Effect of car scrapping age on various emissions

Kimmo Klemola, D.Sc. (Tech.)
Laboratory of Industrial Chemistry, Department of Chemical Engineering, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland
 April 27th 2006
Energy blog

Not only the use of car causes emissions and consumes energy. Material production, manufacturing and end of life (scrapping, recycling etc.) contribute substantially to CO2 emissions as well as many toxic emissions.

Carbon dioxide and various other emissions were calculated using the data of the references [1–9]. The results are shown in figures 1–3. Average new EU-15 light-duty vehicle is the average vehicle sold in 2004 of the total 14.13 million new cars and 1.88 million new vans and pickup trucks [8]. Average new EU-15 light-duty vehicle is as follows: curb weight 1290 kg [7, 8], scrapping age 14.4 years [9], distance 13 500 km/year [2], fuel consumption 7.3 liters/100 km.

Figure 1.         Average new EU-15 light duty-vehicle. Total life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions (grams CO2/km) as a function of scrapping age of a car. Data used in the calculations from: [2, 7, 8, 9].

The results show that rapid replacement of a car fleet is not necessarily the answer for decreasing carbon dioxide emissions and energy use. The fuel consumption for new cars should be considerably lower than for old cars, which is not the case. In USA, the fuel consumption of new cars has steadily increased since 1987. At the same time the average curb weight has increased about 30%.

As an example, the life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions (grams CO2/km) for three new Land Rover models were calculated as a function of scrapping age (figure 2).

Figure 2.          Three new Land Rover models. Total life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions (grams CO2/km) as a function of scrapping age of a car. Data from http://www2.lut.fi/~kklemola/dontfly/carsof2006.htm.

Some emissions are considerable in material production, manufacturing and end-of-life stages as shown in figure 3.

Figure 3.          Average new EU-15 light-duty vehicle. Various emissions in material production, manufacturing and end-of-life stages as a function of scrapping age of a car. Data used in the calculations from: [2, 4, 7, 8, 9].  

Recycling has been taken into account in the calculations.

References: 

  1. Maclean Heather L., Lester B. Lave, A life-cycle model of an automobile, Environmental Policy Analysis, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1998.

  2. Christidis Panayotis, Hidalgo Ignacio, Soria Antonio, Dynamics of the introduction of new passenger car technologies, The IPTS Transport technologies model, Report EUR 20762 EN, June, 2003.

  3. Kågeson Per, Reducing CO2 emissions from new cars, European Federation for Transport and Environment, 2005.

  4. Sullivan J.L., Williams R.L., Yester S., Cobas–Flores E., Chubbs S.T., Hentges S.G., Pomper S.D., Life cycle inventory of a generic US family sedan overview of results USCAR AMP project, Society of Automotive Engineers, report 982160, 1998.

  5. MacLean Heather L., Lave Lester B., Evaluating automobile fuel/propulsion system technologies, Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Vol. 29, No.1, pp. 1–69, 2003.

  6. Effectiveness and impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, Committee on the Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, Board on Energy and Environmental Systems Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, 2002.

  7. Monitoring of ACEA’s commitment on CO2 emission reduction from passenger cars (2001) final report, Joint Report of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association and the Commission Services, June 25, 2002.

  8. New registrations in Europe by country 2004, European Automobile Manufacturers Association, www.acea.be, Statistics, 2005.

  9. Eurostat, November 14, 2005.

Detailed life-cycle assessment of new car models (2006) can be found at:
 http://www3.lut.fi/webhotel/teke/kklemola/kimmo/dontfly/carsof2006.htm

www.dontfly.org