The USLCI Spring Quarter 2026 release is ready. The new release is available through the National Laboratory of the Rockies’ USLCI repository on the Federal LCA Commons (FLCAC). The update in openLCA zolca format can also be downloaded from the USLCI GitHub Support Content Downloads page along with the associated libraries.
Overview of USLCI 2026 Spring Quarter Changes:
- Added 122 stationary combustion processes from National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). These processes incorporate combustion emissions data from EPA's WebFIRE database across 4 fuels (diesel, gasoline, kerosene, and natural gas) in a variety of stationary equipment, including emissions control options.
- Added 52 nonroad/mobile combustion processes from EPA’s MOVES model. A subset of equipment types was selected based on EPA’s Regulations for Emissions from Heavy Equipment with Compression-Ignition (Diesel) Engines and Regulations for Emissions from Heavy Equipment with Spark-Ignition Engines, and several essential equipment used in agriculture, underground mining, airport/railway support operations, and lawn/garden applications. The reference flow for these processes is operation consuming 1 MJ of fuel, with additional flow properties enabling representation of 1 hour of operation. See uslci-moves for more details.
- Added updated PET and PTA data for plastics from the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR).
- Updated natural gas mixing processes using 2024 EIA data. The shares of natural gas produced by each extraction method (onshore, offshore, coalbed methane, Barnett shale, and Marcellus shale) were revised to reflect 2024 US production percentages. The allocation of natural gas processing between shale and conventional sources was also updated accordingly.
- Added mixing processes for container ships and chemical tankers which represent an estimated mixture of routes for goods in the US. Incorporated updated marine transport processes (from v1.2025-12.0) to replace deprecated ocean freighter transport processes.
- Replaced fuel transport exchanges with a fuel dispensed at pump exchange in several transport processes to align fuel distribution approaches.
Note that a patch version of USLCI was previously released (v1.2025-12.1) with the following changes:
- Updated process and flow names to align with ILCD naming guidance. See this file for a mapping of flows and processes whose names changed. Note no UUIDs were changed.
- Parameterized the commodity transport processes that were added in v1.2025-12.0
More details are available in the USLCI Press Release brief. The Change Log is here and USLCI Content Support is available at the USLCI Content Wiki page, which includes access to archived versions of the USLCI.
Please see the "How to Publish in the USLCI" section in the USLCI Data Submission Handbook and/or contact the USLCI Data Curator (uslci@erg.com) if you have any USLCI publishing goals for the next release date, June, 2026.
Please contact lci@nlr.gov and/or uslci@erg.com with any questions or concerns you may have about submitting data to the USLCI Database.
To be added to the USLCI updates please email us at USLCI@erg.com. Thank you for your continued support!