Tag: LCA

New LCA Tool By The Slag Cement Association

Whether construction is your mainstay, or whether LCA tools are, or if you are looking for an elegant LCA tool, you would be just as impressed as I have been with the LCA tool from the Slag Cement Association that provides you with ready, visual and numeric updates on the impact change, due to the use of slag in your blended cement, and due to the change in the amount of slag. I found it through my Google Alert for LCA tools (Google Alerts are bloody brilliant!).

If you are a Mechanical Engineer like me or a Civil/Construction Engineer, slag means exactly what you think it is – a side product from the foundry. If you are new to slag, the SCA themselves have a good page with some explanations here:

http://www.slagcement.org/News/FAQ1.html

The Tool

Always avid to learn of and, to use new LCA tools, I downloaded the tool, “Ready Mixed Concrete LCA Calculator for Slag Cement -Version 1.1”. I recommend you do the same!

It runs off Microsoft Excel, and just by moving a bar that allows you to adjust the amount of slag, off the pre-calculated 40%, you are able to see the impact change. It is simple, elegant and very user friendly.

It has separate work sheets, that allow you to look at custom mixes, if cement is your thing, it allows for comparisons to benchmarks, and impacts across the whole building, which is an important metric. In effect, it is like a dream tool for LCA Professionals!

Data?

Not a lot is known about the LCA Database and Data, their fidelity and so on, and it could be that I just gave the tool a quick look, and if I find out more, I will be certain to report back.

Conclusion

I found it to be fun to play with and it appears to be an incredibly well designed, robust tool, and I hope I can spend some time, the next time I have a conference presentation or demonstration of free LCA tools and maybe follow up with a more detailed write up!

Either way, it is going to make a great addition to The LCA Wiki.

Here is a screenshot. Links follow:

 

References:

  1. The Press Release: http://www.forconstructionpros.com/press_release/12321964/slag-cement-life-cycle-assessment-calculator-now-available
  2. The LCA Tool Itself: http://www.slagcement.org/Sustainability/lca-calculator.html
  3. Slag Cement Association: http://slagcement.org/
  4. Image Courtesy, Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/building-construction-building-site-constructing-2469/
  5. Set your own Google Alerts: http://alerts.google.com/

 

Please follow and like us:

LCA Priorities – Start at the top

some-office-things-picjumbo-com

The other day, I just started reading “How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything” by Mike Berners-Lee (because that is what I do for fun), when I came across a very important point he made. I thought it would be a good way to click off this blog.

He talks about perspective when looking for the carbon footprint of things or activities, and of course alludes you to prioritize air travel over paper towels or air dryers. And this, is something we all know, and know to be true for almost all problem solving, and yet, we miss this so often. So, it is time to formalize this into LCA so that it becomes an integral part of how you attack the environmental impact of your products and/or services.

Setting Priorities – Intuition as an Innovation Tool

LCAs can, in some cases come up with surprising results. Given that, does it make sense to go after what appear to be the “big ticket items” first? Yes, it still does. Start with activities or components such as the following:

  1. Those  that have wildly larger footprints (products, assemblies or services involved in air transport), or,
  2. Use exotic materials (such as batteries),
  3. Items with heavier mass,
  4. Components manufactured using specialized techniques
  5. Components that require specialized packaging or handling, etc.

Use intuition to arrive at a classification metric or scheme, and start at the top, so that you don’t miss out on 5000 metric tons of CO2, trying to chase something that puts out 50.

Reference: 

  1. Berners-Lee, Mike. (2011). How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint Of Everything Vancouver, Canada: Greystone.
  2. Image, Courtesy: https://picjumbo.com/download/?d=HNCK5096.jpg&n=some-office-things
Please follow and like us: