IEDO, alongside AMMTO, has created a repository of resources for assessing emerging technologies on the basis of their potential cost and environmental impact in the commercial marketplace. These resources - including short training videos, tools, and examples - can help users understand impact drivers and quantify the impact potential of a new technology compared to technologies currently available in the marketplace.
Techno-economic, Energy, & Carbon Heuristic Tool for Early-Stage Technologies (TECHTEST) Tool: DOE has created TECHTEST to aid users in estimating potential energy, carbon, and cost impacts of a new technology in a streamlined spreadsheet tool that integrates life cycle assessment (LCA) and technoeconomic analysis (TEA) methods. Download the current version of the Excel-based TECHTEST tool and worked examples.
Tools Library: DOE’s Strategic Analysis tools library includes additional tools that can also support LCA and/or TEA analyses.
Training Videos: IEDO’s series of short tutorial videos explains basic concepts of LCA and TEA in the context of emerging technologies and can support users in assessing impacts for low-TRL technologies and products. See the list below for short descriptions and links to each video (or view the training videos playlist on YouTube).
Additional Guidance: IEDO’s Sustainable Materials Selection in Manufactured Products outlines examples of the types and sources of data needed for sustainability-informed decision-making and explores key life cycle considerations for sustainable materials selection through a series of practical, cross-sectoral case studies.
Life Cycle Assessment
Introduction to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): LCA is a methodology for assessing the environmental impacts associated with the entire life cycle of a product or process.
Estimating Raw Material Embodied Energy & Emissions: Raw Materials Extraction and Processing is the first phase in the product life cycle, and energy and emissions associated with raw input materials are “embodied” into manufactured products.
Estimating Manufacturing Energy Consumption and Emissions: Manufacturing is the second phase in a product’s life cycle. This life cycle phase can include impacts associated with onsite fuel combustion at manufacturing sites, offsite electricity generation, and non-energy-related process emissions.
Estimating Use Phase Energy and Emissions: In life cycle assessment, the use phase of a manufactured product captures the environmental impacts of product use. When a new technology replaces an existing product, this can result in a shift in energy consumption or emissions during the product’s use or disposal.
Techno-Economic Analysis
Introduction to Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA): TEA is a method for evaluating the economic performance of a technology.
Estimating Manufacturing Costs for Pre-Commercial Technologies: Manufacturing costs can be broken down into two main categories: capital expenses and operating expenses.
Analytical Basics
Defining Functional Units for LCA and TEA: The functional unit describes a quantity of product or product system on the basis of the performance it delivers in its end-use application.
Technology Benchmarking for Comparative LCA and TEA: The commercial benchmark technology is the primary technology in the marketplace that the new technology would displace.
TECHTEST Tool
TECHTEST Tool Tutorial: Estimate potential energy, carbon, and cost impacts of a new technology using DOE’s Techno-economic, Energy, and Carbon Heuristic Tool for Early Stage Technologies (TECHTEST), a streamlined spreadsheet tool that integrates simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) and technoeconomic analysis (TEA) methods.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology for assessing the environmental impacts associated with the entire life cycle of a particular product or process. This video introduces LCA methodologies and explains how LCA techniques can be used to assess the environmental impacts of a manufactured product holistically. Three different LCA approaches are introduced: attributional LCA, consequential LCA, and a hybrid (benchmarking) LCA approach.
Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript.
Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) is a method for evaluating the economic performance of a technology. This video introduces TEA analysis concepts and estimation methods, describing a cost benchmarking approach that focuses on comparing an emerging technology to an existing commercial benchmark.
Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript.
The functional unit describes a quantity of product or product system on the basis of the performance it delivers in its end-use application. This video describes the purpose of the functional unit in LCA and TEA analyses, provides examples of functional units for different products and technologies, and discusses considerations for selecting the best functional unit.
Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript.
The commercial benchmark technology is the primary technology in the marketplace that the new technology would displace. This video discusses best practices for identifying commercial benchmarks for use in LCA or TEA analyses.
Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript.
Manufacturing costs can be broken down into two main categories: capital expenses (one-time facility costs such as equipment, buildings and construction) and operating expenses (recurring costs such as materials, labor, and energy). This video describes techniques for estimating manufacturing costs in each of these categories, focusing on methods that can be used to support techno-economic analysis of early-stage technologies. Techniques are demonstrated through an example.
Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript. Access the Excel-based Labor Estimator Mini-Tool as an example of a “rule of thumb” approach for estimating labor requirements based on process type and complexity.
Embodied energy (or cumulative energy demand) is the sum of all energy inputs required to create a product, and embodied emissions (global warming potential) is the sum of all CO2 (or CO2-equivalent) emissions. This video focuses on estimating these quantities for the first phase in the product life cycle: raw materials extraction and processing.
Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript. Access the free Materials Flows through Industry (MFI) tool and a simple Excel-based mini-tool to extract embodied energy and embodied emissions values from an MFI data output file.
Manufacturing is the second phase in a product’s life cycle. This life cycle phase can include impacts associated with onsite fuel combustion at manufacturing sites, offsite electricity generation, and non-energy-related process emissions. Estimating manufacturing energy consumption and emissions is the second phase in the product life cycle. This video reviews the types of energy consumed by manufacturing facilities and sources of manufacturing emissions and describes techniques for estimating manufacturing energy & emissions based on facility or process information.
Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript.
In life cycle assessment, the use phase of a manufactured product captures the environmental impacts of product use. When a new technology replaces an existing product, this can result in a shift in energy consumption or emissions during the product’s use or disposal. This video describes techniques for estimating the energy and emissions associated with the use phase of a manufactured product. The video also describes analytical boundaries for a use phase assessment and methods for scaling use phase impacts for an individual product to overall impacts for the United States.
Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript.
Estimate potential energy, carbon, and cost impacts of a new technology using DOE’s Techno-economic, Energy, and Carbon Heuristic Tool for Early Stage Technologies (TECHTEST), a streamlined spreadsheet tool that integrates simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) and technoeconomic analysis (TEA) methods. This video offers an overview of the TECHTEST tool and demonstrates the tool’s features by working through an example.
Access the current version of DOE’s TECHTEST tool. Download a static PDF version of this tutorial video that includes key schematic illustrations from the video and the corresponding transcript.