Modelling of Market and product activities

Question

Hi,

I know that have been asked a lot about the usage of market and product activities. But my actual question is how should I model if I want to connect for example Reinforcement steel production, GLO with market for reinforcing steel - GLO. I think that I can use both activities when I model one product, right?

1) If I have as an input in a "concrete beam production" the Reinforcement steel production, GLO and have it connected with the market for reinforcing steel - GLO means that I take into consideration both the production (transformation) and market activities?

2)Also if I have in as an input in the "concrete beam production"  the activity Reinforcement steel production, GLO but I choose as provider the market for reinforcing steel - GLO it means that I just include the market activity and not the production activity?

3) If I do not include the market activity means that I should insert extra in the input of "concrete beam production" the transportation?

4)And my overall question is how should I model (product system) both the transferring (market) and transforming (production process)?Should I model "concrete beam production-market" and connect it  with "concrete beam production-transformation"?

Thank you.

P.S I use ecoinvent 3.5 and OpenLCA 1.7.4.

Answer 1

Hello! I think the answers to your questions mostly depend on the goal and scope of your study. Anyway, let me try to answer some technical aspects.

1) When you build a product system from a process, you can trace back your value chain via the model graph. This will allow you to identify which processes are considered in your calculation.

2) Choosing the default provider means choosing which process you want to connect to your supply chain.

3) That depends on the goal and scope of you study. You can use the market process and the underlying assumptions of that process or select a production process and add transportation to your product system manually.

4) Not a hundred percent sure. Either I am not understanding the question fully or this cannot be answered with certainty as the goal and scope of your study is not fully clear.

I hope this helps (at least a bit)!

Comments

Hi Jonas,

Thank you for you answer.

My goal is to model a life cycle of concrete frame, and compare it with a steel and wood frame for a 100 m2 house. My goal is to illustrate the average processes for Europe.
So at the moment, I model the life cycle of a concrete frame.
Is that make my questions above more clear?

I would like to add another question.
I am struggling to model a reinforced concrete beam, is there a process that the reinforcement steel is included or I should add the reinforcement steel manually?
In the cement production dataset (cement production, Portland - Europe without Switzerland) there is steel (steel, low-alloyed) in the production. But the purpose of including it, is for reinforcement of the cement or not?

Thanks!