mescal 1.1.1

Coupling Energy System Models with Life Cycle Assessment

mescal

What is mescal?

mescal is a Python package for the creation and management of life-cycle inventory databases and metrics derived from life-cycle assessment, to be integrated in decision-making tools such as energy system models.

mescal is a specialized package of the Brightway Software Framework, mainly relying on the bw2calc and wurst Python packages.

mescal was designed for all researchers and modellers aiming to include life-cycle assessment (LCA) in their work, but who are not necessarily LCA experts. Mescal is usually used within Jupyter notebooks.

LCI datasets are taken from ecoinvent and possibly other sources if some of the ESM technologies are not covered in the ecoinvent database, e.g., premise additional inventories. These LCI datasets are mapped to the ESM technologies and resources. This is followed by operations of regionalization, databases harmonization, double-counting removal, and life-cycle impact assessment. LCA indicators are then ready to be integrated to the ESM.

How to use mescal?

You can follow this example notebook to learn how to use mescal.

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or more
• Licence for ecoinvent 3. The ecoinvent database is not included in this package. You may also check ecoinvent's GDPR & EULA.

Installation

You can install mescal via [pip] from [PyPI]:

$ pip install mescal

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome. To learn more, see the Contributor Guide.

License

Distributed under the terms of the MIT license, mescal is free and open source software.

Issues

If you encounter any problems, please file an issue along with a detailed description.

Building the Documentation

You can build the documentation locally by installing the documentation Conda environment:

conda env create -f docs/environment.yaml

activating the environment

conda activate sphinx_mescal

and running the build command:

sphinx-build docs _build/html --builder=html --jobs=auto --write-all; open _build/html/index.html