Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600

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Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Comparing the environmental sustainability of two gold production T

methods using integrated Emergy and Life Cycle Assessment
⁎
Natalia A. Cano Londoñoa, , Héctor I. Velásqueza, Neil McIntyreb
a
Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín, Medellín 050041, Colombia
b
Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Emergy analysis and combined emergy and Life Cycle Assessment (EM-LCA) were used to evaluate the sus-
Emergy accounting tainability of an open-pit gold mine and an alluvial gold mine in Colombia. The emergy is the work done to
Life cycle assessment support the gold production separated into renewable and non-renewable energy, and also into those associated
Alluvial mining directly with the mining and those due to imported resources. The EM-LCA is a new extension of emergy that
Open-pit mining
incorporates the work done by the environment to assimilate airborne and waterborne pollutants. Emergy
Sustainability
Sustainability Index values < 1 indicate an unsustainable practice, those between 1 and 5 indicate a sustainable
contribution in the medium term but not necessarily in the long term, and those > 5 can be considered sus-
tainable. The open-pit and alluvial mines were found to have Emergy Sustainability Index values of 0.02 and
0.04 respectively using emergy accounting, and 0.002 and 0.035 using EM-LCA. The low values from the emergy
analysis are mainly due to the large amount of imported resources required by the gold production. The open-pit
mine uses a more highly industrialized process and hence relies more on imported resources and less on re-
newable resources. Open-pit mining also generates more emissions hence its comparatively low EM-LCA rating.
The results demonstrate the need to implement management policies that encourage a higher dependence on
renewable resources and to reduce reliance on imported resources, as well the need for technologies that lower
emissions. It is also concluded that the novel EM-LCA approach has the potential to extend emergy analysis to
incorporate emissions. The study also highlights the limitations of emergy accounting for coherent assessment of
mining projects.

1. Introduction
A main challenge of sustainable development is how to balance
depletion of resources and environmental impacts with the benefits
obtained by society (Campbell, 2015). Mining is a good example. It can
have significant environmental and human health impacts (Asner and
Tupayachi, 2017; Chen et al., 2018) due to mining-related vegetation
removal and soil excavation, and the common use and generation of
hazardous chemicals during minerals processing such as cyanide and
arsenic (Akpalu and Normanyo, 2017). On the other hand, mining
provides the raw materials that support society, including services such
as water and energy supply as well as non-essential items. Without
doubt, all technological advancements are dependent on mining ac-
tivities (Shen et al., 2015). Methods are needed to quantify the trade-
offs between the positive and negative outcomes of mining, and identify
the mining approaches that optimize these trade-offs, with the aim of
turning mining activity into an axis of economic and social
development.
Due to the intrinsically multidimensional nature of “environmental
sustainability”, its quantification has been approached in various ways,
including methods based on ecological, thermodynamic, ecosystem
services, public policy, and planning theory approaches (Huysman
et al., 2015). These different concepts can lead to answers giving al-
ternative insights and different implications about environmental sus-
tainability. Nevertheless, attempts have been made to develop gen-
eralised concepts that provide a basis for comparing the environmental
sustainability of different production activities or sets of activities.
Emergy was one of the first concepts, followed by exergy, which both
use energy demand as a basis for integrating over multiple parts of a
production process. Life Cycle Assessment (Angelakoglou and Gaidajis,
2015) is perhaps the most common generalised concept for integrating
the impacts (e.g. water consumption, energy demand or carbon foot-
print) from the ‘cradle to gate’ or ‘cradle to grave’ of a product. Other
approaches to environmental sustainability assessment include

