Emergy as a Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicator
2011; Wiley; Volume: 15; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00333.x
ISSN1530-9290
Autores Tópico(s)Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy
ResumoJournal of Industrial EcologyVolume 15, Issue 4 p. 550-567 Emergy as a Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicator A Gold Mining Case Study Wesley W. Ingwersen, Wesley W. Ingwersen Sustainable Technology Division within the US EPA's Office of Research and DevelopmentSearch for more papers by this author Wesley W. Ingwersen, Wesley W. Ingwersen Sustainable Technology Division within the US EPA's Office of Research and DevelopmentSearch for more papers by this author First published: 30 March 2011 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00333.xCitations: 57 Wesley W. IngwersenUS Environmental Protection AgencyMS-48326 W. Martin Luther King Dr.Cincinnati, OH 45268[email protected] Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Summary Founded in thermodynamics and systems ecology, emergy evaluation is a method to associate a product with its dependencies on all upstream environmental and resource flows using a common unit of energy. Emergy is thus proposed as an indicator of aggregate resource use for life cycle assessment (LCA). An LCA of gold mining, based on an original life cycle inventory of a large gold mine in Peru, is used to demonstrate how emergy can be incorporated as an impact indicator into a process-based LCA model. The results demonstrate the usefulness of emergy in the LCA context. The adaptation of emergy evaluation, traditionally performed outside of the LCA framework, requires changes to the conventional accounting rules and the incorporation of uncertainty estimations of the emergy conversion factors, or unit emergy values. At the same time, traditional LCA boundaries are extended to incorporate the environmental processes that provide for raw resources, including ores. The total environmental contribution to the product, doré, is dominated by mining and metallurgical processes and not the geological processes forming the gold ore. The measure of environmental contribution to 1 gram (g) of doré is 6.8E + 12 solar-equivalent Joules (sej) and can be considered accurate within a factor of 2. These results are useful in assessing a process in light of available resources, which is essential to measuring long-term sustainability. Comparisons are made between emergy and other measures of resource use, and recommendations are made for future incorporation of emergy into LCA that will result in greater consistency with existing life cycle inventory (LCI) databases and other LCA indicators. Supporting Information Supporting Information S1: This supporting information contains a figure showing the process tree of environmental contribution (solar emjoules [sej]) to 1 gram (g) doré and three tables with uncertainty estimates. The first table provides uncertainty estimates for gold-silver bullion production, the second table addresses uncertainty in gold in the ground, and the third table addresses uncertainty in silver in the ground. Supporting Information S2: This supporting information contains a life cycle inventory of gold mined at Yanacocha, Peru. Filename Description JIEC_333_sm_SuppInfo1.pdf253.4 KB Supporting info item JIEC_333_sm_SuppInfo2.pdf1.1 MB Supporting info item Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article. References Ayres, R. U., L. W. Ayres, and K. Martinas. 1998. Exergy, waste accounting, and life-cycle analysis. Energy 23(5): 355–363. Bare, J., G. A. Norris, D. W. Pennington, and T. McKone. 2003. TRACI: The tool for the reduction and assessment of chemical and other environmental impacts. Journal of Industrial Ecology 6(3–4): 49–78. Bastianoni, S., A. Facchini, L. Susani, and E. Tiezzi. 2007. Emergy as a function of exergy. Energy 32: 1158–1162. Bösch, M. E., S. Hellweg, M. A. J. Huijbregts, and R. Frischknecht. 2007. Applying cumulative exergy demand (CExD) indicators to the ecoinvent database. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 12(3): 181–190. Brown, M. T. and S. Ulgiati. 1997. Emergy based indices and ratios to evaluate sustainability: Monitoring economies and technology toward environmentally sound innovation. Ecological Engineering 9(1–2): 51–69. Brown, M. T. and V. Buranakarn. 