Abstract
In most case of materials inventory studies, mining activities are excluded from their system boundaries because of the difficulty in data acquisition from foreign mine sites especially for Japan.
We have developed a database to estimate CO2 emission level on the mining and mineral processing process from fundamental information of the concerned mine by rearranging CES (Cost Estimating System, USBM). This database called MLED (Mining LCI Estimating Database) provides standard CO2 emission level for each production style on mining activities.
In this study, CO2 emission level of copper mines from which Japanese smelters import ore concentrates into Japan are estimated by using the MLED. Eleven copper mines selected from availability of mine site data cover 84% of total imported concentrates. Adding inventories of sea transportation and smelting processes to mine development process, total CO2 emission level for copper ingot produced in Japan are calculated. As a result, weighted average of CO2 emission is estimated at 2.38 kg-CO2/kg-Cu. Emission share of mining and mineral processing processes for each mine is indicated around 50~70%, which implies the importance of mining activities for inventory of upper stream products.
