mescal is a Python package for the creation and management of life-cycle inventory databases and generation of
sustainability metrics derived from Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA), to be integrated Energy System Models (ESM) in order to
make energy transition pathways sustainability assessment more holistic, transparent and reproducible.
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 analyses,
without necessarily being LCA experts. On the other hand, mescal is also designed for LCA experts who want to
integrate projections from ESM into their LCA studies.
Life-Cycle Inventory (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. Systematic transformations are operated on LCI datasets, including
regionalization, databases harmonization, double-counting removal, and life-cycle impact assessment.
LCA indicators are then ready to be integrated in the ESM.
You can follow this example notebook to learn how to use mescal. It presents a real application using the
EnergyScope model.
- 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.
You can install mescal via [pip] from [PyPI]:
$ pip install mescalContributions are very welcome. To learn more, see the Contributor Guide.
Distributed under the terms of the MIT license,
mescal is free and open source software.
If you encounter any problems, please file an issue along with a detailed description.
You can build the documentation locally by installing the documentation Conda environment:
conda env create -f docs/environment.yamlactivating the environment
conda activate sphinx_mescaland running the build command:
sphinx-build docs _build/html --builder=html --jobs=auto --write-all; open _build/html/index.html