The USLCI Winter Quarter 2025 release is ready. The new release is available through NREL’s 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 2025 Winter Quarter Changes:
- Added marine transportation processes
- 72 unit processes, covering 18 representative global routes to/from the U.S. for chemical tankers and container ships powered by marine distillate and residual fuel oil. The data and modeling approach are available in a public GitHub repository: uslci-marine. Replacement/updates to the existing marine transportation processes will be evaluated in Q1 of 2026.
- Added representative transportation mixes for U.S. commodities
- 41 unit processes that provide commodity-specific transport distances and modes based on the 2017 U.S. Census Commodity Flow Survey. These processes can be used to estimate transportation flows when no primary data are available. The data and modeling approach are available in a public GitHub repository: uslci-transport.
- Added rail transportation processes
- 11 unit processes reflective of class 1 U.S. rail transport across emission tiers. Includes an update to the existing U.S. average rail process. The data and modeling approach are available in a public GitHub repository: uslci-rail.
- Added WARM end of life processes
- 19 unit landfilling and/or combustion processes from WARM for mixed materials (electronics, plastics, organics, paper, and metals). Replaced cutoff end of life flows with these new flows where applicable.
- Added materials recovery facility processes
- 4 types of material recovery facility unit processes (single stream, dual stream, mixed waste, presorted). These were incorporated into the existing recycled resin processes.
- Added aluminum beverage can processes from the Aluminum Association
- 3 unit processes in the aluminum can supply chain: aluminum ingot/slab, combined hot and cold rolling, and manufacturing of aluminum cans.
- Added general extrusion and plastic sheet production processes
- Other updates
- Standardized/added fuel flow properties
- Added several new bridge processes to fill in cutoffs
Coming soon:
- The curation team will be making targeted updates to process and technosphere flow names to better align with the naming guidance. A full list of name changes will be provided upon release; no UUIDs will change.
- New data for marine transport added this quarter will be incorporated into the supply chains of existing processes, to replace the more generic datasets currently being used.
- New stationary combustion data representing a mix of fuel types and technologies is planned for the spring release. Existing USLCI stationary combustion data will be phased out by these updates.
- New nonroad/mobile combustion processes from EPA’s MOVES.
- Expected updates to all repositories on the FLCAC are provided here.
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, March, 2026.
Please contact lci@nrel.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!