Hardwood & softwood - dry or wet elem flows?

[rferaldi]

This issue has been brought up by USLCI end-users regarding the moisture content of 'hardwood', 'softwood' biomass resource flows Users ask whether these flows refer to dry or wet mass? Of course, in USLCI (especially CORRIM-relevant flows as in the CORRIM repo itself), this isn't straightforward. Usually, the density varies by species mix/region and which process it's flowing into. Through the years, practitioners compiling & submitting data using these flows have not necessarily used them in a consistent manner--sometimes bringing it in with 50% moisture, some bringing it in at 80% moisture. Note, in some CORRIM flows, biomass elementary flows are completely missing but might be implied by technosphere flow description comment field text. I'm still not sure what the best solution for these aspects --2 possible routes are:

1. ideally, designate in elementary flow list flow context & properties: including geography but what are the default flow properties conversion factors?
2. another option, elementary flow nomenclature: expand FEDEFL nomenclature to have species/region specific flows with default densities in flow properties (reflecting average moisture content for freshly harvested resources)
3. unideal/kluge method - designate in technosphere: pick some baseline density and max moisture content for each of softwood and hardwood and then comb through all relevant processes (e.g., in USLCI) to update their supply chain, i.e., send the elementary flows through a dummy process that converts the elementary flows into technosphere flows with weight factors that reflect the moisture loss and region/species mix-specific density specific to their use in subsequent processes that reflects the intended demand matrix going forward?

This problem is similar to the issue that was occurring in years prior when CED method combustion HHV factors were applied to elementary flows in mass units before the fuels entered the technosphere and lost mass due to purification to their actual combustion quality ---artificially overestimating CED because no mass loss and heating value gain of fuels via beneficiation/processing were accounted for. This is no longer an issue in FEDEFL-adapted USLCI raw fuel elementary flows are in energy (MJ) instead of mass (kg) units (which took care of that little LCI-LCIA connection oversight but only works in that context). I can't think of an easy fix for biomass flows destined for fuel and material use and having such varying flow property factors (e.g., MJ/kg, kg/m3) depending on species, regional species mix, resource type, and factors that moisture content such as regional harvest location.