This thesis is a life cycle assessment (LCA) on three window types commonly available to the North American residential consumer: PVC, fiberglass, and wood covered with an aluminum cladding. The LCA was a case study based on the production of the three windows by a single representative manufacturer of each type. Average transportation distances, commodity systems, maintenance, and service life estimations were used to complete the life cycle inventory model. These inventories were grouped into impact categories and scaled based on IMPACT 2002+ v2.1 characterization and damage factors. The damage modeling results indicated that the life cycle impacts are dominated by the combustion of nonrenewable energy resources. Burning fuels cause increased emissions of respiratory inorganics, terrestrial acidification/nutrification impacts, and global warming. The PVC window's life cycle used the most nonrenewable energy and caused the most damage due to that window's shorter service life, 18 years vs. 25 years for fiberglass and aluminum clad wood. This is despite the fact that PVC requires less energy to produce than the fiberglass. The impacts of the steel reinforcement required to strengthen the PVC window outweigh the benefits of the PVC over the fiberglass. The wood window was negatively affected by the addition of aluminum cladding, which required greater energy to manufacture than the wood component. The sensitivity analysis revealed that replacing the virgin material in aluminum cladding with recycled content improved the life cycle impacts of the wooden window. Using fiberglass or PVC to clad the wood window also improved the environmental performance by reducing energy consumption. The use of cladding materials other than aluminum also prevented the disposal of aluminum into municipal landfills which reduced the aquatic ecotoxicity of the wood window's life cycle. Other potential improvements to the impacts of the three windows' life cycles include improving energy efficiency, particularly during secondary manufacturing.

This thesis is a life cycle assessment (LCA) on three window types commonly available to the North American residential consumer: PVC, fiberglass, and wood covered with an aluminum cladding. The LCA was a case study based on the production of the three windows by a single representative manufacturer of each type. Average transportation distances, commodity systems, maintenance, and service life estimations were used to complete the life cycle inventory model. These inventories were grouped into impact categories and scaled based on IMPACT 2002+ v2.1 characterization and damage factors. The damage modeling results indicated that the life cycle impacts are dominated by the combustion of nonrenewable energy resources. Burning fuels cause increased emissions of respiratory inorganics, terrestrial acidification/nutrification impacts, and global warming. The PVC window's life cycle used the most nonrenewable energy and caused the most damage due to that window's shorter service life, 18 years vs. 25 years for fiberglass and aluminum clad wood. This is despite the fact that PVC requires less energy to produce than the fiberglass. The impacts of the steel reinforcement required to strengthen the PVC window outweigh the benefits of the PVC over the fiberglass. The wood window was negatively affected by the addition of aluminum cladding, which required greater energy to manufacture than the wood component. The sensitivity analysis revealed that replacing the virgin material in aluminum cladding with recycled content improved the life cycle impacts of the wooden window. Using fiberglass or PVC to clad the wood window also improved the environmental performance by reducing energy consumption. The use of cladding materials other than aluminum also prevented the disposal of aluminum into municipal landfills which reduced the aquatic ecotoxicity of the wood window's life cycle. Other potential improvements to the impacts of the three windows' life cycles include improving energy efficiency, particularly during secondary manufacturing.

This thesis is a life cycle assessment (LCA) on three window types commonly available to the North American residential consumer: PVC, fiberglass, and wood covered with an aluminum cladding. The LCA was a case study based on the production of the three windows by a single representative manufacturer of each type. Average transportation distances, commodity systems, maintenance, and service life estimations were used to complete the life cycle inventory model. These inventories were grouped into impact categories and scaled based on IMPACT 2002+ v2.1 characterization and damage factors. The damage modeling results indicated that the life cycle impacts are dominated by the combustion of nonrenewable energy resources. Burning fuels cause increased emissions of respiratory inorganics, terrestrial acidification/nutrification impacts, and global warming. The PVC window's life cycle used the most nonrenewable energy and caused the most damage due to that window's shorter service life, 18 years vs. 25 years for fiberglass and aluminum clad wood. This is despite the fact that PVC requires less energy to produce than the fiberglass. The impacts of the steel reinforcement required to strengthen the PVC window outweigh the benefits of the PVC over the fiberglass. The wood window was negatively affected by the addition of aluminum cladding, which required greater energy to manufacture than the wood component. The sensitivity analysis revealed that replacing the virgin material in aluminum cladding with recycled content improved the life cycle impacts of the wooden window. Using fiberglass or PVC to clad the wood window also improved the environmental performance by reducing energy consumption. The use of cladding materials other than aluminum also prevented the disposal of aluminum into municipal landfills which reduced the aquatic ecotoxicity of the wood window's life cycle. Other potential improvements to the impacts of the three windows' life cycles include improving energy efficiency, particularly during secondary manufacturing. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