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: nacanol@unal.edu.co (N.A. Cano Londoño), hivelasq@unal.edu.co (H.I. Velásquez), n.mcintyre@uq.edu.au (N. McIntyre).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.105600
Received 26 February 2019; Received in revised form 24 June 2019; Accepted 26 July 2019
1470-160X/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al.
ecological footprint, ecosystem services, input-output analysis and
greenscope (Sampat et al., 2018). All these approaches may be con-
sidered to use aggregations of parameters reflecting the values of in-
terested parties and considerations of experts (Arbault et al., 2014) to
support public policy formation and implementation. This paper fo-
cuses on exploring the applicability of emergy analysis and its coupling
with LCA (EM-LCA) to provide a coherent basis for comparing the
‘cradle to gate’ environmental sustainability of alternative approaches
to mining.
The concept of emergy lies in the fundamental role of energy in
sustaining both human activity and the natural environment. The
driving forces of solar radiation, geothermal heat and potential energy
provide a set of ecosystem services (water cycling, air cycling, oceanic
currents, cycling of nutrients, among others) and build natural capital
storages (mineral and fossil fuel stocks, topsoil, standing forests, water
reservoirs and biodiversity). The work that nature has done to con-
centrate those resources, the human work needed to transform them
into products and services, and the work that nature needs to do to
assimilate waste products, can all be quantified in common units (solar
equivalents unit). To convert common units of measurement into solar
equivalents, Unit Emergy Values are used. These have been calculated
for a wide variety of energies, materials and services, providing the
practical foundation for emergy analysis (Odum et al., 2000a,b).
Emergy accounting thus evaluates the sustainability of the process
based on the environmental burden associated with the consumption of
all direct inputs (energy required within the process and assimilation of
the waste products) and indirect inputs (energy demands of the mate-
rials that are imported to support the process) (Odum, 1996).
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an environmental approach that
considers natural resource consumption, pollutant emissions at pro-
duction stage and potentially also at earlier stages (e.g. raw material
sourcing) and later stages of use and disposal as waste (Blengini et al.,
2012). The methodology is standardized by ISO 14040 (ISO, 1998) into
four stages: goal and scope definition; inventory analysis; impact as-
sessment; and interpretation. In the first stage the motivation of the
research is defined together with the system boundaries and the func-
tional unit. In the inventory analysis, raw data are gathered including
resource inputs, products and emissions. Impacts are quantified by
characterization factors, which depend on the type(s) of impact of in-
terest and the chosen assessment method. Finally, results are analysed
to make decisions with the aim of improving the process in environ-
mental terms.
Emergy accounting and LCA are complementary (Kharrazi et al.,
2014). Emergy defines an approach to sustainability accounting, while
LCA is a broader guide for life-cycle analysis and does not define me-
trics. Further, emergy accounting may be considered to be a donor-
oriented approach and LCA considered to be a user-oriented approach.
The donor’s perspective refers to the energy input needed to recover
from the impact to the environment (Lacarrière et al., 2015) with the
system boundary being the geobiosphere (Geng et al., 2016). The user’s
perspective tends to focus on the efficiency of the production, utiliza-
tion and disposal process (e.g. direct consumption and emissions per
unit of energy delivered) with the system boundary being the techno-
sphere (Lou et al., 2015), and generally excludes the work of ecosys-
tems to provide 'freely available' services and products (Raugei et al.,
2012). It is these fundamental differences that make the two ap-
proaches complementary. Several researchers have explored this com-
plementarity for assessing the sustainability of development projects
(Arbault et al., 2014; Brown et al., 2012; Buonocore et al., 2015; Kursun
et al., 2015; Lou et al., 2015; Raugei et al., 2012; Pan et al., 2016a,b;
Reza et al., 2014b; Rugani, 2010).
The potential applicability of emergy accounting to the mining
sector has also been recognised (Asamoah et al., 2017; Ingwersen,
2011). For example, Zhang et al. (2010) used emergy analysis to de-
monstrate that policy towards sustainable cement production should
include technical innovation, increases in product prices and decreases
2
Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600
in product exports. Despite this recognition of applicability, there have
been few applications of emergy accounting to mining. This may be
because, while environmental and human health impacts are a primary
concern in assessments of mining (Chen et al., 2018), emergy analysis is
considered to be a donor-orientated method that focuses on resources
used rather than a user-orientated method that focuses on impacts. This
is less an issue when applying emergy analysis to economic activities
with lower emissions (Li et al., 2019). Asamoah et al. (2017) address
this, using emergy analysis to expose the non-sustainability of small
scale gold production, and that this would be more so if environmental
costs were included. This calls for studies that seek to provide a more
systematic accounting of environmental costs within emergy analysis.
Ingwersen (2011), who investigated the applicability of integrating
emergy into LCA to assess open pit mining, is so far the only in-
vestigation that has attempted this, modifying the established emergy
accounting method to allow it to be added to LCA as an additional
sustainability indicator. However, the impacts of emissions were ne-
glected.
Integration of emergy synthesis and life cycle assessment has been
widely used to investigate sustainability in other fields, mainly in re-
newable energy technologies as well as in minerals production
(Buonocore et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2016; Kursun et al., 2015). For
example, Buonocore et al. (2015) used the approach to illustrate the
sustainability of geothermal energy compared to fossil fuels and other
renewable energy systems, highlighting the importance of former’s
moderate reliance on imported resources. Kursun et al. (2015) analyzed
the environmental performance of localized energy (biogas, biomass
gasification and solar PV) and centralized energy (conventional and
calcium looping clean coal technologies) combinations for energy
supply to a rural area in a developing country, concluding that the
increasing energy demand of developing countries requires the latter
technologies. Chen et al. (2016) conducted life cycle assessment based
on emergy in order to evaluate the sustainability of cement production
in China, concluding that the cement industry presents high values on
the environmental burden and is not sustainable. These examples show
that when LCA and emergy analysis are suitably integrated using con-
sistent data and assumptions, they can provide a complete picture of
environmental performance of production processes, enlarging the
boundary of sustainability analysis from the technosphere (human
system) to include the biosphere (natural system) (Raugei et al., 2012).
This research complements and extends the works of Asamoah et al.
(2017) and Ingwersen (2011) by applying emergy and EM-LCA to two
types of mining, open-pit and alluvial gold mining, and including the
impacts of water and air-borne emissions. Case studies in Colombia are
used. Firstly, the case studies will be described together with the
emergy system models, emergy sustainable indices and EM-LCA in-
tegration. Results will be presented and discussed in terms of the in-
sights gained into the comparative sustainability of the two mining
systems, the methodological challenges encountered, and opportunities
for further applications.
2. Methodology
2.1. Case study description
The case study mine sites are in the Antioquia department in
Colombia (Fig. 1). Two mine sites are considered. One is a planned
open-pit mine in southeast Antioquia, and the other is an operational
alluvial mine in northeast Antioquia. While all mines are different, the
selected mines are broadly representative of medium-scale mining
practices in Colombia. The open-pit mine broadly represents interna-
tional practice. While alluvial mining is also common internationally,
the case study mine uses an alluvial approach more unique to Co-
lombia. The mining approaches are described later in this secion.
Data on inputs to the mining process were supplied by the two
mining companies on an annual time scale. The alluvial mine company
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al. Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600