2003. Emergy indices and ratios for sustainable material cycles and recycle options. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 38(1): 1–22. Brown, M. T., M. J. Cohen, and S. Sweeney. 2009. Predicting national sustainability: The convergence of energetic, economic and environmental realities. Ecological Modelling 220(23): 3424–3438. Buenaventura Mining Company Inc. 2006. Form 20-F for fiscal year 2005, edited by SEC. Lima, Peru: Buenaventure Mining Company Inc. Butterman, W. C. and H. E. Hilliard. 2004. Silver. Reston , VA , USA : U.S. Geological Survey. Butterman, W. C. and E. B. Amey. 2005. Gold. Reston , VA , USA : U.S. Geological Survey. Cherubini, F., M. Raugei, and S. Ulgiati. 2008. LCA of magnesium production: Technological overview and worldwide estimation of environmental burdens. Resources Conservation and Recycling 52(8–9): 1093–1100. Cohen, M., S. Sweeney, and M. T. Brown. 2008. Computing the unit emergy value of crustal elements. In Emergy synthesis 4: Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Emergy Conference, edited by M. T. Brown. Gainesville , FL , USA : Center for Environmental Policy. Cuadra, M. and J. Björklund. 2007. Assessment of economic and ecological carrying capacity of agricultural crops in Nicaragua. Ecological Indicators 7(1): 133–149. Dubreuil, A., ed. 2005. Life cycle assessment of metals: Issues and research directions. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Life-Cycle Assessment and Metals, 15–17 April 2002, Montreal , CA. Pensacola, FL , USA : Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Ecoinvent Centre. 2007. Ecoinvent data v2.0. Dübendorf , Switzerland : Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories. Ehrlich, H. and D. Newman. 2008. Geomicrobiology. 5th ed. Boca Raton , FL , USA : CRC Press. Federici, M., S. Ulgiati, and R. Basosi. 2008. A thermodynamic, environmental and material flow analysis of the Italian highway and railway transport systems. Energy 33(5): 760–775. Franzese, P. P., T. Rydberg, G. F. Russo, and S. Ulgiati. 2009. Sustainable biomass production: A comparison between gross energy requirement and emergy synthesis methods. Ecological Indicators 9(5): 959–970. Frischknecht, R. and N. Jungbluth. 2007. Implementation of life cycle impact methods. Data v2.0. Dübendorf , Switzerland : Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories. Frischknecht, R., N. Jungbluth, H.-J. Althaus, G. Doka, R. Dones, T. Heck, S. Hellweg, et al . 2007. Overview and methodology. Dübendorf , Switzerland : Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories. Gallopin, G. 2003. A systems approach to sustainability and sustainable development: Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Division. Santiago , Chile : United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Giljum, S. 2004. Trade, materials flows, and economic development in the South: The example of Chile. Journal of Industrial Ecology 8(1–2): 241–263. Gloria, T. 2009. Determination of empirical allocation measures for non-ferrous metals. In Joint North American Life Cycle Conference. Boston , MA : American Center for Life Cycle Assessment. Goedkoop, M. and R. Spriensma. 2001. The Eco-indicator 99: A damage-oriented method for LCA. Amersfoort , the Netherlands : PRé Consultants. Gössling-Reisemann, S. 2008a. What is resource consumption and how can it be measured? Application of entropy analysis to copper production. Journal of Industrial Ecology 12(4): 570–582. Gössling-Reisemann, S. 2008b. What is resource consumption and how can it be measured? Theoretical considerations. Journal of Industrial Ecology 12(1): 10–25. Guinée, J. B., ed. 2002. Eco-efficiency in industry and science. Handbook on life cycle assessment: Operational guide to the ISO standards, Vol. 7. Dordrecht , the Netherlands : Kluwer Academic. Hau, J. L. and B. R. Bakshi. 2004. Expanding exergy analysis to account for ecosystem products and services. Environmental Science and Technology 38(13): 3768–3777. Ingwersen, W. W. 2010. An uncertainty model for emergy values. Ecological Modelling 221(3): 445–452. ISO (International Organization for Standardization). 