These are materials prepared for the course on Green Engineering, part of the RICSE master program at UAB. It is prepared by Cristina Madrid ([email protected]). Please leave your comments and suggestions in the Issues section.
As we commented in class, Brightway2.5 is a very powerful software ecosystem for LCA. It allows you to performed customized LCAs without the constraints of the commercial software. However, it is not as user-friendly as commercial software, and it requires some time to get used to it.
There is a great community of developers and users behind BW2.5, and they have prepared a lot of documentation and tutorials that can help you to get started.
THIS STEP CAN TAKE YOU TO UP TO AN HOUR
As indicated in the BW2 installation site, you first need to install a distribution of python. In this case we will use Anaconda: https://docs.brightway.dev/en/latest/content/installation/index.html
As recommended by the BW25 community, we will update conda and install the libmamba solver in the base environment. This is done by introducing the following commands in the anaconda prompt:
conda update -n base conda
conda install -n base conda-libmamba-solver
conda config --set solver libmamba
We are also going to install a package that will allow us to use the conda environment in Jupyter Notebook. This is done by introducing the following command in the anaconda prompt:
conda install -n base nb_conda_kernels
Once you have downloaded and installed anaconda, you need to open the anaconda prompt and use it to introduce the instructions for the BW25 installation.
We will create a new preconfigured Conda environment called ricse_bw25 with the configuration of the ricse_bw25.yml file. To do so, download the file ricse_bw25.yml from this repository and run the following command in the anaconda prompt:
conda env create -f <your_route/>ricse_bw25.yml
This will create a new environment called ricse_bw25. To activate it, run the following command:
conda activate ricse_bw25
If you have a problem with the recognition of the conda commands after you activate the env, just use the anaconda navigator to open the anaconda prompt of ricse_bw25. Alternatively you can reinstall Jupter notebook with pip
pip3 install notebook
As we are using a Jupyter Notebook, you do not necessarily need to install PyCharm, but you can do so if you want to, as PyCharm allows you to work with Jupyer Notebooks. Remember that you can get a free professional license for PyCharm(that will allow you to use Jupyter Notebooks inside) if you are a student here.
If you installed the environment correctly, you should be able to open the Jupyter Notebook of this repository. To do this either:
- Run this code in the anaconda prompt (remember that your ricse_bw25 environment should be activated and that you need to be in the folder where the notebook is located):
cd <your_route_to_the_project_FOLDER>
jupyter notebook
You will see a new tab opening in your browser with the Jupyter Notebook in it.
- Clone this repository in PyCharm (prof) and open the jupyter notebook from there.