Master of Science / Department of Chemical Engineering / John Schlup / In this study, life cycle analysis (LCA) of shea butter biodiesel from Well-to-Pump (WTP) is considered utilizing information gathered from Anuanom Industrial Bio Products Ltd. (AIBP) in Ghana, West Africa. The information presented in this report starts with shea plant cultivation, proceeds through harvesting of shea fruits, extraction of shea butter from shea kernels, and finishes with the production of shea butter biodiesel via homogenous acid–alkali transesterification reactions utilizing methanol. After researching the conversion of shea butter to biodiesel, the GREET software was explored as a tool to perform LCA. Shea butter is an excellent alternative feedstock to produce biodiesel on an industrial scale. Though research into shea plant cultivation and subsequent conversion into biodiesel in Ghana has not received formal attention, it has huge potential in the biodiesel industry. The tree originates in Africa and is tropical and drought-resistant. Although even some basic agronomic characteristics of shea butter are not yet fully understood, the plant enjoys a booming interest, which may hold the risk of unsustainable practice. The GREET software from the Argonne National laboratory of the US Department of Energy (DOE) was used in LCA. The software is a very useful tool specifically designed for LCA focused on energy and emissions of different production processes, including biodiesel production. This software is managed by DOE research laboratory and is made available for public use. The GREET software allow users perform many existing fuel production processes. To perform an LCA on shea butter biodiesel which is a new feedstock to the GREET software, some of the requisite information, and data input has to be sent to the Argonne National Laboratory personnel for input. For a new biodiesel feedstock such as shea butter which is not part of the GREET software database, it is important to work with the Argonne National laboratory to perform the LCA.

All walls that are not a part of the supporting structure in a building are called non-load bearing walls. It may be the inside of an external wall or a room separating wall. They are usually built as a stud wall with drywall and insulation if necessary. The dominant stud material is steel but it is also common with wood. The drywall is fastened with screws and that can be a time consuming method. Working at construction sites can be demanding for the body with a lot of heavy lifting and non-ergonomic postures. Steel is a finite resource and generates high emissions of substances which has an environmental impact for production because the mostly used energy resource is fossil fuels. The process of mining iron ore and converting the ore to steel is extremely energy intensive. It would be better with a more environmentally friendly alternative and that is what WTC Teknik together with Paper Province and BillerudKorsnäs Gruvön has developed. The product is called Woodpipe and it is made of fluting with a double-sided tape used for fastening the drywall instead of screws. An LCA has been done to find out how much less environmental impact Woodpipe generates compared to a steel stud. Data has been collected from BillerudKorsnäs, Europrofil, and through a literature review. The results show that Woodpipe has a lower impact for the environment in all phases of the life cycle regarding emissions of substances that affects global warming, acidification and eutrophication. Woodpipe is lighter and uses a faster method of assembling than regular steel studs. This makes Woodpipe easier to handle at construction sites and makes the product attractive to the market. The efficiency improvement for Woodpipe is in the raw material phase where the majority of the emissions now come from.

No description available.

This study was a final thesis, for the bachelor program in civil engineering at the University of Uppsala, which was made on behalf of Riksbyggen in Uppsala. A comparative study of two stain renovation methods; tradition pipe replacement and relining was done with an environmental perspective. A simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) was done according to the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) with the LCA tool Eco-indicator 99, in order to be estimate the impact on the environment. LCA is a method that follows a product or a system “from the cradle to the grave”, which means that all the environmental impact over a lifetime is considered. The work was executed by using a stairway with nine apartments in a house called “Uppsala Hus 9” as a reference object, which was provided by Riksbyggen. The house was a typical house from the so-called “Miljonprogram” and was restored with traditionally pipe replacem ent four years earlier. Interviews were done with the companies VBE Byggproduktion AB and Novada that works with traditionally pipe replacement and relining, in order to receive information about material consumption, equipment, transports etcetera for both methods. Where some information was impossible to obtain, assumptions were made. The processes considered within the study were extraction and production of materials, energy use of machines, transports, recycling and waste. The environmental categories that the study estimated were taken from Eco-indicator 99 and the categories were “human health”, “ecosystem quality” and “resources”. The conclusion of the study was that the traditionally pipe replacement had a greater impact on the environment than the relining. This was mainly due to the fact that the production of material with the traditionally pipe replacement was about 950 times larger than with the relining. The transport with the traditionally pipe replacement was about three times bigger than the transport with relining. The result of the v recycling was larger with the traditionally pipe replacement than with the relining which had none recycling at all. The energy use of machines was slightly bigger with relining than with traditionally pipe replacement. Some of the data was unreliable, which required us to make some assumptions. This resulted in some of the values being too high or too low. An example could have been that the use of machines for both of the methods was too high. Meanwhile, it should not affect the result too much, due to the fact that the use of machines for both methods almost cancelled each other out.

No description available.

