Hyung Chul Kim

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Hyung Chul verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Researcher at Ford Motor Company

The ongoing transition toward electric vehicles (EVs) is changing materials used for vehicle production, of which the consequences for the environmental performance of EVs are not well understood and managed. We demonstrate that electrification coupled with lightweighting of automobiles will lead to significant changes in the industry’s demand not...

Recycled carbon fibre reinforced polymer (rCFRP) is attracting interest for automotive applications but has reduced mechanical properties due to a loss of intact fibre architecture. This study investigates the effects of fibre architecture preservation during recycling of carbon fibres on the mechanical and life cycle environmental performances of...

Increased use of vehicle electrification to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has led to the need for an accurate and comprehensive assessment of the carbon footprint of traction batteries. Unfortunately, there are few lifecycle assessments (LCAs) of commercial lithium-ion batteries available in the literature, and those that are available focu...

The manuscript reviews the research on economic and environmental benefits of second-life electric vehicle batteries (EVBs) use for energy storage in households, utilities, and EV charging stations. Economic benefits depend heavily on electricity costs, battery costs, and battery performance; carbon benefits depend largely on the electricity mix ch...

The use of recycled carbon fibres (rCF) in carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) is attracting interest for automotive applications due to the economic benefits and lower carbon footprint during production over virgin carbon fibres. However, the mechanical performance of recycled CFRP (rCFRP) is currently significantly lower compared with virgin C...

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of e-commerce and automated warehouses, vehicles, and robots and has created new options for grocery supply chains. We report and compare the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for a 36-item grocery basket transported along 72 unique paths from a centralized warehouse to the customer, including impacts o...

The selective laser sintering (SLS) process generates waste polymer powders, which can be recycled as feedstock for producing injection‐molded components. Recycling this powder has implications on the life cycle modeling of the SLS product, as well as the subsequent injection‐molded component. This study investigates the life cycle primary energy d...

Electrification can reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of light-duty vehicles. Previous studies have focused on comparing battery electric vehicle (BEV) sedans to their conventional internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) or hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) counterparts. We extend the analysis to different vehicle classes by conducting a crad...

Vehicle lightweighting benefits consumers through fuel savings, manufacturers through a more fuel-efficient vehicle portfolio, and the environment through reduced fossil fuel use and lower emissions. Vehicle components can be lightweighted by replacing conventional materials with alternatives such as aluminum or composites. However, lightweight mat...

The introduction of automated, electrified, and ridesourcing mobility options will likely revolutionize mobility over the coming decades. Adoption of these new mobility technologies will be shaped by their economic competitiveness. Economic assessments typically focus on fixed and variable out-of-pocket monetary costs such as vehicle purchase, fuel...

The emergence of mass-produced aluminum sheet intensive vehicles presents an opportunity for recyclers to shift towards high value recycling into wrought alloys. We use dynamic material flow analyses (2015–2050) to estimate the timing, scale, and composition of U.S. aluminum automotive body sheet (ABS) scrap generated from the aluminum ABS intensiv...

Recycled carbon fibre (rCF) is a potential material for sustainable vehicle lightweighting but its realistic environmental impacts are still unclear. In this study, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) investigates the primary energy demand (PED) and global warming potential (GWP) of using rCF reinforced Polyamide 66 (PA66) for a side-view mirror bracket,...

Towards realising circular economy, there has been an emphasis on decoupling economic growth from natural resources consumption. However, increasing product consumption has led to product technology changes that require different types of resources. Despite the use of different product life cycle studies to assist in improving the material usage an...

Corporations, including automotive manufacturers, are increasingly exploring extended circular economy strategies as a means to enhance the sustainability of their products. The circular economy paradigm focuses on reducing nonrenewable materials and energy, promoting renewable feedstocks and energy, and keeping products/materials in use across the...

Hydrogen has the potential to contribute to a clean, secure, and affordable energy future. It can provide distributed energy storage for intermittent renewable energy resources and support hydrogen-based transportation. This study reports well-to-wheels greenhouse gas (GHG) and criteria air pollutant emissions and levelized cost of driving (LCD) fo...

