Life Cycle Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Targets Assessment of Refined Copper Industry

Key words: 
• primary refined copper /
• secondary refined copper /
• life cycle assessment /
• energy conservation emission reduction /
• overall reduction rate

Abstract: Life cycle model of refined copper was developed and analyzed in terms of life cycle Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction indicator(ECER).The life cycle energy conservation and emission reduction performance of primary copper and that of secondary copper was compared.Moreover,when the market shares of primary and secondary copper change,overall ECER reduction of refined copper industry was calculated and compared with national political targets.The results showed that the ECER of secondary copper is 62.5% less than that of primary copper,which confirms that copper recycling is an effective way for energy conservation and emission reduction.However,by changing the market share of secondary copper from 38.5% in 2010 to 40% in 2015 as suggested in "twelfth five-year" plan of non-ferrous metals industry,the overall reduction of ECER of refined copper industry was only 13%,which is far from 27.8% as prescribed by the national political targets.Therefore,the market share of secondary copper should be raised as much as possible,meanwhile cleaner technologies and means are needed urgently.The method proposed in this paper could be applied to calculate the ECER reduction of other industries too,which could help to estimate whether various technologies or schemes are adequate to reach the national targets.