School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People's Republic of China.
China Institute for Urban Governance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, No. 800 Dongchuan Road, Minhang, Shanghai, 200240, People's Republic of China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2019 May;26(14):14598-14615. doi: 10.1007/s11356-019-04793-z. Epub 2019 Mar 15.
Metal production from mineral resources is crucial for economic development. However, most mining activities usually target short-term financial benefits, rather than long-term consideration on ecological sustainability. To better understand the impact of metal production, systematic evaluation methods should be applied to complement current economic accounting tools. Under such a circumstance, this study proposes an emergy-based metal production evaluation framework, taking a life cycle perspective from the formation of mineral deposit to the final production of metal. Ecosystem service loss, CO emissions, and emissions' impact are quantified, evaluating the comprehensive performance of a lead and zinc production system in Yunnan Province of China. The results show that minerals contribute significantly to the formation of lead and zinc production; however, emergy received in terms of money substantially undervalues environmental work associated with production. Such a metal production system relies heavily on nonrenewable resources and put enormous pressures on local ecosystems. The beneficiation subsystem generates the highest negative impact per emergy output, followed by the smelting and refining subsystem and the underground mining subsystem. From climate change point of view, producing 1 ton of lead bullion leads to 1.79E+03 kg COeq. Electricity use contributes a dominated share to the total CO emission of all subsystems. In addition, lead recycling can greatly reduce the overall CO emission, indicating that it is necessary to build up a regional lead collection and recycling system. Finally, several policy suggestions are raised by considering the local realities, aiming to promote sustainable development of this industry.
金属资源的开采对于经济发展至关重要。然而，大多数采矿活动通常着眼于短期的财务利益，而不是长期的生态可持续性考虑。为了更好地了解金属生产的影响，应该应用系统评估方法来补充当前的经济核算工具。在这种情况下，本研究提出了一种基于能值的金属生产评估框架，从矿床的形成到金属的最终生产，采用生命周期的视角。本研究量化了生态系统服务损失、CO2 排放和排放的影响，评估了中国云南省一个铅锌生产系统的综合性能。结果表明，矿产对铅锌生产的形成有很大贡献；然而，以货币形式表示的能值大大低估了与生产相关的环境工作。这样的金属生产系统严重依赖不可再生资源，并给当地生态系统带来巨大压力。选矿子系统的每单位能值输出产生的负面影响最大，其次是冶炼和精炼子系统以及地下采矿子系统。从气候变化的角度来看，生产 1 吨铅精矿会导致 1.79E+03 kg COeq。电力使用对所有子系统的总 CO2 排放贡献了主导份额。此外，铅的回收可以大大减少总的 CO2 排放，表明有必要建立一个区域性的铅收集和回收系统。最后，考虑到当地实际情况，提出了几项政策建议，旨在促进该行业的可持续发展。
