Environmental impacts assessment of a cellular base station using a life cycle assessment method

Details

Supervisors

Bol, David ; Louveaux, Jérôme

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil électricien, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

The imminent danger posed by climate change incites various sectors to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Within this context, the mobile networks in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector are growing and evolving. Specifically, the environmental impacts of the radio access networks (RANs) and their base stations (BSs) raise significant concerns. A few studies tackle this topic. A general lack of disclosure regarding data used and hypotheses made is observed in the state of the art. This study details a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach to assess the environmental impacts of the production phase of a RAN site. Primary data on the composition of the RAN site are acquired with the teardown of specific hardware equipment. The studied RAN site is simplified to the torn-down equipment. The production of the studied RAN site emits 3.5 tonnes of CO2e. Multiple impact categories are analyzed. The studied RAN site consumes 36.5 m3 of water, 135.1 kg of copper-equivalent, and 1033.9 kg of oil-equivalent resources. This study aims to be transparent in terms of the data used and the assumptions made. Aluminum-based components and PCBAs emerge as the main contributors to the GHG emissions. However, when compared with the literature, the GHG emissions of these components seem to be underestimated. Given the limited availability of transparent studies and the inherent uncertainties of the LCA methodology, the results of the studies in the state of the art remain open to scrutiny and are discussed in this work.