This report is a comparative life cycle assessment of a conventional steel ferry and a carbon fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composite ferry.
As such, the objective of this report is to evaluate the environmental impacts of the current Tun Island Ferry and the proposed alternative Eco Island Ferry according to ISO 14040 standards for life cycle assessment. The functional unit is defined as servicing the Tunø ferry route in one year. This includes:
This report studies the environmental performance of the two ferry alternatives, including the emissions related to the production of construction materials and engine size, energy savings related to change in the weight of the ferry, and the waste handling at the end-of-life of the ferry.
The present report is a detailed study of the environmental impacts, seen in a life cycle perspective, of an aluminium smelter with an annual capacity of 360,000 tonnes planned for instalment in West Greenland. The study is initiated by Alcoa and the Government of Greenland. The smelter is still in the planning phase, and will not be operating before 2014, at the earliest.
The objective of the LCA is to provide life cycle-based environmental information on the planned aluminium smelter in relation to the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) process, which is ongoing from 2007 to 2009 (Greenland Home Rule 2007).
This summary is divided into three parts. The first part is the background section that describes the context and purpose of the LCA, while the second part explains the scope of study as well as important methodological considerations and choices. The third part presents the main results of the study. These include the estimated GHG emissions of the planned aluminium smelter in Greenland, and GHG emissions related to an alternative aluminium production. The alternative is assumed to be implemented if the Greenland smelter is not established, or to be avoided if the project continues as planned. Finally, part three comprises a sensitivity analysis highlighting the uncertainties of the LCA results.
This paper concerns the Ecodesign Directive (2009/125/EC) and the implementing measures (IM) in which ecodesign requirements are set up for energy-using and energy-related products. Previous studies have found that the requirements have a unilateral focus on energy consumption and the use phase. This is not in line with the scientific understanding of ecodesign, where attention should be put on all life cycle phases and all relevant environmental impact categories. This study focuses on the requirements for televisions (TV). A life cycle assessment (LCA) is carried out on two TVs to analyse if other environmental hotspots and life cycle phases should be included in the requirements in the IM of the Ecodesign Directive besides energy consumption in the use phase analysis.
The consequential approach is used. The data for the LCA have been gathered from two manufacturers of TVs. In one case, the data were delivered in Excel spreadsheets; in the other case, the authors of this paper together with the manufacturer disassembled a TV and collected the data manually.
When applying the consequential approach, the production phase has the highest environmental impact, which is in contradiction with the focus area of the IM. The result of the sensitivity analysis is that the source of electricity is a potentially significant contributor of uncertainty. However, even in a coal-based scenario, the contribution from the production phase is approximately 30 %.
Based on these results, it is concluded that for future requirement setting in IM, it is necessary to set up requirements that cover more life cycle phases of the product in order to address the most important impacts.
The hotspot analysis shows that the use phase, and internet traffic in particular, dominates the total climate footprint of the Jabra Panacast. Focusing on the contribution of the Jabra Panacast equipment itself, except for its use, the main contributing components are the cast aluminium, the polycarbonate resin, and the USB cable, which point to potential improvement actions under the direct influence of the GN Group.
The Jabra Panacast performs better than face-to-face meetings, except when the nodes are situated very close to each other. Even a non-optimised use (two nodes of two participants) in the region where internet has the largest climate footprint (India) yields low break-even distances of 30 and 16 km for train and air travel, respectively. For any other use and/or region scenario, the break-even distances would be lower. In any case, no scenario yields realistic distances to be covered by air travel, and so we conclude that the Jabra Panacast will always perform better than a face-to-face meeting where the participants travel by air.
