Page 280 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

268 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT HANDBOOK

range from metallic minerals (e.g. iron ore, bauxite, etc.), gemstones and precious
metals (diamonds, gold, silver, etc.), building materials (clay, sand, limestone,
gypsum, etc.) and fossil fuels (black and brown coal, oil and natural gas). It is
important to recognise how the differences between materials have impacted the
application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) across the mining industry.
From our experience of the use of LCA in the mining industry is, at best,
fragmented. LCA information is seldom used to directly inform site decisions.
Typically information is collected in support of external or corporate programs.
A common factor within the mining and minerals industry is its inherent
risk adversity. Risk assessment and management in the industry typically
focuses on two key areas, operational safety and project evaluation:

• Operational safety: the industry typically operates in environ-
ments which are not particularly safe, and with processes which
can easily result in unplanned environmental degradation. A
great deal of effort is made to keep these risks to a minimum.
• Project evaluation: the industry typically makes significant invest-
ment decisions based on extremely uncertain information, linking
drill samples to a process flowsheet via some lab scale testing
often seems more of a black art than a science.

In general it can be stated that almost all decision taking in the industry
is dominated by risk and uncertainty. As a result, the industry is conserva-
tive and can be extremely slow to change common practice or to adopt new
approaches or tools. This has direct consequences for the uptake of LCA.
In this chapter we explore how LCA has been applied in the mining and
minerals processing sectors. We will explore specific industry drivers and
review best practise LCA and life cycle management (LCM) applications.
We will also indicate where LCA needs to be refined to meet the needs of the
industry. Outcomes are presented as a gap analysis. A number of examples are
presented to clarify specific elements of our observations.

12.2 The Status Quo

In this section we give an overview of the manner in which the industry has
approached LCA, as well as a more detailed description of the context within
which the industry operates. This is followed by more detailed descriptions of
LCI and LCA/LCM in the industry.

12.2.1 LCA Use in the Mining and Mineral Processing Industry

The mining and minerals processing industries have often been highlighted in
LCA work as the source of the most significant impacts in the value chain of
products. These industries are also presented as delivering the least dollar value
per unit of environmental impact when compared with the rest of the value