In the life cycle assessment (LCA) of products, the increasing scarcity of metal resources is currently addressed in a preliminary way. Here, we propose a new method on the basis of global ore grade information to assess the importance of the extraction of metal resources in the life cycle of products. It is shown how characterization factors, reflecting the decrease in ore grade due to an increase in metal extraction, can be derived from cumulative ore grade-tonnage relationships. CFs were derived for three different types of copper deposits (porphyry, sediment-hosted, and volcanogenic massive sulfide). We tested the influence of the CF model (marginal vs average), mathematical distribution (loglogistic vs loglinear), and reserve estimate (ultimate reserve vs reserve base). For the marginal CFs, the statistical distribution choice and the estimate of the copper reserves introduce a difference of a factor of 1.0-5.0 and a factor of 1.2-1.7, respectively. For the average CFs, the differences are larger for these two choices, i.e. respectively a factor of 5.7-43 and a factor of 2.1-3.8. Comparing the marginal CFs with the average CFs, the differences are higher (a factor 1.7-94). This paper demonstrates that cumulative grade-tonnage relationships for metal extraction can be used in LCA to assess the relative importance of metal extractions.

In the perspective of value creation and capture, firms in the future must not only be excellent in developing commodities or innovative functional products; they must also be able to manufacture them in a competitive cost structure within the framework of a proper business model. Deploying a conceptual model of the material transformation system in the process industries, the relationship between firms' manufacturing and innovation activities has been explored in three case studies representing the food, mineral and steel industries. Using the methodology of Quality Function Deployment, each firm's position on the model structure has been condensed into a matrix relating the manufacturing system's characterizing variables to the firm's raw material innovation, innovation of process technology and product innovation. The importance of the area of process innovation stands out in all these firms, and among the individual variables 'product flexibility' ranked highest in all of them. It is recommended that in the development of corporate innovation strategies, the productmarket perspective ought to be supplemented by a process-manufacturing perspective. Combining the information from both perspectives and striking a proper balance ought to be beneficial in overbridging the manufacturing-R&D interface. bs_bs_banner 252 R&D Management 43, 3, 2013. • number of primary raw materials; range (95) • environmental footprint from raw material conversion (95) Managing the manufacturing-R&D interface No. C3 Number of products (product range) No. C4 Number of product varieties (product variety range) No. C5 Volume of semi-finished products No. C6 Number of co-products No. C7 Num ber of byproducts No. C8 Internal product structural complexity No. C9 Product inherent changeability during handling No. C10 Product traceability in the production system No. C11 Product environmental footprint Key financially related production variables No. D1 Raw material intensity (raw m aterial cost/company turnover) No. D2 Conversion intensity (sales-raw material cost/ company turnover) No. D3 Product inventory turnover (product inventory/total assets) No. D4 Dow nstream product supply chain complexity Managing the manufacturing-R&D interface No. D1 Raw material intensity (raw m aterial cost/company turnover) No. D2 Conversion intensity (sales-raw material cost/ company turnover) No. D3 Product inventory turnover (product inventory/total assets) No. D4 Downstream product supply chain complexity Managing the manufacturing-R&D interface No. A1 Volume of captive (company ow ned) primary raw material supplies No. A2 Volume of recycled external raw material supplies No. A3 Number of primary raw materials (range) No. A4 Prim ary raw material specifications No. A5 Prim ary raw material changeability during handling No. A6 Environmental footprint during raw m aterial conversion Key process-related production variables No. B1 Volume of internally recycled material No. B2 Production flow characteristics (batch -continuous) No. B3 Processing complexity (nu...

No abstract

The concept of declining availability due to declining primary resource quality has been investigated for various resource categories to try to determine the effort needed in future to either extract the resource or to treat it for intended use. The concept of 'future efforts' due to declining primary resource quality is explored by Vieira et al. (2016. They suggest that a specific burden associated with the production of each primary material should be taken into account and that this can be done by studying the costs of production or ore requirements of the material and by projecting forward likely costs into the future. For the purpose of the analysis, they employ mine cost data for 2000-2013 and reserve data published by the US Geological Survey. We will argue below that this approach is not correct and, with this comment, we wish to make it clear that-contrary to what is suggested in much of the Life Cycle Assessment literature-the future efforts concept is not an established rule of natural resource extraction. For mineral resources, it is quite impossible to proceed with extraction in the ordered way that this approach suggests because nobody has a comprehensive view of the entire natural resource. Secondly, there is no evidence available to support the idea that extracting a mineral resource today causes a decrease in availability of that mineral tomorrow. On the contrary, the weight of evidence suggests that where declines in ore grades have been observed, they are overwhelmingly due to technology development in response to high demand and have been accompanied by increased mining efficiency and increased availability of the resource to successive generations. Grade is a rather arbitrary measure since the grade of mined ore ultimately has to do with the relationship of costs and revenues. It is not only the technology employed which matters but also how smartly this technology is applied. Thirdly, the future efforts approach entirely overlooks the potential availability of mineral materials from secondary (scrap) sources, sources which are expected to become increasingly important to mineral supply in the future. Our conclusion from the discussion is that we as humans have been able to economically access ever-increasing amounts of material from often lower and lower-grade sources. What is impossible to conclude from this is that the environment no longer contains any of the higher-grade sources. In fact, all the available evidence suggests that higher-grade deposits are still out there. We remain critical optimists.

Abstract:In this study a newly developed method called the Progressing and Backcasting models were used to evaluate the annual resource utilizations of steel scrap in Sweden and globally. The model results show that it is possible to assess the amounts of steel scrap available for steelmaking at a given point in time, based on statistical dynamic material flow models. By a better mapping of the available amounts of steel scrap reserves on a country basis, it is possible to ease the trade of scrap across country boarders. This in turn can optimize the supply of recyclable metals as a raw material used in the industry. The results for Swedish steel consumption show that export bans used to secure the domestic market of steel scrap do damage the internal market due to increased amounts of losses. This suggests that export bans should be lifted to optimize recycling in countries. The model results also show that the global losses of steel are higher than for an industrialized country such as Sweden. Furthermore, the results show that the Backcasting and Progressing models can be used to calculate robust forecasts on the long term availability of steel scrap assets. This information could be used for future structural plans of scrap consuming steelmaking mills and waste management facilities. Hence, it is possible to contribute to a sustainable industrial development and a circular economy.