| 1. |
- Garcia Uriarte, Ainara, et al.
(författare)
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SUstainable management of PRIMary raw materials through a better approach in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (SUPRIM)
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The project focuses on the assessment of the environmental impact of raw materials production and the development of services to better understand sustainability issues in the sector. The main objectives of the project are:• Development of a Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method to address resource accessibility in sustainability assessment and testing and validatingthe method.• Development of Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) datasets through case studies in collaboration with the industrial partners from the mining sector and apply anenvironmental assessment with the aim to better understand the environmental impacts of the production of copper and the sources of these impacts.• Bring the service to a broader audience, including the LCIA community, mining companies and their downstream users, policy makers, academia.Two case studies have been performed, the Cobre las Cruces mine in Spain, operated by First Quantum Minerals Ltd, as well as the Aitik mining operation innorthern Sweden, operated by Boliden Mineral AB.
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| 2. |
- Kampmann, Tobias Christoph, 1987-, et al.
(författare)
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Life cycle assessment of European copper mining : A case study from Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 15th SGA Biennial Meeting, 27-30 August 2019, Glasgow, Scotland. - : Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits. - 9780852619650 ; , s. 1577-1580
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The application of the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology in the mining sector has the potential to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the primary production of metals. As part of a wider project on developing LCA models and methods for mining, life cycle inventory (LCI) data have been collected at two European copper-producing mine sites, Aitik (Sweden) and Cobre las Cruces (Spain). Results from Aitik, including their impact analysis, identify the use of diesel and explosives, the emission of sulfur dioxide, as well as nitrogen and other emissions in the upstream supply chain of explosives and electricity, as significant contributors to the environmental impact. These outputs have influence on the impact categories Climate Change, Photochemical Ozone Formation, Acidification, as well as Terrestrial and Marine Eutrophication. Due to the increasing incorporation of LCA into legislative demands on the mining sector, mining companies need to establish the necessary infrastructure and framework to be able to provide the required data in a fast, transparent and cost-efficient manner. For this reason, some recommendations to improve communication and data management within the companies have been established from the experience gained within this project.
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| 3. |
- Sanjuan-Delmás, David, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental assessment of copper production in Europe: an LCA case study from Sweden conducted using two conventional software-database setups
- 2022
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Ingår i: The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. - : Springer. - 0948-3349 .- 1614-7502. ; 27:2, s. 255-266
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PurposeThis study focuses on the environmental assessment of European copper production. Life cycle assessment is applied to analyse copper cathode production in Sweden, including its mining (an open-pit mine) and refining (pyrometallurgy), and using two combinations of software and databases: SimaPro software with ecoinvent database and GaBi software with GaBi database. The results are compared with results from other case studies from literature.MethodsA cradle-to-gate LCA was conducted considering 1 tonne of copper as functional unit. The inventory for the foreground system was elaborated using primary data gathered by the staff from the mine, the concentrator and the smelter. For the background data, LCA databases are used considering datasets for the Swedish market whenever possible. As the smelter has multiple useful outputs, economic allocation was applied at the inventory level. The calculation method CML-IA baseline 3.5 was considered for both combinations of software and database, reporting all the impact categories of the method plus the Cumulative Energy Demand.Results and discussionThe inventory of the system and the main environmental hotspots were presented, such as the explosives for blasting (due to their supply chain) or the electricity used in the concentrator. The results obtained with the two combinations of LCA software and databases yield large differences for categories such as abiotic depletion (7.5 times higher for SimaPro and ecoinvent), possibly due to differences in the system boundaries of the databases and the characterisation factors of the method. Although the case study has a relatively high cumulative energy demand (140/168 kMJ/tonne Cu) compared to other mines, its performance in global warming (3.5/4.7 tonne CO2eq/tonne Cu) is much better due to the low greenhouse gas emissions from electricity, which shows that the electricity mix is a key aspect.ConclusionsThe environmental performance of mining depends partially on the specific conditions of the deposit, e.g., the ore grade and the mining type. LCA practitioners should consider the potential different results that can be obtained using different combinations of software and database and exert caution when comparing cases, especially for abiotic depletion, human toxicity and ecotoxicity categories. Finally, the use of renewable energies can be key to improve the environmental sustainability of copper production.
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| 4. |
- van Oers, Lauran, et al.
(författare)
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Top-down characterization of resource use in LCA : from problem definition of resource use to operational characterization factors for dissipation of elements to the environment
- 2020
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Ingår i: The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. - Cham, Switzerland : Springer Nature. - 0948-3349 .- 1614-7502. ; 25:11, s. 2255-2273
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PurposeThe methods for assessing the impact of using abiotic resources in life cycle assessment (LCA) have always been heavily debated. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of a common understanding of the problem related to resource use. This article reports the results of an effort to reach such common understanding between different stakeholder groups and the LCA community. For this, a top-down approach was applied.MethodsTo guide the process, a four-level top-down framework was used to (1) demarcate the problem that needs to be assessed, (2) translate this into a modeling concept, (3) derive mathematical equations and fill these with data necessary to calculate the characterization factors, and (4) align the system boundaries and assumptions that are made in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) model and the life cycle inventory (LCI) model.ResultsWe started from the following definition of the problem of using resources: the decrease of accessibility on a global level of primary and/or secondary elements over the very long term or short term due to the net result of compromising actions. The system model distinguishes accessible and inaccessible stocks in both the environment and the technosphere. Human actions can compromise the accessible stock through environmental dissipation, technosphere hibernation, and occupation in use or through exploration. As a basis for impact assessment, we propose two parameters: the global change in accessible stock as a net result of the compromising actions and the global amount of the accessible stock. We propose three impact categories for the use of elements: environmental dissipation, technosphere hibernation, and occupation in use, with associated characterization equations for two different time horizons. Finally, preliminary characterization factors are derived and applied in a simple illustrative case study for environmental dissipation.ConclusionsDue to data constraints, at this moment, only characterization factors for “dissipation to the environment” over a very-long-term time horizon could be elaborated. The case study shows that the calculation of impact scores might be hampered by insufficient LCI data. Most presently available LCI databases are far from complete in registering the flows necessary to assess the impacts on the accessibility of elements. While applying the framework, various choices are made that could plausibly be made differently. We invite our peers to also use this top-down framework when challenging our choices and elaborate that into a consistent set of choices and assumptions when developing LCIA methods.
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