Mobility servitization modes are increasingly popular and some literature has suggested that their environmental impacts are less than those of privately owned cars. This research assesses the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of mobility servitization based on different scenarios: carsharing, carpooling and car ownership (representing the range of oc...

The use of carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP) faces high energy consumption of carbon fibre production and a lack of recycling. Increasing the use of recycled carbon fibres (rCF) to substitute virgin carbon fibres (vCF) can improve the sustainability of the carbon fibre industry. Nonetheless, the most impactful area of CF recycling on the qual...

The volume of end-of-life automotive batteries is increasing rapidly as a result of growing electric vehicle adoption. Most automotive lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are recycled but could be repurposed as second-life batteries (SLBs) since they have 70–80% residual capacity, which can be adequate for stationary applications. SLBs have been proposed...

Energy storage can reduce peak power consumption from the electricity grid and therefore, the cost for fast charging electric vehicles (EVs). It can also enable EV charging in areas where grid limitations would otherwise preclude it. To address both the need for a fast charging infrastructure as well as management of end-of-life EV batteries, secon...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) burdens of steel and aluminum production and life cycle benefits of vehicle lightweighting in China were evaluated. Production of advanced high-strength steel (AHSS) and wrought aluminum (Al) have average cradle-to-gate GHG emissions of 3.9 and 17.5 kg CO2eq/kg. Lightweighting benefits for eleven passenger car models over five...

Revolutions in shared mobility services, vehicle electrification, and automated vehicle technology will affect urban traffic patterns, energy use and CO2 emissions, the automotive industry, public transportation, and more. This paper examines the monetary costs of these innovations for users in the near-term (approximately 2020) and how they may ev...

Electrification and lightweighting technologies are important components of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction strategies for light-duty vehicles. Assessments of GHG emissions from light-duty vehicles should take a cradle-to-grave lifecycle perspective and capture important regional effects. We report the first regionally explicit (county-leve...

Interest and investment in electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (VTOLs), commonly known as flying cars, have grown significantly. However, their sustainability implications are unclear. We report a physics-based analysis of primary energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of VTOLs vs. ground-based cars. Tilt-rotor/duct/wing VTOLs are eff...

Substituting conventional materials with lightweight materials is an effective way to reduce the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from light-duty vehicles. However, estimated GHG emission reductions of lightweighting depend on multiple factors including the vehicle powertrain technology and efficiency, lightweight material employed, and en...

Vehicle lightweighting reduces fuel cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but may increase vehicle cycle (production) GHG emissions because of the GHG intensity of lightweight material production. Life cycle GHG emissions are estimated and sensitivity and Monte Carlo analyses conducted to systematically examine the variables that affect the impact o...

Although recent studies of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) have begun to explore the potential energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission impacts from an operational perspective, little is known about how the full life cycle of the vehicle will be impacted. We report the results of a life cycle assessment (LCA) of Level 4 CAV sensing and comp...

We use the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to characterize how different consumers in the US might use Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). Our approach is to identify sub-groups of the population likely to benefit from AVs and compare their activity patterns with an otherwise similar group. The first subgroup is working individuals who drive to work with lo...

In their recent publication “Carbon balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use,” DeCicco et al. present an empirical assessment of net CO2 emission effects over the period 2005–2013 after the US renewable fuel standard (RFS) came into existence and conclude that biofuels have resulted in a net increase in CO2 emissions over the period. The...

The literature analyzing the fuel saving, life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, and ownership cost impacts of lightweighting vehicles with different powertrains is reviewed. Vehicles with lower powertrain efficiencies have higher fuel consumption. Thus, fuel savings from lightweighting internal combustion engine vehicles can be higher than thos...

Selecting technology options to mitigate the climate impacts of road transportation can be challenging, particularly when they involve a tradeoff between long-lived emissions (e.g., carbon dioxide) and short-lived emissions (e.g., methane or black carbon). We present trends in short- and long-lived emissions for light- and heavy-duty transport glob...

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used extensively to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) implications of biofuels. Some argue that the common treatment of biogenic carbon emissions as being carbon neutral in LCA is flawed. From this divergent perspective, biofuels have potential benefits only if additional atmospheric CO2 is captured or feedstocks that w...

