Major life-cycle stages for vehicle and stationary batteries.
LCAs should start using country-specific raw material production impacts rather than the industry averages (or, even worse, the current industry's state-of-the-art or best-practice impacts). They should also consider the differences between average, marginal, and incremental sources of key material inputs, in conjunction with projections of the global demands for these materials, as the global Li-ion battery production quickly rumps up. We should also create and use methods for capturing the effect of outliers and "superemitters"/"superimpactors" in mining and material processing.
The assessments should correctly present the uncertainty (cf. Estimate in ranges). A single-number metric value conveys false precision.
We strongly recommend that future LCAs make an attempt to separate impacts tied to energy use with those tied to other activities. If facilities shifting their fuel use to lower-emission alternatives (e.g., from coal to natural gas, or natural gas to renewable fuels), making this distinction in published LCAs will make it easier to adjust the results accordingly.
Water consumption and withdrawals associated with battery production can be substantial, yet it is often overlooked in LCAs. Battery electric vehicles are associated with over 50% more water use relative to internal combustion engine vehicles over the course of their lifetime. This is mostly associated with the electricity use associated with vehicle charging, but a large contribution of water consumption is attributable to the LIB itself, consisting of 5–10% of the total water consumption depending on the battery chemistry.
As long as underlying assumptions about cycle life are clearly documented, the authors suggest that life cycle assessments would be well served to report results normalised both per kWh of battery capacity and per kWh of lifetime throughput.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/aenm.202100771