Fig. 1. Case study site locations: a) the open-pit mine and b) the alluvial mine.

Table 1
Emergy calculations for open-pit mining, discretizing renewable, nonrenewable, and imported resources (see Appendix A for more detail).
Note Item Unit Data (units/yr) Solar unit emergy* (seJ/ Solar emergy (seJ/ Em$ Value*** Emergy fraction
unit) yr) ($/yr)

Renewable resources
1 Sun J 2.44E+15 1.00E+00 2.44E+15 2.07E+02
2 Rain, chemical energy J 9.86E+12 3.10E+04 3.06E+17 2.59E+04 0.0003
3 Wind, kinetic energy J 6.92E+10 2.45E+03 1.70E+14 1.44E+01
4 Geothermal heat, J 1.58E+10 2.08E+04 3.29E+14 2.79E+01
5 Water m3 5.80E+07 1.26E+11 7.31E+18 6.20E+05 0.0065
6 Oxygen (air) ton 8.35E+04 8.66 + 13 7.23E+18 6.12E+05 0.0064
7 Vegetation covered harbors kg 1.33E+06 9.96E+10 1.33E+17 1.12E+04 0.0001

Nonrenewable storages
8 Organic soil loss J 2.57E+13 1.24E+05 3.18E+18 2.70E+05 0.003
9 Inorganic soil removed (sterile mineral) kg 6.93E+13 1.73E+06 1.20E+20 1.02E+07 0.107

Imported inputs
10 Fuel J 1.15E+15 3.84E+04 4.40E+19 3.73E+06 0.039
11 Electricity J 2.03E+15 2.92E+05 5.92E+20 5.01E+07 0.526
12 Gas (liquefied petroleum gas) MJ 1.68E+07 8.05E+10 1.35E+18 1.14E+05 0.001
13 Explosives g 1.41E+10 4.19E+09 5.89E+19 5.00E+06 0.052
14 Machinery g 1.52E+10 1.79E+10 2.73E+20 2.31E+07 0.242
15 Cyanide kg 2.00E+06 1.33E+08 2.65E+14 2.25E+01 2.36E−07
16 Sodium hydroxide ton 1.08E+02 1.08E+02 1.17E+04 9.90E−10 1.04E−17
17 Lime ton 2.30E+03 1.68E+15 3.86E+18 3.27E+05 0.003
18 Amylxanthate (PAX) g 4.37E+08 2.33E+09 1.23E+18 1.04E+05 0.001
19 Methyl-isobutyl-carbinol (MIBC) g 4.37E+08 2.33E+09 1.02E+18 8.63E+04 0.001
20 Coal kg 2.41E+12 1.78E+05 4.30E+17 3.64E+04 3.82E−04
21 Hydrogen peroxide kg 1.10E+03 4.00E+06 4.42E+09 3.74E−04 3.92E−12
22 Sodium metabisulfite g 1.27E+08 8.70E+09 1.10E+18 9.33E+04 0.001
23 Magnafloc 155 (polyacrylamide), g 3.11E+08 2.33E+09 7.23E+17 6.13E+04 0.001
flocculant
24 Hydrochloric acid ton 9.91E+02 4.44E+15 4.40E+18 3.73E+05 0.004
25 Human labor J 2.69E+11 4.45E+06 1.20E+18 1.01E+05 0.001
26 Operating costs USD 1.23E+08 1.18E+13 1.55E+18 1.31E+05 0.001
27 Phytoremediation costs USD 1.31E+05 1.18E+13 1.55E+18 1.31E+05 0.001
28 Herbaceous Rehabilitation USD 1.16E+05 1.18E+13 1.37E+18 1.16E+05 0.001
29 Waste Tailings Treatment Plant (WTTP) USD 6.56E+03 1.18E+13 7.74E+16 6.56E+03 6.87E−05
Total Emergy 1.13E+21 9.54E+07 1.00