Assessing the life-cycle benefits of vehicle lightweighting requires a quantitative description of mass-induced fuel consumption (MIF) and fuel reduction values (FRVs). We have extended our physics-based model of MIF and FRVs for internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to electrified vehicles (EVs) including hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plu...

We report the first cradle-to-gate emissions assessment for a mass-produced battery in a commercial battery electric vehicle (BEV); the lithium-ion battery pack used in the Ford Focus BEV. The assessment was based on the bill of materials and primary data from the battery industry, i.e., energy and materials input data from the battery cell and pac...

Petroleum from unconventional reserves is making an increasingly important contribution to the transportation fuel supply, but is generally more expensive and has greater environmental burdens than petroleum from conventional sources. Life cycle assessments (LCAs) of alternative fuel-vehicle technologies typically consider conventional internal com...

Literature data for vehicle life cycle water consumption are limited and contradictory; there are no published estimates of vehicle life cycle water withdrawal. To place future discussions of sustainable mobility on a firmer technical basis, we report the results of a cradle-to-grave assessment of water withdrawal and water consumption for the gaso...

Lightweighting is a key strategy to improve vehicle fuel economy. Assessing the life-cycle benefits of lightweighting requires a quantitative description of the use-phase fuel consumption reduction associated with mass reduction. We present novel methods of estimating mass-induced fuel consumption (MIF) and fuel reduction values (FRVs) from fuel ec...

This study examines the life cycle energy demand and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with substituting natural cellulose and kenaf in place of glass fibers in automotive components. Specifically, a 30 wt% glass-fiber composite component weighing 3 kilograms (kg) was compared to a 30 wt% cellulose fiber composite component (2.65 kg) and 40...

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a structured, comprehensive method of quantifying material- and energyflows and their associated impacts in the life cycles of products (i.e., goods and services). One of the major goals of IEA PVPS Task 12 is to provide guidance on assuring consistency, balance, transparency and quality of LCA to enhance the credibil...

Water availability is one of the greatest global sustainability challenges. Water is not available in adequate quantity and quality in many areas and water shortfalls are expected to increase. Businesses are facing water-related challenges due to inadequate water availability and poor resource management. Identifying and quantifying impacts is key...

Automakers have the opportunity to utilize bio-based composite materials to lightweight cars while replacing conventional, nonrenewable resource materials. In this study, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to understand the potential benefits and tradeoffs associated with the implementation of bio-based composite materials in automotive component...

Tools are now publicly available that can potentially help a company assess the impact of its water use and risks in relation to their global operations and supply chains. In this paper we describe a comparative analysis of two publicly available tools, specifically the WWF/DEG Water Risk Filter and the WBCSD Global Water Tool that are used to meas...

Lightweighting is a key strategy used to improve vehicle fuel economy. Replacing conventional materials (e.g., steel) with lighter alternatives (e.g., aluminum, magnesium, and composites) decreases energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during vehicle use, but often increases energy consumption and GHG emissions during materials and...

The potential environmental and health impacts of nanotechnologies triggered a recent surge of life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on nanotechnologies. Focusing on the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions impacts, we reviewed 22 LCA-based studies on nanomaterials, coatings, photovoltaic devices, and fabrication technologies that were published u...

Replacing conventional materials (steel and iron) with lighter alternatives (e.g., aluminum, magnesium, and composites) decreases energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during vehicle use but may increase energy consumption and GHG emissions during vehicle production. There have been many life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on the be...

The environmental profiles of photovoltaic (PV) systems are becoming better as materials are used more efficiently in their production, and overall system performance improves. Our analysis details the material and energy inventories in the life cycle of high‐concentration PV systems, and, based on measured field‐performances, evaluates their energ...

Assessments of the environmental impacts of energy generation and storage technologies are essential in evaluating their sustainability. Life-cycle assessment is a well-accepted tool for investigating the environmental profile of energy technologies describing, in detail, material and energy flows and emissions into the environment that may occur a...

The Solaire Building has the first façade building‐integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) array in New York City. This paper presents the life cycle impacts of the Solaire BIPV and extrapolates its performance to other façade systems. Engineering diagrams, detailed material inventories and 5 years of irradiation and actual performance data in 15‐min interv...

