Sachbilanz zur Kupfererzeugung unter Berücksichtigung der Endenergien

Ordered by the Deutsches Kupfer-lnstitut the Institute of Non-ferrous Process Metallurgy of the RWTH-Aachen created the inventory of a life cycle assessment for topper materials in the time between march 1992 and December 1993. Since finishing and publishing this study in summer 1995 it became clear that by giving only primary energy demands of processes no concrete energetic information about the technology itself is possible because they are decisively influenced by the kind of energy supply. Interpretation of processes therefore is only possible by knowing the corresponding final energy which means the real energy demand of a production plant divided up into the different energy carriers. The present inventory for copper production and manufacturing represents a scientific basis in the field of eco-balancing. The comparison of primary and final energy demand firstly shows the complexity of such an inventory but also the risk of misinterpretation. So only experts with precise knowledge of a production plant can make conclusions.