Transformities, Calculated
30 Total Yield, gold ton 19.05
31 Total Yield, silver ton 21.55
Transformity gold, seJ/ton 5.72E+19
Transformity silver, seJ/ton 5.05E+19
Colombian Emergy Money Ratio 1.18E+13
Gold sale Price millions USD 763.4
Silver sale Price (U $ Dollars) USD 9.44
Colombia GDP, 282.5 thousands of USD 282.5
millions USD
Summary E(N ) E(R) E(F ) E E (g, j, $) ** E 1
(seJ/yr) 1.23E+20 1.50E+19 9.87E+20 1.13E+21 9.54E+07 8.56 + 21
Fraction 0.11 0.01 0.88 1.00

provided 6 years of data (2012–2018) based on the mine’s inventory of
materials and energy. The open-pit mine company provided 11 years of
data based on modelling of planned operations. In Tables 1 and 2 these
data are averaged over the years and are classified into renewable re-
sources (R), non-renewable resources (N), and imported (F) resources.
2.1.1. Open-pit mine description
The case study open pit mine is designed for gold production, but
silver is a by-product.
In preparation for mining, approximately 58 ha of vegetation and
soil are stripped in an average year, with the soil stored for restoration

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N.A. Cano Londoño, et al. Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600

Table 2
Emergy calculations for alluvial mining, discretizing renewable, nonrenewable, and imported resources (see Appendix A for more detail).
Note Item Unit Data (units/yr) Solar unit emergy* (seJ/ Solar emergy (seJ/ Em $ Value*** Emergy fraction
nit) yr) ($/yr)

Renewable resources
1 Sun J 7.08E+15 1.00E+00 7.08E+15 6.00E+02
2 Rain, chemical energy J 1.45E+13 3.10E+04 4.50E+17 3.82E+04 0.0004
3 Wind, kinetic energy J 2.04E+11 2.45E+03 4.99E+14 4.23E+01
4 Geothermal heat, J 5.82E+10 2.08E+04 1.21E+15 1.03E+02
5 Water m3 1.45E+08 1.26E+11 1.82E+19 1.54E+06 0.016
6 Oxygen (air) ton 8.40E+00 8.66 + 13 7.27E+14 6.16E+01 6.43E−07
7 Oxygen (air) for combustion ton 8.40E+00 5.16E+07 8.00E+08 6.78E−05 7.08E−13
8 Vegetation cover harbors kg 6.00E+04 9.96E+10 5.98E+15 5.06E+02 5.29E−06
Nonrenewable storages
9 Organic soil loss J 3.33E+15 1.24E+05 4.13E+20 3.50E+07 0.366
10 Inorganic soil removed (sterile mineral) kg 9.94E+13 1.72E+20 1.72E+20 1.46E+07 0.152

Imported inputs
11 Fuel J 1.12E+12 3.84E+04 4.31E+16 3.66E+03 3.82E−05
12 Electricity J 2.53E+14 1.34E+05 3.40E+19 2.88E+06 0.030
13 Gas (liquefied petroleum gas) MJ 1.60E+04 8.06E+04 1.29E+09 1.09E−04 1.14E−12
14 Machinery g 2.64E+10 1.79E+10 4.73E+20 4.01E+07 0.419
15 Coagulant g 4.70E+05 1.71E+09 8.04E+14 6.81E+01 7.11E−07
16 Surfactant g 2.30E+05 1.71E+09 3.93E+14 3.33E+01 3.48E−07
17 Borax kg 2.33E+05 1.68E+09 1.68E+14 1.42E+01 1.48E−07
18 Lime ton 1.00E−01 1.68E+15 1.68E+14 1.42E+01 1.48E−07
19 Sodium carbonate kg 7.76E+04 1.38E+12 1.07E+17 9.07E+03 9.48E−05
20 Polyacrylamide g 4.46E+05 1.71E+09 7.62E+14 6.46E+01 6.75E−07
21 Human labor J 1.13E+12 4.45E+06 5.03E+18 4.26E+05 0.004
22 Extractive cost USD 2.57E+02 1.18E+13 7.98E+15 6.76E+02 2.69E−06
23 Restoration costs USD 1.19E+06 1.18E+13 1.40E+19 1.19E+06 0.012
Total Emergy 1.13E+21 9.57E+07 1.00