2006a. 14040: Environmental management—Life cycle assessment—Principles and framework. Geneva, Switzerland : ISO. ISO. 2006b. 14044: Environmental management—Life cycle assessment—Requirements and guidelines. Geneva, Switzerland : International Organization for Standardization. Jolliet, O., M. Margni, R. Charles, S. Humbert, J. Payet, G. Rebitzer, and R. Rosenbaum. 2003. IMPACT 2002+: A new life cycle impact assessment methodology. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 8(6): 324–330. La Rosa, A. D., G. Siracusa, and R. Cavallaro. 2008. Emergy evaluation of Sicilian red orange production: A comparison between organic and conventional farming. Journal of Cleaner Production 16(17): 1907–1914. O'Brien, E., B. Guy, and A. S. Lindner. 2006. Life cycle analysis of the deconstruction of military barracks: Ft. McClellan, Anniston, AL. Journal of Green Building 1(4): 166–183. Odum, H. T. 1988. Self organization, transformity, and information. Science 242(4882): 1132–1139. Odum, H. T. 1996. Environmental accounting. New York : Wiley. Odum, H. T. and E. P. Odum. 2000. The energetic basis for valuation of ecosystem services. Ecosystems 3(1): 21–23. Odum, H. T., M. T. Brown, and S. Brandt-Williams. 2000. Handbook of emergy evaluation folio #1: Introduction and global budget. Gainesville , FL , USA : Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida. Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines. 2006. Annual production 2005: Gold. Lima , Peru: Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines . Pizzigallo, A. C. I., C. Granai, and S. Borsa. 2008. The joint use of LCA and emergy evaluation for the analysis of two Italian wine farms. Journal of Environmental Management 86(2): 396–406. PRé Consultants. 2008. SimaPro 7.1. PhD version. Amsfoort , the Netherlands : PRé Consultants. Sciubba, E. and S. Ulgiati. 2005. Emergy and exergy analyses: Complementary methods or irreducible ideological options Energy 30(10): 1953–1988. Stratus Consulting. 2003. Report on the independent assessment of water quantity and quality near the Yanacocha Mining District, Cajamarca, Peru. SC10328. Washington , DC : IFC/MIGA Compliance Advisor. Sweeney, S., M. Cohen, D. King, and M. Brown. 2008. National Environmental Accounting Database. http://sahel.ees.ufl.edu/frame_database_resources_test.php. Accessed 10 October 2009. Tilley, D. R. 2003. Industrial ecology and ecological engineering opportunities for symbiosis. Journal of Industrial Ecology 7(2): 13–32. Ukidwe, N. and B. R. Bakshi. 2004. Thermodynamic accounting of ecosystem contribution to economic sectors with application to 1992 U.S. economy. Environmental Science & Technology 38(18): 4810–4827. Ulgiati, S., M. Raugei, and S. Bargigli. 2006. Overcoming the inadequacy of single-criterion approaches to life cycle assessment. Ecological Modelling 190(3–4): 432–442. Urban, R. A. and B. R. Bakshi. 2009. 1,3-Propanediol from fossils versus biomass: A life cycle evaluation of emissions and ecological resources. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 48(17): 8068–8082. Weidema, B. and G. Norris. 2002. Avoiding co-product allocation in the metals sector. In Life cycle assessment of metals: Issues and research directions, edited by A. Dubriel. Pensacola , FL , USA : Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. World Gold Council. 2006. Mine production. http://www.gold.org/value/markets/supply_demand/mine_production.html. Accessed 8 February 2008. Yellishetty, M., P. G. Ranjith, A. Tharumarajah, and S. Bhosale. 2009. Life cycle assessment in the minerals and metals sector: A critical review of selected issues and challenges. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 14(3): 257–267. Zhang, Y., S. Singh, and B. R. Bakshi. 2010a. Accounting for ecosystem services in life cycle assessment, Part I: A critical review. Environmental Science & Technology 44(7): 2232–2242. Zhang, Y., A. Baral, and B. R. Bakshi. 2010b. Accounting for ecosystem services in life cycle assessment, Part II: Toward an ecologically based LCA. Environmental Science & Technology 44(7): 2624–2631. Citing Literature Volume15, Issue4August 2011Pages 550-567 Translations 《产业生态学报》中文摘要 (JIE Chinese Abstracts) Resúmenes en Español de la Revista de Ecología Industrial (JIE Spanish Abstracts) ReferencesRelatedInformation
Referência(s)