Life cycle assessment-based guidance for development of new energy technologies

The development of new environmentally sound technologies is seen as a key route towards achieving sustainability. Also technology is regarded as the most important factor in the scientific field of industrial ecology for reducing environmental impacts of anthropogenic action. Developing greener, cleaner and more efficient technologies (using fewer resources or using them more efficiently) has therefore increasingly become the focus of many research projects that include the need to assess the potential future environmental impacts of technologies in the early development stages. The aim of this thesis was to develop a forward-looking assessment method based on LCA that can be used to integrate early insights in potential environmental impacts in R&D, with a specific focus on new energy technologies.