Article 6: Bluescope Steel Life Cycle Analysis

Posted on the Bluescope steel website at url address

http://www.bluescopesteel.com/go/about-bluescope-steel/student-information/life-cycle-analysis

The Application of Life Cycle Analysis by BlueScope Steel

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is an important tool used by BlueScope Steel to improve both steelmaking processes and products. In broader terms, it assists in reducing the impact of these products and processes on the environment.

1. The Development of a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) Model

Although LCA had its genesis in the 1960s, its application was not widespread until the early 1990s. Since then, much progress has been made in the development of widely accepted methodologies, including a number of international standards (ISO14040 to 14044).

Today, LCA is applied to a wide range of applications. Much of the development and application has been carried out in Europe and North America, but interest in Australia is growing strongly and is supported by governments, industry and consumer groups.

2. What is LCA?

Life Cycle Analysis is an important tool for both analysing processes to find ways to improve them, and assessing materials and products.

LCA consists of two components: inventory analysis and impact analysis.

Inventory analysis involves summarising the material and energy flows for a defined system. The 'system' is the combination of processes and activities that manufacture a product or achieve an outcome. This typically includes all of the processes associated with the mining of resources, supply of energy, manufacture of the product, use of the product and disposal and recycle. The resultant inventory is a list of the resources consumed and the emissions associated with the system.

Impact assessment involves interpreting the significance of the resource consumption and emissions determined in the inventory stage. In life cycle assessment, these are restricted to environmental impacts. This aspect of LCA still requires further development before it is widely-accepted.

There are numerous approaches currently in use, ranging from simplified methods based on a limited number of parameters, to complex systems covering a wide range of parameters that achieve single valued effect scores. (At some point all methodologies require subjective value judgments.)

Energy and carbon dioxide emissions are just two of the many indicators for impact assessment.

3. BlueScope Steel's LCA Model

BlueScope Steel began working on an LCA model in 1993. From the outset, we determined that our approach would be rigorous and stand up to international scrutiny.

Our model is used for both product and process assessment. It examines the material use and emissions in a product, from raw materials through to end of life. It also assesses the impact of products and processes on the environment - from the mining of the coal and ore which goes into the production of iron, through the steelmaking and manufacturing processes, to disposal by processes such as recycling at the end of a product's useful life.

It does this by examining such things as:

• Wastes generated during production;
• Energy consumed during production and the use of the product;
• Fresh water consumption during production; and
• The amount of recycling possible with the product.

4. A Case Study: LCA in the Building Industry

Within the context of the building industry, LCA can be applied to:

• Product assessment
• Eco labelling
• Process improvement
• Eco design
• New technology evaluation

Consider a building as an example. For the energy case, the analysis would consider the energy embodied in the building, and the energy consumed during the life of the building.

The former depends on the materials used and the fabrication methods, while the latter depends on the orientation, window areas, window types and surface treatments, lighting systems, air conditioning systems, level of insulation, and thermal characteristics of walls and roof.

In a typical project home with brick veneer on a concrete slab, steel framing and a steel sheet roof, the energy embodied in the building materials is small (around three per cent) compared with the energy used to operate it over its life.

As most of this energy is consumed in lighting, heating and cooling, the most effective way of decreasing the life cycle requirements of a house is to use building materials and systems that can reduce the energy required to run the house.

To that end, passive solar design principles, together with the use of energy efficient household appliances and lighting, are key factors in reducing energy consumption (and resulting carbon dioxide emissions from the generation of that energy).

In addition to energy, a comprehensive LCA will include a range of other environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste.

A less than comprehensive LCA model can give misleading results. Examples would be where whole-of-life energy usage of a product is not included together with the embodied energy from the components and fabrication; or, alternatively, where only energy usage is incorporated (and other resource utilisation such as water and raw materials is ignored).

For every product analysed, a large number of calculation steps are necessary for a meaningful answer.

5. LCA and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games

As a contribution to Australia's Olympic initiative, we undertook to conduct an LCA of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games (including an analysis of Olympic venues) on behalf of the organising body, SOCOG.

The comprehensive study looked at the buildings and infrastructure constructed for the Games, their utilisation during the Games itself, transportation, waste management, and carbon credits (the question of how many trees should be planted to offset carbon released during the Games).

For the purposes of the study, the LCA model was adapted for the Olympic Model.

6. LCA and Cleaner Production

LCA is a powerful tool for achieving cleaner production for both processes and products. It is also a practical tool that can be used in partnerships between manufacturers and product users, ensuring the raw materials used in construction and manufacturing can be used by builders, architects and designers to achieve efficient and sustainable designs.

Today, steel products are being designed to be more environmentally sustainable, enabling easier and faster construction, more efficient utilisation, and ease of recycling of components at the end of their product life.

In the future, BlueScope Steel will continue to develop and apply LCA as a tool to support cleaner production, new business, product and technology development, and environmental management.