Published scientific literature contains many studies estimating life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of residential and utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PVs). Despite the volume of published work, variability in results hinders generalized conclusions. Most variance between studies can be attributed to differences in methods and assumptions...

We present the process and the results of harmonization of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during the life cycle of commercial thin-film photovoltaics (PVs), that is, amorphous silicon (a-Si), cadmium telluride (CdTe), and copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS). We reviewed 109 studies and harmonized the estimates of GHG emissions by aligning the a...

Life-cycle analysis is an invaluable tool for investigating the environmental profile of a product or technology from cradle to grave. Such life-cycle analyses of energy technologies are essential, especially as material and energy flows are often interwoven, and divergent emissions into the environment may occur at different life-cycle-stages. Thi...

Despite the publicity of nanotechnologies in high tech industries including the photovoltaic sector, their life-cycle energy use and related environmental impacts are understood only to a limited degree as their production is mostly immature. We investigated the life-cycle energy implications of amorphous silicon (a-Si) PV designs using a nanocryst...

Life cycle analysis becomes especially important for characterizing new material forms in new energy generation technologies intended to replace or improve the current infrastructure of energy production. We propose a comparative life-cycle analysis framework for investigating the effect of introducing nanotechnology in the life cycle of new photov...

The value of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (in facade applications) lies in the fact that these systems entirely replace fagade-cladding systems that do not have the added benefit of generating power that offsets expensive, non- renewable and polluting sources from the surrounding electrical grid. This study quantitatively demonstrates this val...

We estimated the energy payback time (EPBT) and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in the life cycle of the Amonix high‐concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) system with III–V solar cells. For a location in the southwest United States, the Amonix 7700 has an EPBT of only 0.86 yrs and GHG emissions of 24g CO2‐eq./kWh; we expect further decreases in both by...

Water use by the electric power industry is attracting renewed interest as periods and zones of arid weather are increasingly encountered, and various regional energy-production scenarios are evaluated. However, there is a scarcity of data on upstream water factors and discrepancies of data from different sources. We reviewed previous studies of wa...

Renewable-energy sources often are regarded as dispersed and difficult to collect, thus requiring substantial land resources in comparison to conventional energy sources. In this review, we present the normalized land requirements during the life cycles of conventional- and renewable-energy options, covering coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectri...

The potential benefits of using nanomaterials in PV manufacture triggered a recent surge of research and development in this area. Nevertheless, the environmental- and health-implications of using them are not delineated fully. In this study, we present and discuss the potential life-cycle energy uses and hazards of three photovoltaic (PV) designs...

Material flows and emissions in all the stages of production of zinc, copper, aluminum, cadmium, indium, germanium, gallium, selenium, tellurium, and molybdenum were investigated. These metals are used selectively in the manufacture of solar cells, and emission and energy factors in their production are used in the life cycle analysis (LCA) of phot...

Photovoltaic (PV) technologies have shown remarkable progress recently in terms of annual production capacity and life cycle environmental performances, which necessitate timely updates of environmental indicators. Based on PV production data of 2004-2006, this study presents the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, criteria pollutant emissions, an...

Photovoltaic (PV) technologies have shown remarkable progress recently in terms of annual production capacity and life cycle environmental performances, which necessitate timely updates of environmental indicators. Based on PV production data of 2004–2006, this study presents the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, criteria pollutant emissions, an...

We discuss the emissions of cadmium throughout all the life stages of CdTe PV modules, from extracting, refining, and purifying the raw materials to producing, using, and disposing or recycling of the modules. Then, we compare these emissions with those in the life cycle of three different types of crystalline Si PV modules. The energy requirement...

Solar- and nuclear-electricity-generation technologies often are deemed “carbon-free” because their operation does not generate any carbon dioxide. However, this is not so when considering their entire lifecycle of energy production; carbon dioxide and other gases are emitted during the extraction, processing, and disposal of associated materials....

We investigate the area of land used and/or transformed during conventional (i.e., coal, natural gas and nuclear), and renewable fuel cycles (i.e., photovoltaics, wind, biomass, and geothermal). Both direct and indirect land use/transformation are examined in a life cycle framework. For average US insolation, the photovoltaic fuel cycle disturbs th...

