A Life Cycle Assessment of the PureCell Stationary Fuel Cell System ...

short-term process describes the emissions during waste treatment. Long term emissions
are those expected after 150 years, when the landfill site is not controlled anymore.
Electrical Control System (ECS)
The electrical control system provides complete control over the PureCell system’s DC
power system. It also functions as a power distribution system, distributing power
internally for CSA maintenance and distributing power to the PureCell system site or
to the grid.
Materials/Assemblies Amount Unit
Steel cold rolled coil IISI 1000 lb
Copper ETH U PureCell system 300 lb
Electric Components PureCell system 150 lb
Total 1450 lb
Processes Amount Unit
Truck (single) diesel FAL (Franklin) 725 tmi
Cold transforming steel PureCell system 1000 lb
Electric welding steel 5 PureCell system 5 m
Copper wire PureCell system 300 lb
Table 4-7: Electrical Control System (ECS) inventory data
• 300 lb of copper is used in the ECS. Most of this copper is used for copper wire;
therefore it is assumed that 300 lb of copper is processed into copper wire.
• The electric components in the ECS are modeled in SimaPro by using data for a
250W inverter. This inverter is used in a photovoltaic system, and an inventory
list for the production was made for an earlier study performed at the Center for
Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan [16]. The inverter electric
components give a relatively accurate representation of the electric components
used in the PureCell system, because they have the same function in both
systems. The semiconductor devices in the inverter were however only specified
in number. Therefore, another study is used to obtain and model the
semiconductor production inventory data in SimaPro [17]. Both sets of inventory
data are combined and scaled up linearly by mass in order to model the
PureCell system electric components.
• The ECS is manufactured 1000 miles from UTC Power, transporting 1450 lb,
which is equal to 725 tmi.
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