This thesis concerns how Sweden relates to life cycle assessment (LCA) in the construction process. LCA means analyzing a products impact and the analysis includes the whole life span of the product. A building has a high complexity and the combination with its unique shape will make the LCA more comprehensive, unlike e.g. aluminum cans. Recently there has been a development of a working procedure in the construction industry. This method is called BIM which means building information modelling and the key thing is to gather all the information of the building in the same model. The benefits by using BIM are that a lot of double work is minimized and different involved stakeholders can take part of the model and work in the same model. The purpose with the thesis is to contribute to a more sustainable design through increased use of LCA. The aim has been to study the opportunities of integration between LCA and BIM, and also study the opportunities of making the procedure more efficient. Firstly a study has been done concerning whether how LCA is performed in Sweden and what problems there are concerning the making of a LCA in the construction sector. Next step was to find the benefits with BIM that reduce the problems. The thesis questions have been answered with mainly a literature study and a few interviews. The last question, considered as the main question, has also been answered with a case study. The case study includes an attempt of making an LCA on a part of the building of Jönköping University, School of Engineering by using BIM. The result shows that there is barely anyone that is performing LCA on buildings in Sweden today. LCA is performed when there is a demand from clients, but it is rarely. The knowledge of LCA is therefore poor and there are no standard methods. The results from the analysis of buildings today are not reliable. BIM facilitates the performance of LCA in several ways, but the problems with unreliable results remains. Linking the analysis to BIM makes an awareness of sustainability in an early stage, which can be considered more important than getting a correct result. BIM gives us the opportunity to save time in a time consuming procedure and hopefully contributing to a reliable result. This could be seen as a step in the right direction towards a sustainable development.

Målet med detta examensarbete är att i samarbete med Mackmyra Svensk Whisky undersöka miljöpåverkan från deras whisky. Utöver detta undersöks även vilka delprocesser av produktionsprocessen som orsakar mest miljöpåverkan, och hur påverkan på miljön kan minskas.   Generellt sett används stora mängder resurser inom livsmedelsindustrin, vilket kan ge stor påverkan på miljön. För att identifiera och mäta denna påverkan används i detta examensarbete metoden livscykelanalys. Ett viktigt steg i början av livscykelanalysen är att välja en eller flera funktionella enheter för vilka miljöpåverkan ska beräknas. Denna studie har två funktionella enheter. Den första är en flaska på 70 cl som motsvarar ett genomsnitt av den whisky som Mackmyra Svensk Whisky levererar till Systembolaget. Mackmyra säljer även hela 30-litersfat till privatpersoner, och den andra funktionella enheten är en flaska på 50 cl som innehåller ett genomsnitt av denna whisky. Systemet som undersöks sträcker sig från framställning av råvaror som exempelvis korn fram tills det att whiskyn levererats.   Information om bland annat utsläpp och energianvändning har sedan samlats in. I den mån det har funnits information att tillgå har data i första hand samlats in från företag som Mackmyra köper in råvaror och andra resurser ifrån. När detta ej varit möjligt har data från liknande verksamhet, databaser eller i sista hand rimliga uppskattningar använts.   Miljöpåverkanskategorierna som undersökts är global uppvärmning, försurning och övergödning, och resultatet varierar mellan dessa kategorier. Generellt sett står dock produktion av korn, framställning av glasflaskorna och transporter för den största delen av miljöpåverkan. Mackmyra använder sig av två sorters malt, varav en är egenproducerad och torkas med en dieseldriven värmefläkt. Jämfört med den inköpta malten (som använder sig av fjärrvärme från främst avfall och biobränsle) är miljöpåverkan betydligt högre. Eftersom Mackmyras malt används i mindre mängd per funktionell enhet står den dock totalt sett för en liten miljöpåverkan.   En undersökning har gjorts för att se vad effekten skulle bli om den dieseldrivna värmefläkten ersattes med värmefläktar drivna med elektricitet, vilket minskade miljöpåverkan från mältningsprocessen. Ingen jämförelse har dock gjorts på skillnaden i kostnad mellan värmefläktarna. / The goal of this thesis is to, in collaboration with Mackmyra Svensk Whisky, investigate the environmental impact of their whisky. In addition to this it is also investigated which sub-processes that cause the most environmental impact, and how the environmental impact can be reduced.   Generally, large amounts of resources are used in the food industry, which can cause great impact on the environment. In this thesis the methodology Life Cycle Assessment is used to identify and estimate the environmental impact. An important step in the beginning of the LCA is to select one or more functional units for which the environmental impact is calculated. This study has two functional units. The first is a 70 cl bottle containing an average of the whisky that Mackmyra Svensk Whisky delivers to Systembolaget. Mackmyra also sells whole 30-liter whisky barrels to individuals, and the second functional unit is a bottle of 50 cl containing an average of this whiskey. The system under study begins with the production of raw materials such as barley and stops when the whisky is delivered to Systembolaget.   Information about emissions and energy use was then collected. The data is primarily collected from companies that Mackmyra purchase raw materials and other resources from, if they had information available. When this was not possible, data from similar operations, databases or ultimately reasonable estimates were used.   The environmental impact categories examined are global warming, acidification and eutrophication, and the results varies between these categories. Generally speaking, however, the production of barley, the manufacture of glass bottles and transports dominate the environmental impact. Mackmyra uses two kinds of malt, of which one is self-produced and makes use of a diesel-powered heater for drying. Compared with the purchased malt (which uses district heating primarily from waste and biomass), the environmental impact is significantly higher. Since the Mackmyra malt is used in small amounts per functional unit it does, however, not cause huge environmental impact.   A study has been made to see what the effect would be if the diesel heater was replaced with heaters powered by electricity, which showed a reduction of the environmental impact. No comparison has been made of the difference in cost between the heat fans.