ME 515 Life Cycle Assessment: LCA Project Description

Fall Quarter 2009

ME515 LCA Class Homepage

UWME Design for Environment Homepage

all interim and final reports should be submitted through the class catalyst drop-box

 

Your project will be a LCA that recommends improvement opportunities for a life cycle of a system of your choosing. 

HOWEVER:

  • You may not recreate an existing LCA (this means you must start with a literature review including BOTH a journal and web search)

  • You may choose from one of the following types of projects:

    type a. prepare an LCA on a product or production process that has not yet been assessed

    type b. use an existing LCA as the basis for an assessment of process alternatives or a set of impacts that have not previously been assessed THROUGHOUT THE LIFE CYCLE (e.g., a water-footprint, a landuse-footprint, etc.)

    type c. change the geographic specificity of an existing LCA, as long as this includes an update of technology practices THROUGHOUT THE LIFE CYCLE (e.g., you may move an existing LCA representing operations in Europe to operations in the US, but you will need to ensure the technology representation is appropriate)

  • All project proposals must be approved by the instructor

    • Ideal projects are built around a parametric model of a product or production process, giving you the ability to vary important operating parameters

During the quarter, you will submit a proposal, several interim reports, and a final report:

Proposal: Your ~2-page proposal should include:

  • an introduction describing the specific system you will evaluate and why you have chosen it (e.g., it is related to your thesis or dissertation, it is related to your current job or career goals, it is related to an environmental question you have had for some time, etc.).

  • a description of your proposed LCA including:

    • geographic specificity (what region will you study?-- the US? the globe?)

    • the functional unit

    • a description of how you will model "core production" (include references to data or models to be used)

    • a hierarchical list of unit processes to be included in the life cycle (using abbreviations as needed, such as "the life cycle of aluminum production")

    • a description of what will be tracked in the impact assessment (such as "the contribution to climate change") and a statement on why you have chosen these impacts (references are appropriate here)

      •

    and for project types b or c: a description of related published LCAs including 

    • a description of the geographic specificity, functional unit, scope (including a hierarchical list of included processes), impact assessment, comparisons made, and conclusions drawn

    • Please consider the use of appendices (e.g., for process lists) which do not need to comply with the page limit

  • identification and justification of the proposed project type (select from the 3 project types listed above: type a - type c), based on the information found in your review of existing and related LCAs

  • the references used, formatted as described at http://wally.rit.edu/pubs/guides/apa.html

Interim Reports

Part 1.    Goal and scope definition.  Follow the structure described in the ISO Standards.  You will be both reformatting some of the information provided in your proposal and providing new new information.   Note that your "critical review" includes feedback from the instructor on interim and final reports as well as feedback provided by the class during the oral presentations.  You must also include a brief description of the LCA methodology and a review of existing related LCAs as may have been included in your proposal.  All citations should be complete as described at http://wally.rit.edu/pubs/guides/apa.html

Part 2.    Inventory analysis.  Follow the structure described in the ISO Standards.  Your technology and intervention matrices, demand vector, scaling vector, and result vector must be included in an appendix and must be referred to in the text. All data sources must be cited, and formatted as described at http://wally.rit.edu/pubs/guides/apa.html

Final Report

Your final report must combine all interim reports and add two final parts:

Part 3.         Impact assessment.  Your impact assessment must include characterization and normalization and may also include valuation.  All citations should be complete as described at http://wally.rit.edu/pubs/guides/apa.html

Part 4.         Interpretation.  The findings from your inventory analysis and impact assessment should be evaluated on the basis of completeness, sensitivity, consistency, and quality of the data. All citations should be complete as described at http://wally.rit.edu/pubs/guides/apa.html

Part 5.         Recommendations.  The conclusion of your report should support recommendations for resource conservation and pollution prevention. All citations should be complete as described at http://wally.rit.edu/pubs/guides/apa.html

Report Requirements

Your final project report must 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

Example Class Projects (noting the their project requirements may have been different than yours)

For more information, contact Associate Professor Joyce Smith Cooper at cooper@me.washington.edu