Page 136 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

SOURCING LIFE CYCLE INVENTORY DATA 119

• Industrial Assessment Center Database (IAC) - US Department
of Energy
• Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey (MECS) - US Energy
Information Administration
• Reasonably Available Control Technology / Best Available Control
Technology/Lowest Achievable Emissions Rate (RACT/BACT/
LAER) Clearinghouse (RBLC) - US Environmental Protection
Agency
• Compilation of Air Pollutant Emission Factors AP-42, Volume I:
Stationary Point and Area Sources - US Environmental Protection
Agency
• Compilation of Air Pollutant Emission Factors AP-42, Volume II:
Mobile Sources - US Environmental Protection Agency
• Locating and Estimating Air Emissions from Sources (A series of
L&E documents) - US Environmental Protection Agency
• Factor Information Retrieval (FIRE) - US Environmental
Protection Agency
• Sector Notebooks - US Environmental Protection Agency

Boguski demonstrated that it is possible to extract meaningful information
from public databases for use in LCA studies. It is even possible to develop
LCI data sets for some products by using information from public databases.
Public databases have several advantages. They are accessible to anyone
who wishes to check LCI results. They typically include many more of the
specific emissions from industrial facilities than are included in most private
LCI databases. They include data directly from U.S. facilities. There is no
need to try to convert European data to U.S. conditions. However, there are
disadvantages to using public databases. The organization and presentation
of data in public databases often makes it difficult to express the values from
the various databases in terms that are generally useful for LCA. One chal-
lenge is being able to link energy and emission values to production. For
example, the MECS database reports annual energy use for industry groups.
Likewise, AIRS, TRI, and BRS report annual emissions. The PCS database
reports monthly monitoring values, which may be averaged to obtain annual
emission estimates. None of these databases ties energy use or emissions to
production.
Production information is difficult to obtain. Production on a facility level is
usually considered confidential information and is not usually published. The
United States Census Bureau reports production, in mass units by SIC code,
for only a few industry groups. In addition, facilities are not reported using
unique identifiers, leading to difficulty in linking data sources with produc-
tion rates (for example, when a facility is sold it is reported multiple times
under different ownership names). A method for grouping facility data into
logical industry groupings and linking the grouped data to grouped produc-
tion values would benefit the LCA community and still provide confidentiality
to industry.