TA11A Case Studies on Minerals and Metals Products
C120-122
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Tuesday
() Material Flow Accounting and Analysis for Metals in Japan.
Murakami, Shinsuke1, Adachi, Tsuyoshi1, Mogi, Gento1, 1 The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
ABSTRACT- In this study, a Material Flow Accounting framework for metals is developed and utilized for analysis. The proposed framework is based on PIOT (Physical Input Output Table) with some adjustments for the metal flows. Since metal material production carries many joint-productions, smelting and refining are independently accounted from other flows. Since metal has been utilized by industrial activities for long and its recycling has a long history, there are a lot of inconsistent information available. Therefore, the proposed framework aims to offer a consistent framework for both data providers and users. An analysis is carried out with data of the year 2000. The nineteen metals studied are, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, nickel, tungsten, cobalt, manganese, iron, antimony, platinum, palladium, titanium, magnesium, and tin. Due to the availability of data, the information concerning reusing is excluded. In conclusion, it is ascertained that Japan is a resource importing and product exporting country, as it has been believed. In addition, Japanese metal material flow has an excessive balance of inputs over outputs. However, since the data of secondhand exports is hardly available, and might be underestimated, this could be one reason for the imbalance. Then, based on the information from this static analysis, the future material flows are simulated with some scenarios. Since this MFA framework does not include any economic model, the demand must be exogenously given and the dynamic MIOT framework is applied as the demand forecast mechanism. This simulation calculates the material flows dynamically, like as accumulation, and consumption. However, more importantly, with this dynamic expansion, the accounted material cycle is finally closed, even though the information concerning reusing and secondhand trade is lacking. In addition, In addition, it was suggested that the longer life of the products could bring a significant improvement of resource productivity.
Key words: Japan, Material Flow Accounting, Metal, Input Output Technique