With a growing demand for renewable energy, attention is drawn to concentrator photovoltaic (PV) systems, which require minimal amount of high efficiency solar cell materials. We investigate select life cycle environmental metrics for the 24 kW Amonix concentrator PV system. The results show that this system pays back the initial energy investment...

The various detrimental environmental and health effects of conventional electricity generation have long been recognized. Renewable technologies offer the opportunity for reducing such impacts, but, during their entire life cycle, their use is not without effects. Indeed, some major European and Australian studies portrayed photovoltaic systems as...

This study is a life-cycle analysis of the balance of system (BOS) components of the 3·5 MWp multi-crystalline PV installation at Tucson Electric Power's (TEP) Springerville, AZ field PV plant. TEP instituted an innovative PV installation program guided by design optimization and cost minimization. The advanced design of the PV structure incorporat...

Although the last decade witnessed dramatic progress in refrigerator efficiencies, inefficient, outdated refrigerators are still in operation, sometimes consuming more than twice as much electricity per year compared with modern, efficient models. Replacing old refrigerators before their designed lifetime could be a useful policy to conserve electr...

In 1998 the United States Automotive Materials Partnership published the life cycle inventory of a generic US family sedan. Several years later, researchers at the University of Michigan expanded this analysis to consider the dynamic replacement decisions over the vehicle lifetime that would optimize energy and emissions performance of generic fami...

Vehicle scrappage programs have emerged in the US to address the challenge of regional fleets that contain older, often inefficient vehicles with higher emissions and lower fuel economy. These programs provide an incentive for removal of old vehicles from the road before their economic lifetimes have been exhausted. Scrappage programs operate on th...

The life cycle of the thin film CdTe PV modules in the U.S. have been investigated based on materials and energy inventories for a commercial 25 MW/yr production plant. The energy payback times (EPBT) of these modules are 0.75 years and the GHG emissions are 18 gCO2-eq/kWh for average U.S. solar irradiation conditions. Adding the impact of an optim...

Vehicles typically deteriorate with accumulating mileage and emit more tailpipe air pollutants per mile. Although incentive programs for scrapping old, high-emitting vehicles have been implemented to reduce urban air pollutants and greenhouse gases, these policies may create additional sales of new vehicles as well. From a life cycle perspective, t...

Although recent progress in automotive technology has reduced exhaust emissions per mile for new cars, the continuing use of inefficient, higher-polluting old cars as well as increasing vehicle miles driven are undermining the benefits of this progress. As a way to address the "inefficient old vehicle" contribution to this problem, a novel life cyc...

Although recent progress in vehicle technology and regulation has improved the environmental performance of new model vehicles, the continuing use of old, high-polluting vehicles contributes to air quality issues. While scrappage programs attempt to reduce emissions from old, high-emitting vehicles, life cycle assessment (LCA) studies show that scr...

A novel application in the field of Life Cycle Assessment is presented that investigates optimal vehicle retirement timing and design life. This study integrates Life Cycle Energy Analysis (LCEA) with Dynamic Replacement Modeling and quantifies the energy tradeoffs between operating an older vehicle versus replacing it with a new more energy effici...

The greatest potential risks in the photovoltaic (PV) fuel cycle probably are associated with using some hazardous substances during cell material production and module manufacturing. To investigate the characteristics of these risks, we first identified the types and amounts of hazardous substances used during the life cycle of PV systems. Then, w...

Early studies of risks in the life cycle of solar electric technologies do not represent their current stage of development. Our study updates the data used in previous studies and also accounts for the full life-cycle of photovoltaics. We show that the non-radiological risks of the solar electric- and nuclear-life cycles are approximately equal. T...

Title: Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Photovoltaic Electricity Generation: Harmonization of Published Estimates Abstract/Summary: Published estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the lifecycles of photovoltaic (PV) systems show significantly different values, thus hindering our drawing of generalized conclusions. Much of this var...

Life Cycle Analyses (LCA) at BNL show that: i) The BOS of an optimized installation has an energy payback time (EPBT) of only 0.4 years for average US insolation, which is 70% lower than previously reported estimates. ii) The EPBT of CdTe modules produced and used in the U.S. is 0.85 years. iii) The life-cycle CO 2 emissions of the nuclear fuel cyc...