Life cycle assessment estimation for eco-management of co-generation systems

A LCA (life cycle assessment) scheme for any industrial activity system is introduced to estimate the quantitative loan on the environment with the ai d of the NETS (numerical environment total standard) method proposed by the authors as a numerical measure. Two kinds of environmental loads respectin g fossil fuel depletion as input resources to the system and global warming due to CO2 emission as output are taken into account in the present eco-cr iterion, in which the total eco-load (EcL) value is calculated from the sum mation of respective environmental load factors on the whole process in a l ife cycle of the system. This NETS method is applied to eco-management co-g eneration systems, in which a computer-aided output navigator proceeds the LCA estimation,with ICON and Q&A communication. An operation scheme most fr iendly to the environment with a minimum EcL value, i.e., an eco-operation scheme, is derived from the optimization theory.