PW06 Life-Cycle Assessment
Exhibit Hall
8:00 AM - Wednesday
(PW048) Application of a Life Cycle Impact Assessment framework to evaluate and compare environmental performances with economic values of supplied coal products.
Brent, AC1, Mangena, SJ1, 1 University of Pretoria
ABSTRACT- The South African economy is strongly based on coal as a mined resource and various grades of coal are supplied to local and international customers. The environmental impacts, associated with the preparation and production of different coal grades from Run of Mine (RoM) or raw coal, are variable. In addition, the mining methods used to extract the coal, be it opencast or underground mining, have dissimilar environmental impacts. The entire life cycles of the grades of coal must therefore be evaluated in order to compare environmental performances with supplied economic values in the South African context. A Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodology, based on the ISO 14040 standard, is applied for this purpose. Four cases are considered in South Africa: typical high-grade and low-grade coals from opencast and underground mines.
Key words: life cycle impact assessment, coal products, life cycle management, environmental performances