineral extraction and Fossil fuels are some of the LCIA´s impact categories related to energy. The indicators have been developed to satisfy different needs, they get together in their orientation because of provide information related to energy generation. Nowadays new categories are being developed associated to the use and degradation of energy Such as: Cumulative Energy Demand Applying and Cumulative Exergy Demand. The present work makes a review of the impact categories related to energy, currently used and those being validated. Keywords: energy, impact categories, LCA, LCIA, exergy