Abstract
The methodologies for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) of metal resources are rather diverse. Some LCIA methods are based on ore grade changes, but they typically do not consider the impact of changes in primary metal extraction technology. To characterize the impact of technology changes for copper, we modeled and analyzed energy demand, expressed in fossil energy equivalents (FEE) per kilogram of primary copper, taking into account the applied mining method and processing technology. The model was able to capture variations in reported energy demands of selected mining sites (FEE: 0.07 to 0.84 MJ-eq/kg ore) with deviations of 1 to 30%. Applying the model to a database containing global mine production data resulted in energy demand median values of around 50 MJ/kg Cu irrespective of the processing route, even though median values of ore demands varied between processing routes from ca. 35 (underground, conventional processing) to 200 kg ore/kg Cu (open pit, solvent-extraction, and electrowinning), as high specific ore demands are typically associated with less energy intensive extraction technologies and vice versa. Thus, only considering ore grade in LCIA methods without making any differentiation with regard to employed technology can produce misleading results.
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