LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF THE
PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY OF RAW MATERIALS AND PRIMARY
ENERGY CARRIERS/ INTEGRATING EXISITING FRAMEWORKS
Jo
1,2
Dewulf ,
1,3
Blengini ,
1
Mancini ,
Gian Andrea
Lucia
Serenella
1
Cynthia Latunussa & David Pennington
1
Sala ,
1. Introduction
- Raw Materials and Primary Energy Carriers are key intermediates in the life cycle of products and services
- Unlike Natural Resources and elementary flows in LCA, Raw Materials and Primary Energy Carriers are poorly defined
- Sustainability assessment of their production and supply is covered in a scattered way, i.e. in different assessment frameworks
2. Objectives
- A clearer definition of Raw Materials and Primary Energy Carriers
- A comprehensive classification of Raw Materials and Primary Energy Carriers
- A comprehensive set of sustainability issues for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) for their production and supply
3. Clearer definition
Raw
Materials
and
Primary energy carriers
are defined as being the
result
of
primary
production, consisting of
mining, refining, growing
and/or
harvesting,
clearly
differentiating
them
from
Natural
Resources
Natural Environment:
Asset of Natural Resources
Natural Resources
Primary Production
Raw Materials and Primary energy Carriers
4. A comprehensive classification
A detailed analysis of types of Raw Materials and Primary energy carriers
resulted in a classification, consisting of overall 85 raw materials and 30
primary energy carriers, grouped respectively into seven and five
subgroups.
Manufacturing
Products and Services
End-use
Waste
ORIGIN OF RAW MATERIALS
Terrestrial biomass (for material applications)
Aquatic biomass for food and material applications
Water (components)
Atmosphere
Fossil fuels (for material applications)
End-of-Life:
energy and/or material recovery or disposal
Metallic ores
5. A comprehensive set ofSustainability issues
Out of existing frameworks (LCA, SLCA, Criticality …), a
comprehensive set of issues for LCSA is developed for
Raw Materials and Primary Energy Carriers.
Natural deposits of industrial minerals and construction materials
ORIGIN OF PRIMARY ENERGY CARRIERS
Terrestrial biomass (for energy applications)
Aquatic biomass (for energy applications)
Flow resources (solar, water, wind and geothermal)
Fossils for energy applications
Nuclear energy metal ores
RAW MATERIAL GROUP
Agricultural raw materials
Forestry raw materials
Aquaculture raw materials
Freshwater raw materials
Raw materials from seawater
Raw Materials from atmosphere
Petroleum raw materials
Raw Materials from natural gas
Raw materials from non-convential fossil fuels (shale gas, oil
sands, methane hydrates, coal bed methane ...)
Ferrous metals raw materials
Non-Ferrous bulk/traditional metal raw materials
Non-Ferrous rare metal raw materials
Non-ferrous precious/high tech metal raw materials
Alkali metal raw materials
Construction minerals and mineral materials
Industrial minerals and mineral materials
Other
PRIMARY ENERGY CARRIER GROUP
Energy crops
Forestry products (for energy)
Soil products
Aquaculture energy products
Solar based energy carriers
hydropower based energy carriers
Wind energy based energy carriers
Tidal energy based energy carriers
Geothermal based energy carriers
Coal and lignite energy carriers
Petroleum based energy carriers
Natural gas based energy carriers
Non-convential fossil based energy carriers (shale gas)
Nuclear energy based energy carriers
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11
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6. Perspectives
From the work, a framework is offered to run different assessment methods
in a comprehensive way in function of a comprehensive LCSA for a variety
of Raw Materials and Primary Energy Carriers to better understand the
sustainability of their production and supply.
Contact
www.jrc.ec.europa.eu
Further reading:
Dewulf et al., Towards an overall analytical framework for the integrated Sustainability Assessment of the Production and
Supply of Raw Materials and Primary Energy Carriers. Journal of Industrial Ecology, in press
www.jrc.ec.europa.eu
1
European Commission, Joint Research Centre,
2
Institute for Environment and Sustainability,
Ghent University, Research Group ENVOC,
Coupure Links 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Sustainability Assessment Unit,
Via E. Fermi 2749, I-21027 Ispra (VA), Italy
http://sa.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
Tel. +39 0332 786317
Email: [email protected]
3
Politecnico di Torino,
Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy