Integration of upstream processes into ecoinvent datasets

Question

Dear all,

in ecoinvent database (my version is 3.9.1) some processes (e.g. electricity) include upstream processes  and some (e.g. aluminium rolling) don´t.

Concerning the latter processes I would suggest to add a relevant product flow (aluminium ingot in the case of aluminium rolling) to the database process. Follwing to that the modified process has to be saved as a new dataset. Am I basically right at this approach or are there other approaches?

Kind regards,

Dieter

Answer 1

Dear Dieter,

"sheet rolling, aluminium" is a service that does not include the aluminium that will be rolled. You can often find infos for things like this inside the description of the product flow:

This is delivering the service of 'sheet rolling, aluminium'. The activity consists in the rolling of aluminium aiming to produce sheet. The sheet thickness ranges from 0.2 to 6 mm. The material being rolled is not included in the dataset, thus needs to be added separately. Consequently, for each kg of product rolled, it is necessary to add a kg of base material. It can be used in the following applications and/or processes: aerospace industry for the skins of planes, transportation industry in the auto body sheet, packaging and construction industry in building facades.

The advantage of this modeling by ecoinvent is that you can use that service for different types of input materials without having a separate process for each. The same goes for steel or copper. You add the service and the raw material with the same amounts to your process. You can spot these kind of service flows by having the verb for the service inside the names like moulding, rolling, winding etc. But best ist to always check the flow description.

Here is also an example how it looks in one of the ecoinvent processes:

Best wishes,

Conrad

PS: I don't remember if the flow description was already part of version 3.9.1. We have it for sure in 3.10 and 3.11 and it was not there in 3.8 and earlier. 

Comments

Dear Conrad,

thanks for the fast reply!

I saw the limitation of service process also in the description. that is why I asked for your opinion on my approach to manually add an additional product flow to the ecoinvent process (which is saved then in a copy). This follows the logic of the process chain. Is that possible too?

Thank you very much for the other approach you have presented in your answer!

Kind regards,
Dieter

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Yes, you can also copy/paste the process and add the product manually to it. But to make it better distinguishable from the default ecoinvent processes, maybe save it in a different folder and maybe change the reference flow from "sheet rolling, aluminium" into "aluminium, wrought alloy and sheet rolling" or something like this. This way it is more clear that you add a product "aluminium, wrought alloy" and a manufacturing step (sheet rooling) in the same process and you will not have the default "sheet rolling, aluminium" sometimes with and sometimes without the aluminium supply chain.

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Yes, you are completely right! That why I saved the modified process under the name "sheet rolling, aluminium ecoinvent plus ingot" (instead of "sheet rolling, aluminium | sheet rolling, aluminium | APOS, S") at the folder of my "project processes"

So, there are many roads to Rome!! Thanks again for sketching the other approach!

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Many roads to Rome is a good metaphor. And it lets the users the most flexibility, but also leads to some uncertainty if the approach is correct or allowed.