Mineral resources in life cycle impact assessment—defining the path forward

Drielsma, Johannes; Russell-Vaccari, Andrea; Drnek, Thomas; Brady, Tom; Weihed, Pär; Mistry, Mark; Simbor, Laia Perez

doi:10.1007/s11367-015-0991-7

Cited by 118 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Abiotic depletion potential (ADP) is excluded from this study due to the lack of robustness and accuracy of the metal and mining industry associates with the characterization factors used within the CML methodology (Drielsma et al 2016). Toxicity, land use change, and water scarcity are also excluded, in line with the recommendations of the harmonization document that these impacts not be reported for metal LCAs (Santero and Hendry 2016).…”

Section: Selection Of Life Cycle Impact Assessment Methodology and Tymentioning

confidence: 99%

A global life cycle assessment for primary zinc production

Genderen¹,

Wildnauer²,

Santero³

et al. 2016

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose The purpose of this study was to update the average environmental impacts of global primary zinc production using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. This study represents the latest contribution from zinc producers, which historically established the first life cycle inventory for primary zinc production in 1998 (Western Europe) and the first global LCA-based cradle-to-gate study for zinc concentrate and special high-grade zinc (SHG; 99.99 %) in 2009. Improvements from the previous studies were realized through expanded geographical scope and range of production technologies. Methods The product system under study (SHG zinc) was characterized by collecting primary data for the relevant production processes, including zinc ore mining and concentration, transportation of the zinc concentrate, and zinc concentrate smelting. This data was modeled in GaBi 6 and complemented with background data from the GaBi 2013 databases to create the cradle-to-gate LCA model. Allocation was used to distribute the inputs and outputs among the various co-products produced during the production process, with mass of metal content being the preferred allocation approach, when applicable. Results and discussion In total, this global study includes primary data from 24 mines and 18 smelters, which cover 4.7 × 10 6 MT of zinc concentrate and 3.4 × 10 6 MT of SHG zinc, representing 36 and 27 % of global production, respectively. While the LCA model generated a full life cycle inventory, selected impact categories and indicators are reported in this article (global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, photochemical ozone creation potential, ozone creation potential, and primary energy demand). The results show that SHG zinc has a primary energy demand of 37,500 MJ/t and a climate change impact of 2600 kg CO 2 -eq./t. Across all impact categories and indicators reported here, around 65 % of the burden are associated with smelting, 30 % with mining and concentration, and 5 % with transportation of the concentrate. Sensitivity analyses were carried out for the allocation method (total mass versus mass of metal content) and transportation of zinc concentrate. Conclusions This study generated updated LCA information for the global production of SHG zinc, in line with the metal industry's current harmonization efforts. Through the provision of unit process information for zinc concentrate and SHG zinc production, greater transparency is achieved. Technological and temporal representativeness was deemed to be high. Geographical representativeness, however, was found to be moderate to low. Future studies should focus on increasing company participation from underrepresented regions.

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Section: Selection Of Life Cycle Impact Assessment Methodology and Tymentioning

confidence: 99%

A global life cycle assessment for primary zinc production

Genderen¹,

Wildnauer²,

Santero³

et al. 2016

Int J Life Cycle Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Whilst some studies show that the ore grade is decreasing over time [6][7][8][9], other studies state that the declining ore grades must neither be interpreted as a sign of depletion nor as an indicator of resource availability [10,11]. This is because changes in ore grade can be attributed to other factors such as innovation and improvements in extractive technologies, extending the life of older mines over finding new ones, among others [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decreasing Ore Grades in Global Metallic Mining: A Theoretical Issue or a Global Reality?

et al. 2016

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Abstract:Mining industry requires high amounts of energy to extract and process resources, including a variety of concentration and refining processes. Using energy consumption information, different sustainability issues can be addressed, such as the relationship with ore grade over the years, energy variations in electricity or fossil fuel use. A rigorous analysis and understanding of the energy intensity use in mining is the first step towards a more sustainable mining industry and, globally, better resource management. Numerous studies have focused on the energy consumption of mining projects, with analysis carried out primarily in one single country or one single region. This paper quantifies, on a global level, the relationship between ore grade and energy intensity. With the case of copper, the study has shown that the average copper ore grade is decreasing over time, while the energy consumption and the total material production in the mine increases. Analyzing only copper mines, the average ore grade has decreased approximately by 25% in just ten years. In that same period, the total energy consumption has increased at a higher rate than production (46% energy increase over 30% production increase).

