MEDEAS participation in the “Life Cycle Assessment and Other Assessment Tools for Waste Management and Resource Optimization” Conference

Presentation of Guiomar Calvo

On June 06, 2016 two papers were presented at the “Life Cycle Assessment and Other Assessment Tools for Waste Management and Resource Optimization” Conference, which took place in Cetraro, Calabria (Italy) between the 5th and 10th June 2016. The first paper was entitled "Stock in use in the urban mobility system. An Exergy approach." and was presented by MEDEAS consortium member Abel Ortego (CIRCE). The second paper, entitled "Decreasing ore grades in global metallic mining, a theoretical issue or a global reality?" was presented by MEDEAS consortium member Guiomar Calvo (CIRCE).

The first paper takes into consideration the current and future material use in the transport sector, analyzing the most demanded materials not only from a mass perspective but also taking into account a rarity point of view based on the second law of thermodynamics. This demand of materials is crossed then with the current and expected extraction according to Hubbert peak model to analyze possible material constraints.

The second paper relates to the electricity and diesel oil intensity use, and the total energy use in the mining sector, taking into account the mining and concentration processes, and its relationship with the ore grade over time. Different mines were selected at worldwide level to analyze this relationship concluding that it shows an exponential trend, the lower the ore grade is in the mine the higher seems to be the total energy consumption.