New units in ei39 missed by bw2io

[romainsacchi]

I believe there are new units in ei39 (e.g., "Sm3", "kg*day") which are not cleaned/normalized by bw2io 0.8.8. Not really an issue in itself, but more like an aesthetic thing.

[BenPortner]

I can't find Sm3 in my db. Is this a bug?

import bw2data as bd
bd.projects.set_current("my_project")
{a["unit"] for a in bd.Database("cutoff391")}
Out[5]: 
{'cubic meter',
 'guest night',
 'hectare',
 'hour',
 'kg*day',
 'kilogram',
 'kilometer',
 'kilometer-year',
 'kilowatt hour',
 'litre',
 'megajoule',
 'meter',
 'meter-year',
 'person kilometer',
 'square meter',
 'square meter-year',
 'ton kilometer',
 'unit'}

[romainsacchi]

Strange. For "nylon 6 production, RoW", the output of "Gas, natural" is in "Sm3" in ei 39. Can you confirm you have the correct unit for that flow (which I. guess should be "cubic meter")?

[romainsacchi]

I see the same in ei391.

[BenPortner]

That's the biosphere, then:

{a["unit"] for a in bd.Database("biosphere3")}
Out[6]: 
{'EUR2005',
 'Sm3',
 'cubic meter',
 'cubic meter-year',
 'kilo Becquerel',
 'kilogram',
 'megajoule',
 'square meter',
 'square meter-year'}

[romainsacchi]

Yes, the biosphere for ei39 that comes with bw2io 0.8.8.

[BenPortner]

Can you confirm you have the correct unit for that flow (which I. guess should be "cubic meter")?

I feel like we should avoid normalizing Sm3 to cubic meter. This would lead to a loss of information, as standard cubic meter is more precise than just cubic meter (namely a cubic meter at standard pressure and standard temperature). As to renaming Sm3 to something more descriptive like standard cubic meter, I am open. Same for kg*day. Any suggestions here @romainsacchi?

[romainsacchi]

I don't know. Unless I'm wrong, natural gas datasets, for example, refer to cubic meters in standard conditions and use the unit cubic meter. So, in several cases, cubic meter already signifies Sm3.