• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.221-229
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• 2003

In the early phases of the product life cycle, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is recently used to support the decision-making fer the conceptual product design and the best alternative can be selected based on its estimated LCA and its benefits. Both the lack of detailed information and time for a full LCA fur a various range of design concepts need the new approach fer the environmental analysis. This paper suggests a novel approximate LCA methodology for the conceptual design stage by grouping products according to their environmental characteristics and by mapping product attributes into impact driver index. The relationship is statistically verified by exploring the correlation between total impact indicator and energy impact category. Then a neural network approach is developed to predict an approximate LCA of grouping products in conceptual design. Trained learning algorithms for the known characteristics of existing products will quickly give the result of LCA for new design products. The training is generalized by using product attributes for an ID in a group as well as another product attributes for another IDs in other groups. The neural network model with back propagation algorithm is used and the results are compared with those of multiple regression analysis. The proposed approach does not replace the full LCA but it would give some useful guidelines fer the design of environmentally conscious products in conceptual design phase.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.297-305
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• 2016

This study aims to analyze characteristics of environmental load for the construction phase of PSC beam bridge based on Life Cycle Assessment. For detail computation of environmental load, the construction materials and energy consumption are derived from the BOQ, also connecting with environmental load by Korea LCI Database Information Network. The characteristic of environmental impact was analyzed by 25 cases and cut-off ratio was 80% to 94%. The result sorted by construction materials revealed that environmental load were 53.3% for ready-mixed concrete, 9.6% for wire rod, 7.8% for rebar, 6.8% for cement, 5.5% for plywood, and 5.2% for energy. Furthermore, the result of environmental impact revealed that 45.5% for global warming, 30.4% for abiotic resources depletion, 10.5% for human toxicity, and 8.9% for photochemical oxidant creation. In the future, we can make a decision considering environmental load based on LCA at design phase.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.228-233
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• 2002

In this study, Life Cycle Assessment method has been carried out the Corrugated board box in considering environmental aspects by quantifying the environmental emission and assessing its environmental impact potential. The system boundary in this study is selected from cradle to gate stage(raw material acquisition, raw material production and product manufacturing) of the paper product. To evaluate the environmental impact potential, impact categories are divided into 8 categories. As a results, abiotic resource depletion of the impact categories has the largest contribution to the total impact potential as 31.02% of total, Next were continued ecotoxicity having a contribution of 27.17%. In the life cycle, environmental impacts from law material production stage were contributed largely as 80.78%.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2021.06a
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• pp.455-455
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• 2021

The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as an environmental impact assessment tool has received increasing attention over the years. Unlike the water footprint (WF) and carbon footprint (CF) assessments whose focus is only on a single environmental aspect, the LCA systematically analyzes the different impacts along the entire life cycle, making possible the identification of potential environmental tradeoffs. In Korea, LCA has drawn much attention from both industry and academia since the mid-90s. However, the level of Korea-related LCA studies with respect to different sectors in the past 20 years has not been analyzed. This study, therefore, sought to assess the status of environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies in Korea, with a view to understanding the current level of sustainability reporting and identify potential research gaps. Online searches of English written articles published between 2000 and 2019 were conducted on Google, Google scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science databases using the Keywords "life cycle assessment", "lca", and "Korea." At the end of the search, about 88 LCA related studies were identified for Korea within the study period. Majority of these studies focused on the construction (49%) and energy (31%) sectors with fewer environmental studies on the transportation (9%), manufacturing (8%), agriculture (2%), and information and communication (1%) industries. Based on publication trend, results show that LCA studies in Korea have been on the rise in the past 20 years, even though the number of publications has not followed a constant pace. In comparison with the economic sectors of the country, reports show an inadequacy in the coverage of major industries of growing economic relevance like the tourism, health, and agriculture, suggesting a need to further increase and improve LCA related studies in these sectors.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.105-112
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• 2005

This study aims at evaluating the environmental impacts stemmed from the End-of-Life Vehicle(ELV) treatment systems in Korea, using Life Cycle Assessment(LCA) method. In this study, both environmental burden from the ELV dismantling process & recycling processes and environmental benefit which were derived from the avoided environmental impacts by substituting recycled materials for virgin materials were considered. First of all, the key issues which were defined as the environmental aspects that account for more than $1\%$ out of the total environmental impacts were identified from the Life Cycle Impact Assessment(LCIA). $CO_2$, crude oil, natural gas, coal, etc. were found out to be the key issue parameters. From the LCI Analysis and LCIA studies, it was shown that the significant environmental aspects were related with the recycling process of ferro scrap, the shredding process of compressed car bodies and the dismantling process of end-of-life engines. In particular, the recycling process of ferro scrap has the most significant effects on the environmental impacts of the ELV treatment systems. Based on these results, it is recommended to improve the recycling process of ferro scrap in order to make the ELV treatment systems more environmentally sound.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.153-153
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• 2010

