Reference no: EM132343192

Life Cycle Management Assignment -

1. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

This is a hypothetical example that we have developed for you to carry out the task. Duplicate problem sheet will not be provided so please ensure that you don't lose it.

There is an increasing awareness of the effects of global warming potential (GWP) and acidification on the environment and human health resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels.

Greyhound Bus is a transport company having a fleet of diesel-powered buses transporting 115,000 passengers annually per bus with an average ticket price of $4 per passenger. To manage the operation (e.g. driving, maintenance, cleaning, administration), the company has hired 2 employees per bus with an average annual salary of $60,000 per employee. The company is planning to replace diesel powered buses with hydrogen powered buses. The company is committed to improve sustainability of their operation and wish to replace their buses with new technology which uses clean fuel. They have identified hydrogen as a clean transport fuel because the combustion of hydrogen produces no pollutants, the only emissions are water and heat. The company will base their decision on environmental, economic and social benefits associated with the substitution of diesel with hydrogen fuel. In order to recover the cost of investment on new technology, the increase in ticket price is inevitable but due to their social commitment, the company will limit the increase of the average ticket sale price to $4.5 per passenger. The new technology is expected to reduce the maintenance time for buses and hence the company is expecting to transport 3000 additional passengers per bus annually with the same number of busses and will be reducing the employee per bus to 1.5 for managing the operations. Due to incorporation of new technology, the employees may require to put some additional efforts on OHSE and hence the company will pay an incentive of $2,500 per year per employee.

Your task is to compare both the options for 1 year and provide assessment on environmental, economic and social impacts (benefit/loss) to Greyhound Bus, which consists of Part A and Part B.

PART A - Quantitative analysis

I. The functional unit (FU) is the total kilometres travelled by all buses and FU to be calculated using this equation, FU = No. of buses X (90,000 + 60 X last three digits of your student ID number)

II. Calculate the GWP and acidification from the production and use stage of diesel for the internal combustion engine of buses for the functional unit and then calculate the GWP and acidification from the production and use stages of hydrogen fuel in the fuel cell of buses for functional unit to determine the environmental implications of this substitution. In order to perform this task, complete following steps.

a. Develop life cycle inventory (LCI) flow chart showing the amount of inputs of production and use stages of diesel option, which consists of production inputs (i.e. amount of diesel needs to be produced by the refinery for the buses, and diesel tankers which will deliver the diesel to bus yard) and use (i.e. combustion in bus) stages.

b. Develop an LCI flow chart showing the amount of inputs of production and use stages of hydrogen option for production inputs (i.e. amount of hydrogen and diesel needs to be produced by the refinery for the buses, and diesel tankers respectively including amount of electricity and chemicals consumed during various production processes of hydrogen) and use (i.e. combustion in bus) stages.

C. Calculate the emissions associated with all stages of diesel and hydrogen options and complete the following table, once you have estimated the GWP and acidification impacts for diesel and hydrogen.

Diesel Hydrogen -

GWP

Production stage (tonnes CO₂ -e)

Use stage (tonnes CO₂ -e)

Total (tonnes CO₂ -e)

Acidification

Production stage (tonnes CO₂ -e)

Use stage (tonnes CO₂ -e)

Total (tonnes SO₂ -e)

III. Calculate the following economic implications of this substitution

a. Net profit/loss associated with the use of diesel option.

b. Net profit/loss associated with the use of hydrogen option.

III. Calculate the following social impacts due to this proposed substitution.

a. Resource conservation for the future generation due to use of hydrogen fuel (Mega litres of diesel conserved)

b. No of employment for diesel use

c. No of employment for hydrogen use

Following data will be used to perform above quantitative analysis.

