Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Road and Multimodal Transportation Options – A Case Study of Copperwood Mine Project

Document Type

Technical Report

Publication Date

4-4-2016

Department

Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering

Abstract

The economic costs of developing an infrastructure have long been factored into the project costs, but environmental and/or social impacts have received less attention. In addition, alternative transportation modes are rarely compared from both economic and environmental perspectives. This project uses a case study to assess the environmental impacts (emissions) of different transportation options for transporting ore between a planned copper mine (Copperwood, MI) and a processing plant (White Pine, MI), and concentrate from the processing plant to an intermediate location (Escanaba, MI). The ore transportation options include a truck only option and two multimodal (truck-rail) options, while the concentrate transportation options include truck only, rail only and one multimodal (truck-rail) options.

Publication Title

ROSA P Home

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