scholarly journals Technological Demonstration and Life Cycle Assessment of a Negative Emission Value Chain in the Swiss Concrete Sector

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Tiefenthaler ◽  
Lisa Braune ◽  
Christian Bauer ◽  
Romain Sacchi ◽  
Marco Mazzotti
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Waste Incineration ◽  
Industrial Scale ◽  
Concrete Aggregate ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Negative Emission

Switzerland, such as most of the other countries which are part of the Paris agreement, decided to reduce GHG emissions to zero by 2050. The ambition of net-zero GHG emission across all industrial sectors can only be achieved by rapid decarbonization and the deployment of negative emission technologies to compensate residual emissions from for example agriculture. In the scope of this work, the proof of technology of a negative emission value chain at industrial scale in the concrete sector is presented. The core of the system is a mineralization technology, which fixes biogenic CO2 permanently as calcium carbonate in concrete aggregate. In addition, the net-negativity in terms of GHG emissions and environmental burdens beyond these are quantified in a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). It could be shown that an industrial-scale mineral carbonation process can be seamlessly integrated in today's concrete recycling processes and that it can process relevant amounts of concrete aggregate while storing on average 7.2 kg CO2 per ton of concrete aggregate. Moreover, material tests revealed that the carbonated concrete aggregate fulfills the same service as the regular one—thus no significant effects on the concrete properties could be observed. The LCA shows that every processing step requires materials and energy, and thus generates associated emissions. However, from a cradle to gate perspective, the carbon removal efficiency is 93.6%. Thus, 1,000 kg of CO2 stored generate 64 kg of CO2-eq. emissions. Furthermore, it could be shown that biogas upgrading can supply sufficient amounts of CO2 until 2030 in Switzerland. From 2030 on, more and more CO2 from other emission sources, such as waste incineration, need to be utilized to exploit the full potential of the value chain, which is going to be 560 kt of negative CO2 emissions in Switzerland in 2050, corresponding to 30% of the projected demand within the national borders.

scholarly journals Integrating Regionalized Socioeconomic Considerations onto Life Cycle Assessment for Evaluating Bioeconomy Value Chains: A Case Study on Hybrid Wood–Concrete Ceiling Elements

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4221
Author(s):  
Alberto Bezama ◽  
Jakob Hildebrandt ◽  
Daniela Thrän
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Lightweight Concrete ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Social Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Development Scenarios ◽  
Industrial Sectors

As bioeconomy strategies strive to integrate industrial sectors for achieving innovative materials alternative to the ones produced from non-renewable resources, the development of monitoring systems and tools to assess the implementation of such value chains is still a work in progress. This work intended to integrate the traditional life cycle assessment with a regionalized social life cycle assessment method to evaluate alternative production scenarios of a hybrid construction system with a wood-based lightweight concrete panel as a core component currently in its final stages of technical development. The life cycle impact assessment was carried out by comparing the relative advantages of two product development scenarios against the reference system’s results. The social life cycle assessment was carried out using the model “REgional SPecific cONtextualised Social life cycle Assessment” (RESPONSA), which was developed for assessing wood-based value chains under a regional scope. The results showed that both alternative scenarios present large advantages when compared to the reference system. Moreover, the implementation of the production value chain was found to imply positive socioeconomic advantages in the region, in particular, due to the quality of the jobs found in the organizations associated with the production system.

Incorporating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in Freight Transportation Infrastructure Project Evaluation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumith Kumar Oduru ◽  
Pasi Lautala
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Freight Transportation ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Planning Stage ◽  
Simplified Lca ◽  
Modal Route

Transportation industry at large is a major consumer of fossil fuels and contributes heavily to the global greenhouse gas emissions. A significant portion of these emissions come from freight transportation and decisions on mode/route may affect the overall scale of emissions from a specific movement. It is common to consider several alternatives for a new freight activity and compare the alternatives from economic perspective. However, there is a growing emphasis for adding emissions to this evaluation process. One of the approaches to do this is through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); a method for estimating the emissions, energy consumption and environmental impacts of the project throughout its life cycle. Since modal/route selections are often investigated early in the planning stage of the project, availability of data and resources for analysis may become a challenge for completing a detailed LCA on alternatives. This research builds on such detailed LCA comparison performed on a previous case study by Kalluri et al. (2016), but it also investigates whether a simplified LCA process that only includes emissions from operations phase could be used as a less resource intensive option for the analysis while still providing relevant outcomes. The detailed LCA is performed using SimaPro software and simplified LCA is performed using GREET 2016 model. The results are obtained in terms of Kg CO2 equivalents of GHG emissions. This paper introduces both detailed and simplified methodologies and applies them to a case study of a nickel and copper mine in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The analysis’ are done for three modal alternatives (two truck routes and one rail route) and for multiple mine lives.

scholarly journals Carbon Footprint and Related Production Costs of System Components of a Field-Grown Cercis canadensis L. ‘Forest Pansy’ Using Life Cycle Assessment

2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dewayne L. Ingram ◽  
Charles R. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Carbon Footprint ◽  
Production System ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emission ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
System Component ◽  
Cercis Canadensis

Life cycle assessment (LCA) was utilized to analyze the global warming potential (GWP), or carbon footprint, and associated costs of the production components of a field-grown, spade-dug, 5 cm (2 in) caliper Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ in the Lower Midwest, U.S. A model production system was determined from interviews of nursery managers in the region. Input materials, equipment use and labor were inventoried for each production system component using international standards of LCA. The seed-to-landscape GWP, expressed in kilograms of carbon dioxide emission equivalent (CO2e), was determined to be 13.707. Equipment use constituted the majority (63%) of net CO2-e emissions during production, transport to the customer, and transplanting in the landscape. The model was queried to determine the possible impact of production system modifications on carbon footprint and costs to aid managers in examining their production system. Carbon sequestration of a redbud growing in the landscape over its 40 year life, weighted proportionally for a 100 year assessment period, was calculated to be −165 kg CO2e. The take-down and disposal activities following its useful life would result in the emission of 88.44 kg CO2e. The life-cycle GWP of the described redbud tree, including GHG emissions during production, transport, transplanting, take down and disposal would be −63 kg CO2e. Total variable costs associated with the labor, materials, and equipment use incurred in the model system were $0.069, $2.88, and $34.81 for the seedling, liner, and field production stages, respectively. An additional $18.83 was needed for transport to the landscape and planting in the landscape and after the 40 year productive life of the tree in the landscape, another $60.86 was needed for take-down and disposal activities.

From laboratory to industrial scale: a scale-up framework for chemical processes in life cycle assessment studies

2016 ◽  
Vol 135 ◽  
pp. 1085-1097 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiano Piccinno ◽  
Roland Hischier ◽  
Stefan Seeger ◽  
Claudia Som
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Chemical Processes ◽  
Industrial Scale
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