Transformities, Calculated
24 Total Yield, gold ton 3.10
25 Total Yield, ferrous mineral ton 2.00
Transformity gold, seJ/ton 3.64E+20
Transformity mineral ferrous, seJ/ton 5.65E+20
Colombian Emergy Money Ratio 1.18E+13
Gold sale Price millions USD 763.4
Ferrous minerals sale Price millions USD 5.82E−18
Colombia GDP, 282.5 thousands of USD 282.5
millions USD
Summary E(N ) E(R) E(F ) E E (g, j, $) ** E 1
(seJ/yr) 5.85E+20 1.87E+19 5.26E+20 1.13E+21 9.57E+07 1.13E+21
Fraction 0.508 0.016 0.476 1.00

work that is undertaken as the mined area advances.
The ore extraction operations employ conventional drilling,
blasting, loading, and hauling, including excavation with hydraulic
shovels.
Following extraction, the ore undergoes a primary crushing process.
78% of the particles from primary crushing go to primary and sec-
ondary wet milling in order to further reduce their size. Water is
sprayed to control emissions of total particulate matter during crushing
and milling.
The milled ore passes to a flotation process. Foaming and organic
agents are added to promote the flotation of the gold-containing sulfidic
minerals and the retention of the other minerals. The flotation con-
centrate is classified by hydrocyclones, out of which fine material
(overflow) goes to the leach circuit, and coarse material (underflow)
feeds milling and gravity concentration circuits. The wastes are pumped
to the tailings dam at 66% moisture content. This flotation process is
designed to recover 96% of all gold present in the ore and 80% of all
silver.
Gravity separation using two vertical mills is applied to separate the
coarser fraction of the flotation concentrate. 34.7% of gold and 10.0%
of silver of the input to the gravity separation is recovered as gravity
concentrate. The gravity concentrate is sent to the leaching reactor.
In the leach tanks, sodium hydroxide is added for pH conditioning
and sodium cyanide is added to dissolve the gold. The mixture is me-
chanically agitated. Two streams are obtained: a gold and silver pulp;
and waste tails.
The pulp from leaching feeds the carbon-in-pulp (CIP) circuit,
wherein the gold and silver are adsorped onto activated carbon. Once
the activated carbon has reached the required gold and silver content it
goes to the CIP elution circuit.
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium cyanide (NaCN) are injected
into the elution column to release gold and silver from the carbon. The
resulting elution goes to the electro-winning process to selectively
precipitate gold and silver which is sent to the casting furnace.
Sterile carbon (carbon uncharged of gold) resulting from the elution
process is sent to carbon reversing furnace to reactivate it and reuse it in
the CIP process.
In the leaching step together with carbon adsorption, elution and
electrowinning process, gold recovery is 97% and the silver recovery is
65%.
Flotation tails correspond to 96.5% of the total industrial waste-
water generated in the separation process. These require no special
chemical treatment prior to disposal in the tailings dam. Leaching tails
and CIP wastes correspond to the remaining 3.5%, which prior to dis-
posal in the tailings are treated using hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).
The gold and silver are recovered is using a heat-based pyr-
ometallurgical process.
2.1.2. Alluvial mining description
In the case study, gold is mined from the alluvial deposits of the

