Alcoa Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Aluminum and Steel Truck Wheels 9/20/2012 PE INTERNATIONAL & Five Winds Strategic Consulting Contact: PE INTERNATIONAL, Inc. Christoph Koffler, PhD 344 Boylston Street, 3rd Floor Jonathan Provo Boston, MA 02116, USA Phone +1 [617] 247-4477 Fax +1 [617] 236-2033 Email [email protected] Page i Table of Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................1 1 Goal of the Study ........................................................................................................................7 2 Scope of the Study ......................................................................................................................8 2.1 Product Description ...................................................................................................................... 8 2.2 Functional Unit & reference flows ................................................................................................ 8 2.3 System Boundaries ...................................................................................................................... 11 2.4 Scenario Descriptions .................................................................................................................. 13 2.5 Selection of LCIA Methodology and Types of Impacts................................................................ 15 2.6 Sources of Data ........................................................................................................................... 17 2.7 Allocation .................................................................................................................................... 19 2.8 Software and Database ............................................................................................................... 20 2.9 Interpretation.............................................................................................................................. 20 2.10 Limitations................................................................................................................................... 20 2.11 Type and Format of the Report................................................................................................... 21 2.12 Critical Review ............................................................................................................................. 21 3 Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Analysis ............................................................................................. 22 3.1 Data Collection ............................................................................................................................ 22 3.2 Alcoa Aluminum Wheels ............................................................................................................. 24 3.3 Steel Truck Wheels ...................................................................................................................... 29 3.4 Life Cycle Inventory Analysis Results .......................................................................................... 33 4 Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) .......................................................................................... 35 4.1 Normalized Net Impact Assessment Results .............................................................................. 35 4.2 Detailed Impact Assessment results ........................................................................................... 36 5 Interpretation........................................................................................................................... 46 5.1 Identification of Relevant Findings ............................................................................................. 46 5.2 Data Quality Assessment ............................................................................................................ 46 5.3 Completeness, Sensitivity, and Consistency ............................................................................... 48 5.4 Conclusions, Limitations, and Recommendations ...................................................................... 52 Review Statement ........................................................................................................................... XX Glossary (ISO 14040/44:2006) ...................................................................................................... XXIII Page ii List of Figures Figure 0-1: Alcoa Aluminum Truck Wheels vs. Steel Wheels (Average Use Case) ........................................ 3 Figure 2-1: Alcoa Aluminum Wheel .............................................................................................................. 8 Figure 2-2. Truck and Trailer Schematics .................................................................................................... 10 Figure 2-3: System boundaries ................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 2-4: Value-Corrected Substitution system boundary [Koffler & Pflieger 201x]............................... 14 Figure 3-1. Aluminum Wheel Production Flow Diagram ............................................................................ 25 Figure 3-2: US aluminum scrap classes’ correlation and average ratio with primary ingot price 2007-2010 .................................................................................................................................................................... 29 Figure 3-3: US steel scrap classes’ correlation and average ratio with primary steel billet price 2007-2010 .................................................................................................................................................................... 32 Figure 4-1: TRACI 2.0 Normalized Impact Results as difference to the steel wheel reference (US base case) ............................................................................................................................................................ 36 Figure 4-2: North American Aluminum Wheels Life Cycle Results ............................................................. 37 Figure 4-3. Cradle-to-gate Global Warming Potential of Aluminum Wheel Production ............................ 39 Figure 4-4. Gate-to-Gate Global Warming Potential of Aluminum Wheel Manufacturing ........................ 40 Figure 4-5. US Mass-Restricted Break Even Chart ...................................................................................... 41 Figure 4-6. US Volume-Restricted Break Even Chart .................................................................................. 43 Figure 4-7. US Average Use Break-Even Chart ............................................................................................ 44 Figure 5-1. Use phase GWP savings as influenced by light-weighting ........................................................ 50 Figure 5-3. Average Use Phase GWP savings as a function of the mass-restricted share .......................... 52 Figure 5-4. EU aluminum scrap classes’ correlation and average ratio with primary ingot price 2007-2010 ...................................................................................................................................................................... V Figure 5-5. EU steel scrap classes’ correlation and average ratio with primary steel billet price 2007-2010 ..................................................................................................................................................................... VI Figure 5-6. European Union CML Normalized Impact Results .................................................................... VII Figure 5-7. European Aluminum Wheel Life Cycle Results ........................................................................ VIII Figure 5-8. Cradle-to-Gate European Aluminum Wheel Production ............................................................ X Figure 5-9. Gate-to-Gate Manufacturing of European Aluminum Wheels .................................................. XI Figure 5-10. EU Mass-Restricted Case Break-Even Chart ........................................................................... XII Figure 5-11. EU Volume-Restricted Case Break-Even Chart ...................................................................... XIV Figure 5-12. EU Average Use Break-Even Chart .......................................................................................... XV Figure 5-13. US Wide Wheels Mass-Restricted Case Break-Even Chart ................................................... XVII Figure 5-14. US Wide Wheels Volume Restricted Break-Even Chart ....................................................... XVIII Figure 5-15. US Wide Wheels Average Use Break-Even Chart .................................................................. XIX Page iii List of Tables Table 2-1: Functional unit and reference flows calculation........................................................................ 11 Table 2-2: Included and excluded components .......................................................................................... 12 Table 3-1: Fuel and energy datasets used in model ................................................................................... 22 Table 3-2: Raw material datasets used in model .......................................................................................