The world is moving towards a post-carbon society and needs clean and renewable energy for sustainable development. There are many methodological approaches which are helping this shift based on analyzed data about energy resources and which focus on limited types of energy including liquid fossil, solid fossil, gaseous fossil, and biomass (e.g. IPCC Guidelines, ISO 14064-1, WRI Protocol, etc.). We should also consider environmental impact (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, water use, etc.) and the economic cost of the renewable energy to make a better decision. Recently, researchers have addressed the environmental impact of new technologies which include photovoltaics, wind turbines, hydroelectric power, and biofuel. In this work, we analyze the environmental impact with a carbon emission factor to present a correlation between $CO_2$ emission and the cost of energy resources standardized by the energy output. In addition, we reviewed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as another methodology. Researchers who are studying energy systems have ignored the impacts of entire energy systems, e.g. the extraction and processing of fossil fuels. In power sector, the assessment should include extraction, processing, and transportation of fuels, building of power plants, production of electricity, and waste disposal. Therefore LCA could be more suitable tool for energy cost and environmental impact estimation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.919-926
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• 2006

In this study, environmental impact assessments of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), sewerage system, and tailrace were performed using LCA methodology. The life cycle stages were divided into 3 categories; construction stage, maintenance stage and demolition & disposal stage. As a tool of impact assessment, Ecoindicator99 containing fate analysis, exposure & effect analysis and damage analysis, was used. As tile results of WWTP LCA, more than 80% of environmental impact was produced from maintenance stage. On the other hand, most of environmental impact was produced from construction stage in the case of tailrace and sewerage system construction.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.237-241
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• 2010

Many policies have been implemented to mitigate the greenhouse gases in atmosphere overall of sectors. With considering the distinct characteristics of the food security, agricultural sector is no exception to this situation. To this regard, total amount of carbon which is emitted through all of the agricultural production process is calculated, and being based on this result, the demand for the introduction of agricultural production system with low carbon has been rising. Case studies on the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) technique to agricultural sector are found in many countries. For example, life cycle inventory (LCI) data bases of crop, farm infrastructure, fertilizer, farm machinery, and etc., have been constructed and provided by Ecoinvent (Swiss centre for life cycle inventories) of Swiss. In Japan, Top-down typed LCA methodology for agriculture is developed based on the inter-industry analysis, and is evaluated according to the productive method of crop. On the other hand, environmental impact assessment of agricultural system using LCA in Korea is just in the beginning stages. So it is required to assess environmental impact on agricultural fertilizer and pesticide, and to develop their flow modeling, and methodology of LCA of agricultural sector. Environmental impact assessment on agricultural materials, machinery, and infrastructure will also be carried out.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.64-73
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• 2013

The application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to analyze the environmental impact to different swine waste treatment systems was investigated. The first part of LCA is to organize an inventory of parameters and emissions released due to the system under investigation. In the following step of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment, the inventory data were analyzed and aggregated in order to finally get one index representing the total environmental burden. For the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) the Eco-indicator 95 method has been chosen because this is well documented and regularly applied impact method. Two different swine waste treatment systems such as aerobic and anaerobic digestion systems were chosen as an example for the life cycle impact analysis. For establishing the parameters to be assessed the agricultural environmental effects to above swine waste treatment systems, it has been observed that there was high at T-P emission in anaerobic digestion system and $CO_2$ emission in aerobic digestion system. For Eco-indicator values per environmental effect for swine waste treatment systems related to one tonne of swine waste, it was shown that there was a negative index for global warm potential and soil acidification in aerobic digestion system, but relatively high positive index for eutrophication in anaerobic digestion system.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.59-64
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• 2011

The objective of the study is to develop life cycle inventory (LCI) database of dam, a major facility for irrigation water supply. The types of database developed are three out of nine dams according to the size of the wate r storage capacity: two kinds larger than 500,000 $m^3$ depending on gate for discharging (Type 1) and the other dam smaller than 500,000 $m^3$ (Type 2). According to the LCI analysis, type 1 larger than 500,000 $m^3$ storage capacity with gate has the lowest environment impact in the 6 impact categories. The impact of the type 1 accounts for 7~35 % of the type 2 for supplying irrigation water. Comparing with the environment impacts of water for other uses such as drinking and industrial water, the impacts of 1 $m^3$ irrigation water supply is 4~45 % of the one for industrial water supply and 1~16 % of the drinking water's. The three types of LCI DB on the irrigation water by dams will be useful in the application of Life Cycle Assessment in agricultural products and environmental labelling including carbon footprint since it is complied to the guidelines of LCI DB constr uction issued by Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Knowledge Economy.