Pre-combustion takes in to account all emissions released during production (i.e. exploration production, refining) and its delivery/transportation to bus yard while combustion emissions are the exhaust pipe emissions produced when the fuel is burnt in the vehicle's engine. As the mileage of buses/diesel tankers is significantly high over their lifetime, the manufacturing and end of life disposal emissions of buses/diesel tankers are proportionately lower than the operating emissions hence the same are not required for comparison. The environmental impacts associated with the material (e.g. tyres, battery, parts) for maintenance are outside the scope of this comparison. The hydrogen fuel is produced from alkaline electrolysis (AE) process.

A. Data for Diesel Powered Bus

• Fuel consumption = 19.3MJ/km - cost @ $1.17/litre
• Heating value of diesel = 38MJ/litre
• Density of diesel = 0.84kg/litre
• Distance from Refinery to Bus Yard = 100km (round trip) and one tanker can carry 7500 litre diesel in one trip. An average of 0.45litre/km diesel is consumed by tanker for transporting diesel from refinery to bus yard and return to refinery. You need to consider round trip for estimation of fuel for transportation/delivery to yard.
• Bus Maintenance costs = $1.15/km

B. Data for Hydrogen Powered / Fuel Cell Bus

• Fuel consumption = 11.99MJ/km - $ 6.5/kg
• Density of hydrogen = 0.0899kg/m³
• Calorific value of hydrogen = 121,000kJ/kg
• Density of Natural Gas = 0.9kg/m³
• Distance from Refinery to Bus Yard = 100km (round trip) and each 20t tube tanker can carry 280kg hydrogen at 165bars. An average of 0.6litre/km diesel is consumed by tube tanker for transporting hydrogen from refinery to bus yard and return to refinery.
• Bus Maintenance costs = $1.45/km

Inputs for Alkaline Electrolysis (AE) process for hydrogen production.

• 66.8kWh electricity and 0.00714kg Potassium Hydroxide are consumed for electrolysis process for producing 1kg of hydrogen fuel
• Total 1.3kWh electricity per kg of hydrogen fuel is consumed for compression into tube trailer at 165bar, compression in to medium-term storage tanks at fuel station at bus yard at 300bar, and compression in to buses at 350bar.

Formulas and emission factors

• EMISSION_input = MASS_input x EMMISSION FACTOR_input
• GWP (Kg CO₂ e-) = 1 x kg CO₂ + 25 x kg CH₄ + 298 x kg N₂O
• Acidification impact (kg SO₂ e-) = 1 x kg SO₂ + 1.4 x kg NO₂

Formulae for economic analysis -

Total expenditure = total salary of employees + total cost of maintenance + total cost of diesel/hydrogen used by buses and tanker

Revenue = Income from ticket sales (no. of passengers x ticket price)

Net benefit/loss = Revenue - total expenditure

PART B - Qualitative analysis

1. Draw two pie diagrams for GWP and acidification impacts in terms of all inputs (i.e. electricity for production of Hydrogen for buses (AE process), potassium hydroxide for AE process, electricity for compression of hydrogen at various stages for transportation to buss filling, diesel (production) for transportation (tanker) and diesel (combustion) for transportation (tanker)) used for hydrogen production and use.

Analyse your results and discuss the hotspots for GWP and Acidification for hydrogen in the scenario given (max 1 page, 12point, Times New Roman, single space).

2. Discuss the potential mitigation strategies for treating the GWP and acidification hotspots for hydrogen production and clearly mention the source/s of information on mitigation strategies (max 1 page, 12point, Times New Roman, single space).

3. Discuss using following matrix how (the) engineering improvements like those in the example can assist sustainable development including from an economic, environmental and social perspective. (max 1 page, 12point, Times New Roman, single space)

2. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Conduct a critical review of the environmental management system of any three mining industries that are available online. Your review will cover following points:

A. Briefly discuss the 'aspects' of these mining industries.

B. How were the four components of an EMS used by these industries?

C. Discuss the type of stakeholders involved in the development of an EMS in these industries.

D. Discuss the triple bottom line benefits resulting from the implementation of an EMS by these industries.

Attachment:- LCM Assignment File & Notes.rar