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“…Steen (1999) was the first to propose surplus cost as an indicator to assess the life cycle impacts of products, services and technologies. Despite this development from the 90s and others that followed, currently there is still extensive debate about natural resources in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) (Dewulf et al 2015;Drielsma et al 2016;Lieberei and Gheewala 2017;Sonderegger et al 2017;Steen and Palander 2016). The European Commission-Joint Research Centre-Institute for Environment and Sustainability (2011) indicated surplus costs as a promising approach to quantify abiotic resource scarcity but has, nevertheless, considered it not mature for recommendation in the evaluation of product life cycle impacts.…”

Section: Responsible Editor: Gian Luca Baldomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The European Commission-Joint Research Centre-Institute for Environment and Sustainability (2011) indicated surplus costs as a promising approach to quantify abiotic resource scarcity but has, nevertheless, considered it not mature for recommendation in the evaluation of product life cycle impacts. Drielsma et al (2016) also point to the potential of using economic scarcity as indicator for short-term availability. The surplus cost potential indicator can be seen as one example of how economic scarcity can be used in LCIA-based resource scarcity assessments.…”

Section: Responsible Editor: Gian Luca Baldomentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing mineral and fossil surplus costs of renewable and non-renewable electricity production

Vieira

Huijbregts

2017

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose Life cycle assessment aims to assess trade-offs between different impacts, including mineral and fossil resource use. The goals of this study were (1) to derive surplus cost potentials (SCPs) for a large number of fossil and mineral resources and (2) to derive surplus costs per megawatt hour of electricity produced for a range of both renewable and nonrenewable technologies. Methods The SCP of a resource refers to the total cost increase over the full amount of resource expected to be extracted in the future, expressed as US dollar (USD) per unit of resource extracted. For the fossil resources oil, natural gas and hard coal, cost-cumulative production relationships were derived that were subsequently used as input to calculate SCPs for these three fossil resources. For mineral resources, SCPs were readily available for 12 resources and platinumgroup metals as a separate group. SCPs for an additional number of 57 mineral resources and 4 mineral resource groups were derived on the basis of a statistical relationship between SCP and average price in year 2013. The SCPs of fossil and mineral resources were subsequently used to derive the surplus costs per megawatt hour of 10 electricity production technologies.Results and discussion The surplus costs of electricity production ranged from 0.3 to 148 USD 2013 /MWh. The three fossil-based energy production technologies, based on coal, gas and oil, resulted in the highest overall surplus costs (23 to 148 USD 2013 /MWh), while nuclear, geothermal, photovoltaic, wind and hydropower technologies have the lowest surplus costs (0.3-6 USD 2013 /MWh). We found that the contribution of fossil resource use to the surplus costs was higher compared to mineral resource use, including the renewable energy technologies. Conclusions Surplus costs of fossil and mineral resources can be used to compare renewable and non-renewable electricity production technologies. This case study shows that fossil fuel use drives the surplus costs of all energy technologies.

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Mineral resources in life cycle impact assessment—defining the path forward

Cited by 118 publications

References 24 publications

A global life cycle assessment for primary zinc production

A global life cycle assessment for primary zinc production

Decreasing Ore Grades in Global Metallic Mining: A Theoretical Issue or a Global Reality?

Comparing mineral and fossil surplus costs of renewable and non-renewable electricity production

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