Location: RNA - Northern America
This is a dataset used to create an aluminium industry specific electricity market for 'aluminium production Area 2' (North America) without Quebec (Quebec is dealt with in another dataset). The production volume represents the total amount of electricity from nuclear used for aluminium production (electrolysis and ingot casting) in the region. The dataset also identifies the technology and grids providing the electricity from nuclear power plants.
Electricity markets specific to the aluminium-industry are needed in an LCI database because primary aluminium production is very energy intensive, and hence the location of production plants is often determined by access to large amounts of cheap electricity, which often results in an electricity mix that is different from the general grid mix of the countries where the production plants are located.
It is assumed that the production of electricity in general and in aluminium industry specific power plants is identical. Details on actual electricity generation with each technology can be found in the corresponding datasets.
The share of electricity produced using pressure water reactors, boiling water reactors and pressure water reactor, heavy water moderated is calculated using both (1) estimates of the share of nuclear electricity coming from each individual grid within North America (using state-specific aluminium production capacity from US Geological Survey http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/aluminum/ and visual state-to-grid mapping) and (2) ecoinvent v3.2 grid-specific split of coal power plants between nuclear power plant technologies. As there are no regional datasets for pressure water reactor, heavy water moderated, all nuclear coming from this technology is linked to the GLO dataset.
Calculations are detailed in the report 'Calculating grid mixes for the aluminium industry in ecoinvent v3', available on the ecoinvent website.
[This dataset is meant to replace the following datasets:
- electricity production, nuclear, aluminium industry, CA-QC, 2012 - 2012 (e0891d9e-0c5e-4a12-8933-bfc06888f0c1)
- electricity production, nuclear, aluminium industry, IAI Area, North America, without Quebec, 2012 - 2012 (39231d05-6c2d-4727-b9e9-2db2ced5687e)]
Undefined unit processes (UPRs) are the unlinked, multi-product activity datasets that form the basis for all of the system models available in the ecoinvent database. This is the way the datasets are obtained and entered into the database by the data providers. These activity datasets are useful for investigating the environmental impacts of a specific activity (gate-to-gate), without regard to its upstream or downstream impacts.