ecoinvent 3.4

Known Data issues | ecoinvent 3.4

This page lists all known data errors in ecoinvent version 3.4. We are sorry for any inconvenience these cause and are working hard to eliminate these issues in an upcoming update to the database.

We document these issues openly to make our users aware of these problems and to help them understand the errors so they may work around them while we work on the update and error fix.

Current Known Issues | ecoinvent 3.4

Data issues

 

  • The markets for electricity, medium voltage are missing inputs of electricity from municipal waste incineration. These will be reintroduced with the next database release.

     

  • The markets for electricity in the geography Great Britain in the attributional system models are incorrect. Inputs from the following supplying technolgies are missing: wind, photovoltaic, hydropower, nuclear, waste. 

     

  • The “market for natural gas, high pressure, PL” is missing; that means that suppliers to that market (imports) are currently supplying (with very little shares) the RoW “market for natural gas, high pressure” . The distortion on the RoW market is minor.

 

  • The product MDD is currently modeled in two supply chains: “methylene diphenyl diisocyanate” (older data) and “methylene diphenyldiisocyanate” (more recent data). Only the older supply chain is used by consumers, so there is no double counting.

 

  • The product epoxy resin is currently modeled in two supply chains: “epoxy resin, liquid” (older data) and “epoxy resin” (more recent data). Only the older supply chain is used by consumers, so there is no double counting.

 

  • The activities "ground granulated blast furnace slag production", GLO and US have overestimated CO2 emissions, the value should be 0.020 kg CO2 per kg GGBFS rather than 0.2 kg CO2 per kg GGBFS. Corrected versions of both activities can be found in the ecoEditor.

 

  • The value of the exchange "maize seed, for sowing" is incorrect in the datasets "maize grain production, US, 2006" and "maize grain production, GLO, 2006". The value should be 0.003220612 kg/kg of maize grain, which corresponds to 30 kg/ha. Corrected versions of both activities can be found in the ecoEditor.

 

  • The dataset "propane extraction, from liquefied petroleum gas" is modelled incorrectly, the input of "liquefied petroleum gas" in incorrect. 

 

  • In the dataset “styrene production”, the benzene emissions to water and to air are too high. With support of PlasticsEurope, it could be established that the benzene emissions to water can be removed completely from the dataset and the benzene emissions to air were decreased to 2.0E-07 kg.

Consequential system model issues

 

  • Three elementary exchanges are found in the compartment "social". These exchanges can be ignored, both at the unit process and the inventory level, as ecoinvent does not yet account for social impacts.

 

  • The table below shows dataset making a demand of a product that is not supplied by the specified supplying activity. These two exchanges can be ignored.

LCIA method implementation issues 

 

In the method "ecological scarcity 2013", categories "main air pollutants and PM" and "total", the characterization factors for 3 substances were not added when updating from 3.3. to 3.4. The substances are: Ethylene, Trichloroethylene and Dimethyl carbonate. The CF for all 3 substances is 140000. In the category "main air pollutants and PM", the score of 33 datasets would increase more than 5%. The largest differences are for datasets directly emitting one of the substances, with a change of 179%. For the "total category", only 7 datasets see their score change more than 5%, with a maximum of 38%.


In the method "IMPACT 2002+ (Endpoint)", exchanges quantified in kBq received CFs from terrestrial and aquatic ecotoxicity, even if those should not apply to radioactive emissions. Ionising radiation CFs were also accidentally attributed to the human toxicity indicator. These two mistakes drastically change the score of many datasets.


A full report of the CF mistakes and their effect on dataset scores is available upon request. For more details, please contact support@ecoinvent.org.