4
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al.
flood plain. Gold is associated mainly with gravel and sand layers of the
flood plain. The progress of mining is based on the results of exploration
drilling. Prior to mining, typically, 133 ha of land are cleared for mining
per year. This equates to 60 tons of vegetation per year, which is stored
and biodegraded for later use in land restoration.
Extraction first requires the use of suction dredgers, which remove
superficial sands, clays, and silts. These are deposited in previously
mined areas according to the cut and fill method. A dipper dredge
advances behind the suction dredge removing deeper gravels and sands.
Gold separation uses gravimetric concentration on board the dipper
dredger, based on the high specific gravity of gold compared with
barren (economically useless) rock. Material from the exploration stage
that contains a significant amount of gold is added to the gravimetric
process.
The gravimetric separation recovers 96% of the mined gold. The
recovered gold is passed directly to a drying step and separation of
ferrous minerals as byproducts. The material containing the remaining
4% of gold is passed to flotation. This method involves the use of foa-
mers and pH adjustment to promote flotation of the particles that are
high in gold content. Between 92% and 99% of the gold passed to
flotation is recovered.
Wastes from the separation process are passed through the sedi-
mentation plant that aims to recover 99% of the wastewater. Dewatered
tailings are disposed of in the tailings dam.
Gold obtained from concentrates is melted in a tilting diesel melting
furnace.
2.2. Identification of system boundaries and time scale
Figs. 2 and 3 are emergy flow charts that define the boundaries for
the analyses of open pit and alluvial mining systems, and overview the
inter-relationships of renewable (R), nonrenewable (N) and imported
(F) resources inputs, products, and wastes and emissions. For both
mining systems, the renewable resources inputs are solar energy, wind,
Fig. 2. System emergy diagram showing the interrelation of renewable (R), nonrenewable (N) and imported flows (F) in the open-pit mining process.
5
Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600
rain, geothermal heat, oxygen and stripped vegetation; nonrenewable
resources are stripped soil that is not recovered for later use; and the
imported resources include fossil fuel, electricity, organic and inorganic
chemicals, equipment, human labor, operating and restoration costs
(phytoremediation and herbaceous rehabilitation costs). Appendix A
provides a detailed list and classification.
2.3. Emergy accounting
The emergy of a process is the sum of the renewable (R), non-re-
newable (N), and imported (F) resources in emergy units
(E(R) , E(NR) , E(F ) ), and each of these is the sum of all the component
inputs converted to emergy units:
E = E(R) + E(N ) + E(F ) (1)
E(R) = ∑i Ei (R) × UEVi (R)
E(N ) = ∑i Ei (N ) × UEVi (N )
E(F ) = ∑i Ei (F ) × UEVi (F ) (2)
where: E is the total emergy; Ei is the available energy separated into R,
N and F; UEVi is the Unit Emergy Value of the ith input for each of R, N
and F.
Values of UEV represent the ratio of solar energy embodied in a
product or process in terms of solar energy joules (seJ) per joule (sej/J),
or per kilogram (sej/kg), or per money earned (sej/$) (Odum, 1996).
For example, if 4000 solar emjoules are required to generate a joule of
wood, then the solar transformity of that wood is 4000 seJ/J. UEVs are
determined relative to a particular planetary baseline, which is de-
termined from the solar equivalences of the three primary energy inputs
to the biogeosphere, i.e., solar radiation, residual and deep heat of the
Earth, and the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon. In this
study the baseline was 15.83 × 1024 seJ/year (Odum, 2001).
Emergy accounting also includes four rules that permit the alloca-
tion of emergy sources, Ei in Eq. (2), to products (Brown and
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al.
Fig. 3. System emergy diagram showing the interrelation of renewable (R), non-renewable (N) and imported (F) flows in the alluvial mining process.
Herendeen, 1996). The rules consider: “co-products” (or by-products),
defined as “product items showing different physicochemical char-
acteristics, but which can only be produced jointly” (Sciubba and
Ulgiati, 2005); “splits”, where “an output flow ‘splits’ into two flows
showing the same physico-chemical characteristics”; and “pathways” as
“the route of the generic flow go ahead between each stage of the
process” (Sciubba and Ulgiati, 2005). The four rules are:
1. When a single product is obtained in the process, all emergy sources
are assigned to that product.
2. Co-products from a process have the total emergy assigned to each
co-product.
3. When a pathway splits, emergy is assigned to each 'leg' of the split
based on its percentage of total energy flow on the pathway.
4. Emergy cannot be counted twice within a system: emergy in feed-
backs cannot be double-counted; and co-product emergies cannot be
summed to a value greater than the source emergy from which they
were derived.
2.4. Emergy-based indices
Emergy-based indices (Odum, 1996) can be used to support the use
of emergy accounting in sustainability assessments, in particular com-
parisons of alternative approaches to production (Brown and Bardi,
2001). This section describes the emergy indices used in this research.
The Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR) refers to the ratio of non-
renewable plus imported resources to renewable resources, Eq. (3).
ELR < 2 indicates that the production process has a low environmental
impact; ELR > 10 indicates a high environmental impact; and
2 < ELR < 10 indicates a moderate impact (Cao and Feng, 2007).
E(N ) + E(F )
ELR =
E(R)
The Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR) refers to the ratio of total emergy to
Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600
imported resources, Eq. (4). EYR < 5 indicates that large amounts of
secondary resources are used in the process; EYR < 2 indicates a low
contribution of primary resources; and EYR > 5 indicates a dominant
use of primary resources (Brown et al., 2012).
E(R) + E(N ) + E(F )
EYR =
E(F ) (4)
The Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) is the ratio ELR: EYR. When
ESI < 1, the process and products are not considered sustainable in the
long term (Zhang et al., 2014). 1 < ESI < 5 is considered sustainable
in the mid-term. ESI > 5 is considered sustainable in the mid- and
long-terms (Cao and Feng, 2007). However, when ESI > 10 the process
is considered under-developed (Zhang et al., 2014).
The Emergy Inversion Ratio (EIR) is the ratio of imported resources to
the total renewable and non-renewable resources, Eq. (5). When com-
paring different process alternatives using this indicator, the process
alternative scoring the lower value tends to be the most competitive
and likely to thrive in the market (Zhang et al., 2007).
E(F )
EIR =
E(R) + E(N ) (5)
The Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER) is calculated by dividing the total
emergy of the product by the emergy received from the sale, Eq. (6).
The “emergy money ratio” is the emergy supporting the generation of
one unit of economic product, can be calculated by dividing the total
emergy use of an economy by its gross economic product.
E(N ) + E(R) + E(F )
EER =
Productrevenue*Emerymoneyratio (6)
In addition, EER provides a measure of who won or lost during
