Evaluating environmental impacts of an oil tanker using life cycle assessment method

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is considered a holistic approach in evaluating the environmental impacts of a product in its life cycle. Recently, LCA method has been applied in the shipping and shipbuilding sectors. In order to provide a comprehensive LCA research in the field of naval architecture, this study uses LCA method to assess the environmental performance of a Panamax oil tanker in its whole life cycle. The ship’s life cycle including transportation activities is divided into five phases: raw material extraction & production, shipbuilding, operation, maintenance, and ship’s end of life. CML 2001 is chosen as the life cycle impact assessment methodology. GaBi software is used to obtain the life cycle emission inventory and environmental impacts. The results show the contributions of each life cycle phase to the total life cycle. Detailed emissions and environmental impacts of the ship are also analyzed. Due to huge amount of fuel consumed in ship operation, this phase dominates the emissions and environmental impact, compared with other phases. This study gives to the LCA practitioners a cradle-to-grave LCA example that could be useful for future researches in the field of shipping and shipbuilding sectors.