GEMIS - a brief overview

GEMIS is a life-cycle analysis program and database for energy, material, and transport systems - it is available freely at no cost (public domain). 

The basic version 1.0 of the computer program GEMIS was developed in 1987-1989 as a tool for the comparative assessment of environmental effects of energy by Öko-Institut and Gesamthochschule Kassel (GhK). Since then, the model was continuously upgraded and updated. This work is sponsored by several donors, especially the Ministry for Environment in Hesse, Germany, and was done in close cooperation with partners . Since version 3.0 (1996), GEMIS is freely available as public domain software which can be copied and distributed without restriction. The GEMIS database offers information on:

• fossil fuels (hard coal, lignite, natural gas, oil), renewables, nuclear, biomass (residuals, and wood from short-rotation forestry, miscanthus, rape oil etc) and hydrogen (including fuel composition, and upstream data)
• processes for electricity and heat (various powerplants, cogenerators, fuel cells, etc.)
• materials: raw and base materials, and especially those for construction, and auxiliaries (including upstream processes)
• transports: airplanes, bicycles, buses, cars, pipelines, ships, trains, trucks (for diesel, gasoline, electricity, and biofuels).

GEMIS includes the total life-cycle in its calculation of impacts - i.e. fuel delivery, materials used for construction, waste treatment, and transports/auxiliaries.

The GEMIS database covers for each process

• efficiency, power, capacity factor, lifetime
• direct air pollutants (SO₂, NO_x, halogens, particulates, CO, NMVOC)
• greenhouse-gas emissions (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, SF₆, all other Kioto gases)
• solid wastes (ashes, overburden, FGD residuals, process wastes)
• liquid pollutants (AOX, BOD₅, COD, N, P, inorganic salts)
• land use.

GEMIS can also analyze costs - the respective data are implemented for fuels and energy systems.
Furthermore,  GEMIS allows also to value results by aggregated indicators: resources into CER and CMR, greenhouse gases into CO₂ equivalents, air pollutants into SO₂ equivalents and ozone-precursor equivalents, as well as external costs.

More Information:

• Hint regarding the newest versions of the program and its database are given in news.
• For information on related programs like BASiS, TEMIS, and EM see GEMIS Model Family.