What is a Green Life Cycle? This includes impacts along the entire continuum of a products life from raw material extraction, through manufacturing, distribution and transportation, use, recycle, and ultimately to final disposal.

Source (press here).

What is Life Cycle Analysis? LCA is a systematic cradle-to-grave analyses of production systems tool to estimate the environmental consequences of alternative materials, designs, manufacturing processes, product use patterns, and end of life alternatives. The assessment includes the entire life cycle of the product, process or activity, encompassing, extracting and processing raw materials; manufacturing, transportation and distribution; use, re-use, maintenance; recycling, and final disposal. The next LCA step is to conduct a life cycle impact assessment. The impact assessment focuses on the potential environmental and human health impacts associated with a given product system based on the life cycle inventory results. Analysis of multiple environmental and resource issues (i.e.: inputs and outputs). Final phase is an improvement analysis to evaluate opportunities to reduce energy, material inputs, or environmental impacts at each stage of the product life-cycle. After analysis comes implementation (press here for more).

• Inventory inputs and outputs
• Evaluate LCA impacts associated with those inputs and outputs on environment and health,
• Interpreting the results/impact of the inventory of inputs and outputs.
• Quantify cost measures (energy, raw materials, audits) and reporting formats.
• Improvement Analysis
• Implement changes in processes, products, and training.

The overall estimated cost for a particular program alternative over the time period corresponding to the life of the program, including direct and indirect initial costs plus any periodic or continuing costs for operation and maintenance (press here to propose your own definition)

(press here) for WAG 7 Life Cycle Cost Chart Department of Energy

• In order to calculate the life-cycle cost of a product the design engineer has to take all product life phases into account, such as manufacturing, assembly, use, service and recycling/diposal.
• Article reviews verious engineering rpoduct design software tools to account for recycling and other environemental costs.
• There is also a transorganiztional example, project TOPROCO, the project consortium consists of two research institutes from Germany and Belgium (IAT, WTCM), two recycling organisations (MANN, GEP) from the UK and Germany, a Belgium software developer (SNI) and a Greek appliance manufacturer (ELCO).

Quick Study Guide References

• Life Cycle Cost and Energy Efficiency (press here).
• Life Cycle Cost and Suppliers (press here).
• Life Cycle Cost and Life Cycle Profit (press here).
• Acquisition and modification of complex technical equipment imply a lot of decisions to be made such as: selection of alternative technical solutions, selection of suppliers, and   dimensioning logistic support
• Life Cycle Costs as a design variable (press here).
• Life Cycle Cost Estimate (press here).

Netherlands - recommends:

* Describe which emissions will occur and which raw materials are used during the life of a product. This is usually referred to as the inventory step.

* Assess what the impacts of these emissions and raw material depletions are. This is referred to as the evaluation step.

HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT BEING GREEN?

• ? Quantify impacts/measure green costs and revenues
• ? Environmental training in life cycle model
• ? Use less and buy better inputs
• ? Measure benefits and costs with environmental audit
• ? Open communication
• ? Integrate EA into the accounting system
• ? Senior management champions

• Product Design Capital Investments
• Process Design Cost Control
• Facility Siting Waste Management
• Purchasing Cost Allocation
• Operational and Mix
• Risk Management Product Pricing

• 1. Include environmental issues in needs analysis- consider environmental costs and performance in defining scope of design  project- establish baseline environmental cost and performance
• 2. Add environmental requirements to design criteria
• 3. Evaluate alternate design solutions taking into account environmental cost, performance, cultural, and legal requirements

Bristol-Myers Squibb - Product life cycle reviews form the cornerstone of BMS's prevention-based EHS activities (press here).   In 1992, BMS committed to completing Product Life Cycle reviews of all major product lines by the end of 1997, establishing a company wide commitment  to leadership in EHS management.  The teams participating in PLC reviews were able to identify and reduce negative EHS impacts throughout all phases of a  product's life, from research to final disposal.  The teams also identified potential  savings of more than $6.5 million in product and process improvement opportunities, benefiting both the environment and business. For Example:

• Toxic chemical use reduction in laboratories.  Best Practices identified and eliminated 40% of the types of toxic substances previously used, therefore reducing hazardous chemical  inventory and thus reducing employee exposure to toxic chemicals.   This  has led to a reduction of toxic waste generation of 80% as well as a reduction of laboratory cooling water use of 175 m3 per year.  Laboratory chemical costs have been reduced by $5,000 annually.
• Reusable label bins.Collapsible, pallet size, returnable bins were purchased to replace  corrugated cases for high volume infant formula paper labels.  This has  resulted in a warehouse space saving of 60%.  Furthermore, it has eliminated the annual need of 20,000 corrugated shippers as well as eliminating 2,000 metal rings that had been incorporated into the product container.
• Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning (HVAC) condensate recovery.The HVAC system requires the periodic or continuous removal of boiler water in order to control the buildup of dissolved solids, thereby preventing scaling and water carryover.  This process, known as blowdown, involves the discharge of a controlled amount of high-solids water to the sewer in order to control the dissolved solids level.  A sewer surcharge of $3.50/gallon is applied to any water that is discharged.   A process improvement was implemented which recovers condensate material from the boiler water.  This significantly reduces blowdown required since the water has a significantly lower dissolved solids level.  This has resulted in cost savings of $20,000 to $50,000 in avoided sewer surcharge costs.  The improvement also eliminates the possibility of a worst case scenario, which would be a discharge of seven million gallons of water.

Hamaker, Joseph W. "TWO-STAGE-TWO-ORBIT: A COST PERSPECTIVE." (press here). Engineering Cost Office NASA Marshall Space Flight Center  Marshall Space Flight Center, AL 35812. This paper considers the possible life-cycle costs of single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) and two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) reusable launch vehicles (RLVís).
 

APPROACH - The life-cycle cost of any launch system can be divided into four components:

     The cost of the development
     The fleet production cost
     The cost of launch facilities
     The cost of operations over the life cycle.

Single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) and two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) reusable launch vehicles (RLVís).
Review the article to see how costs are estimated (press here). Focus on  TABLE 3. Life-Cycle Cost Spreadsheet..

What does the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) spreadsheet do? The LCC spreadsheet (currently  LCC_v2.XLS) calculates the life-cycle costs and payback periods of four ballast types:  2-lamp F40T12/ES, 1-lamp F40T12/ES, 2-lamp F96T12/ES and 2- lamp F96T12HO/ES.  (press here to download Excel version of the Spreadsheet). You will need to review some reports to get a sense of the data and its manipulations.
 
Press here for comparison of operating life of two types of lights.

Press here for comparison of different conversion scenarios.

Press here for Memo on Distribution of Green Lights ballasts vs. operating hours, and  Xenergy ballasts vs. operating hours  Contains more examples of figure one above.

Press here for Ballast Manufacturer Impact Analysis Analytical Approach Office of Codes and Standards  April 10, 1998

 
Ballast lifetime varies depending upon the properties (components and manufacturing process) of a particular ballast and on how it is installed and used (including fixture type) (press here) .

NFESC Energy and Utilities Department Energy Project Execution   Life Cycle Cost Spreadsheet for Submitting Energy Projects (press here).

The LCC spreadsheet will calculate the life-cycle cost of a particular project. User supplied inputs include project construction cost, category of project, and utility rates. The spreadsheet will calculate the simple payback and the savings-to-investment ratio. Life-cycle-cost analysis is required documentation when submitting a DD Form 1391 application for energy funds.  Get the LCC Spreadsheet press here.