trading between consumers and producers (Cohen et al., 2006). An
EER > 1 indicates that more emergy was supplied to consumers than
(3)
received in exchange. An EER < 1 indicates the manufacturer made a
profit and received more emergy than they used for producing the good.
6
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al.
The Product Unit Emergy is the equivalent solar emergy required per
unit of product output, Eq. (7). This indicator is inversely related to the
efficiency of the production system (Brown et al., 2012).
E
PUEV =
Product (7)
2.5. Emergy – Life Cycle Assessment (EM-LCA) indices
EM-LCA extends the emergy account to include the emergy
equivalent of the ecological services (ESair, ESwater) needed to assimilate
emissions. All emissions were based on 1 kg of gold as a functional unit
under the Ecoindicador 99 methodology.
ESair and ESwater can be calculated based on the required dilution
using Eq. (8) (Reza et al., 2014b).
Mair , water = d * m c
( ) (8)
where M is the mass of air or water required for pollutant dilution
(kg); d represents the density of air or water equal to 1.23 kg/m3 and
1000 kg/m3 respectively; m represents the mass of pollutant released
into the air or water by the mining process (kg); and c is the acceptable
or background concentration according to Colombian Regulations (kg/
m3) (see Appendix B).
ESair can be determined by multiplying the kinetic energy of Mair (k)
by its transformity, UEVair (2.52 × 103 seJ/J) (Odum, 1996),
1 inside the artificial water pool formed by the dragger operation on the
ESair = k *Trair = Mair *v 2*UEVair
2 (9)
where v is the average annual wind speed (2.50 m/s for both open-pit
and alluvial mining) (Pan et al., 2016a,b). Similarly, ESwater is calcu-
lated using the chemical energy (ch) of the diluting water:
ESwater = ch*Trwater = Mwater *p*UEVwater (10)
4
where UEVwater is the transformity (3.05 × 10 seJ/J) (Odum, 1996)
and p is the heat transfer coefficient of water (Pan et al., 2016a,b).
Eqs. (8)–(10) are applied for each pollutant of interest. The total
ecological service ES is the sum of the maximum ESair over all air
pollutants and the maximum ESwater over all water pollutants, assuming
that the same volume of air or water can be used to dilute multiple
pollutants simultaneously.
ES = max (ESair ) + max (ESwater ) (11)
F1 is the sum of ecological services and the imported resources (F) as
shown in Eq. (12). The logic of combining ecological services with
imported resources is questionable; but justified by the potential loss of
regional or national services due to use of air and water resources, so
that in principle these services should be paid for just like a supplied
product (Reza et al., 2014b; Pan et al., 2016b).
E(F )1 = E(F ) + ES
(12)
Emergy indices are re-calculated taking into account Em(F)1. Thus,
the approach extends traditional emergy accounting to include emergy
demands of emissions, aiming to more holistically represent the work of
the biosphere for manufacturing gold (Liu et al., 2011).
2.6. Sensitivity analysis
Sensitivity analysis is useful to determine the potential significance
of uncertainty in the input data (Ingwersen, 2011). The sensitivity of
the sustainability indices (ELR, EYR, EER, ESI) was tested when per-
turbing the following inputs: water, organic soil loss, inorganic soil
removed, electricity and machinery. Each was varied in turn by an
(arbitrary) ± 15%, while the others remined at the original values.
Other inputs had lower contributions to the total emergy of both mining
processes and produced less sensitivity. The results will support dis-
cussion of the principal uncertainties in the method, their significance
7
Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600
to outcomes, and how uncertainty should be managed.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Emergy calculations from open-pit and alluvial mining process
Tables 1 and 2 show emergy calculations for open pit and alluvial
mining systems, discretizing renewable, nonrenewable, and imported
resources. Appendix A provides further details of the calculations.
In open-pit mining, total emergy is equal to 1.13 × 1021 seJ/yr,
87% of which corresponds to the use of imported resources (F), 11% to
the use of non-renewable resources (N) and 1% to the use of renewable
resources (Table 1). Water and oxygen are the main contributors to
renewable resource use, accounting for 49% and 48% respectively. 97%
of non-renewable resource use comes from inorganic soil removed in
the excavation process, the rest from organic soil removal. 62% of
imported resources correspond to electricity consumption, 29% to the
machinery used, 6% to explosives and 5% to fuel, with each other
imported resource contributing < 0.6%.
Similarly, in alluvial mining the total emergy is, coincidentally, also
equal to 1.13 × 1021 seJ/yr, discretized as follows: 52% non-renewable
resources, 47% imported resources and 2% renewable resources
(Table 2). The largest non-renewable input is organic soil loss (70% of
total renewable inputs); the dominant imported input is machinery
(90%); and the dominant renewable input is water (98%). The im-
portance of water reflects that the entire extractive process is done
floodplain. The total monetised emergy values (Em$) for open-pit
mining (9.54 × 107 $/yr) and alluvial mining (9.57 × 107 $/yr) are
similar. This economic value is the money that would require to buy
that emergy in Colombia in 2016.
3.2. Sustainability indices
3.2.1. Environmental loading ratio (ELR)
Values obtained for this indicator were equal to 74.6 and 59.4 for
open pit and alluvial mining respectively, indicating low environmental
sustainability for both especially open-pit mining. In alluvial mining,
this is due to the large amount of mineral excavated (gravel, sand, silt,
clay) to obtain the mineral and high consumption of imported resources
especially machinery. The low sustainability is reflected in the large
area of land (133 ha) cleared every year, with loss of biodiversity and
loss of organic matter through stripping and erosion, and deteriorated
water bodies and flood plains through creation of ponds (Asamoah
et al., 2017). In open-pit mining, the high environmental load is at-
tributed mainly to the use of machinery, electricity consumption and
removal of large quantities of inorganic soil, and gold separation.
However, the greatest environmental load is the ecological services
covered later in Section 3.4.
3.2.2. Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR)
This indicator has values equal to 1.1 and 2.2 for open-pit and al-
luvial mining respectively. This shows a high dependence of both
processes on imported resources and not on local resources. The low
contribution of freely available renewable resources to the production
of gold relative to bought resources partly explains the its globally high
economic value. This contribution is slightly higher for open-pit mining
than alluvial mining.
3.2.3. Emergy sustainability index (ESI)
Both extractive systems are considered unsustainable in the long
term with ESI values equal to 0.02 (open-pit mining) and 0.04 (alluvial
mining). The small difference in ESI between the two mining processes
is considered to be within bounds of uncertainty due to data and
methodological limitations, hence it may not be concluded whether on
system is more sustainable than the other. The small difference is
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al. Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600

