Mining Available Data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency to Support Rapid Life Cycle Inventory Modeling of Chemical Manufacturing

Abstract

Demands for quick and accurate life cycle assessments create a need for methods to rapidly generate reliable life cycle inventories (LCI). Data mining is a suitable tool for this purpose, especially given the large amount of available governmental data. These data are typically applied to LCIs on a case-by-case basis. As linked open data becomes more prevalent, it may be possible to automate LCI using data mining by establishing a reproducible approach for identifying, extracting, and processing the data. This work proposes a method for standardizing and eventually automating the discovery and use of publicly available data at the United States Environmental Protection Agency for chemical-manufacturing LCI. The method is developed using a case study of acetic acid. The data quality and gap analyses for the generated inventory found that the selected data sources can provide information with equal or better reliability and representativeness on air, water, hazardous waste, on-site energy usage, and production volumes but with key data gaps including material inputs, water usage, purchased electricity, and transportation requirements. A comparison of the generated LCI with existing data revealed that the data mining inventory is in reasonable agreement with existing data and may provide a more-comprehensive inventory of air emissions and water discharges. The case study highlighted challenges for current data management practices that must be overcome to successfully automate the method using semantic technology. Benefits of the method are that the openly available data can be compiled in a standardized and transparent approach that supports potential automation with flexibility to incorporate new data sources as needed.

Review of the sustainability of food systems and transition using the Internet of Food

“…LCA, C2C) depend on being able to collect sufficient data to characterise a system of interest or the use of publicly funded or commercial databases when site-specific data are not available. It was noted that ‘the practicality of adopting LCA to support decision-making can be limited by the generic nature of the assessment and the resource-intensive nature of data collection and life cycle inventory modelling’, 47 which is the key limitation for developing tools to facilitate the transition from fossil to sustainable food. The need to share data between stakeholders in increasingly important for the creation of useful information about the food system.…”

The creation, management, and use of data quality information for life cycle assessment

“…The updated data quality pedigree matrix and the aggregation method for data quality scores have been demonstrated with application to a gate-to-gate LCI for acetic acid production (Cashman et al 2016), and for a new environmentally-extended input output model of the US economy (Yang et al in review).…”

A framework for an alternatives assessment dashboard for evaluating chemical alternatives applied to flame retardants for electronic applications

“…Emissions to the environment can be obtained from many different publicly available databases. Shin et al (2015) (Cashman et al 2016). The methodology attempts to allocate the emissions from different facilities which are directly related to the production of the chemical of interest.…”