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ME 599 Life Cycle Assessment: LCA Project Description
Winter Quarter 2008
UWME Design for Environment Homepage
Your project will be a LCA that recommends improvement opportunities within the life cycle of a system of your choosing. You will submit a proposal and three parts of your final report as the quarter progresses so that the instructor may provide comment and so you may incorporate these comments into your final report:
Proposal: Your proposal should include (1) an introduction describing the specific system you will evaluate and why you have chosen it (i.e., it is related to your thesis or dissertation, it is related to your current job or career goals, it is an environmental question you have had for some time, etc.), (2) a list and description of related environmental aspects considered obvious in the news or other literature (be sure to include citations), and (3) a list and description of example process alternatives (both good and bad) throughout the system life cycle. For example, if your project were to be an evaluation of improvement opportunities for polymer exchange fuel cell vehicles using hydrogen (the specific system), you should (1) briefly describe polymer exchange fuel cells (with citations), (2) briefly describe as environmental aspects platinum and fluorochemical use, fossil fuel and other energy use and emissions during hydrogen production, etc., and (3) briefly describe alternatives to platinum catalysts and to fluoropolymer membranes as well as alternative hydrogen production systems.
Interim and Final Reports
Part 1. Goal and scope definition. The structure of your goal and scope report is described in the ISO Standards. Specifically, you will need to define the goal and scope of the study; define the function, functional unit, and reference flows; define the initial system boundaries (including process flow diagrams depicting major material flows); identify data categories; data quality requirements; and recommendations for critical review. You must also include a brief description of the LCA methodology and a review of existing related LCAs/ environmental assessments.
Part 1A Data gaps analysis - Develop a table listing the unit processes in the life cycle and the data sources available for each.
Part 2. Inventory analysis. Using the ISO Standards as a guide, your inventory analysis should include unit process data keyed to your process flow diagrams and quantifying relevant material and energy flows. Your inventory analysis must include a quantitative analysis of relevant life cycle stages. Data sources should be cited very carefully. More information on what to include in the inventory analysis is attached here.
Part 3. Impact assessment. Using TRACI as a guide, your impact assessment must include characterization and normalization and may also include valuation.
Your final report will combine these three parts and add two final parts:
Part 4. Interpretation. The findings from your inventory analysis and impact assessment should be evaluated on the basis of completeness, sensitivity, and consistency of the data.
Part 5. Recommendations. The conclusion of your report should support recommendations for resource conservation and pollution prevention.
Report Requirements
Your final project report should not exceed 25 pages of text, figures, and tables (not including appendices). Text should be 12-point and text in tables and figures should not be smaller than 10-point. Figures and tables should be integrated within the text of the description unless they are clearly part of an appendix. All citations should be complete as described at http://wally.rit.edu/pubs/guides/apa.html
For more information, contact Associate Professor Joyce Smith Cooper at cooper@me.washington.edu