related to the high emergy cost of electricity in open-pit mining, con- Ecological services in open-pit mining account for 87% of the total
tributing 53% of its total emergy. emergy. In alluvial mining, ecological services contribute only 0.03% to
the total emergy, and their inclusion causes increases in the environ-
3.2.4. Emergy Inversion Ratio (EIR) mental load indicator (ELR) and the global sustainability (ESI) of only
With EIR values equal to 0.87 for alluvial and 7.15 for open pit, the 0.03% and 1% respectively. This implies that the environmental burden
former mining method seems to be the more competitive in economic of the alluvial mining is insignificant and additional investment in its
terms. The latter not only has a higher level of economic development management is unlikely to be warranted. This was expected as open-pit
of the system with respect to the importing of resources but also has and underground mining gold separation processes generate more
high economic costs associated with operation, phytoremediation and chemical wastes than alluvial mining, which has a primarily physical
herbaceous rehabilitation, with 88% of the total emergy of the process separation process.
coming from imported resources. The substantial environmental load of open-pit mining is due to
emissions to water. ELR goes from a value of 74 when excluding eco-
3.2.5. Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER) logical services to 577 when including them. However, this points to a
Both mining processes present an economic gain in terms of gold practical limitation of treating the ecological services as imported ser-
sales, implying that the mining companies receive more emergy from vices instead of as freely available environmental services: the ELR
consumers than they invested in the whole process. Open-pit mining metric reflects a principle that ecological services should be paid for
presents a higher emergy profitability (EER = 0.12) compared with rather than the common reality in Colombia. It can be seen (Table 5)
alluvial mining (EER = 0.77). This is because the first system produces that although open pit mining is economically competitive it also de-
approximately 6 times more gold than the second with similar emergy mands significant ecological services. In principle, once the price of
investment. gold decreases by only 4%, so that EER falls below 1.0, the open-pit
mining would not continue to be economically sustainable.
3.2.6. Product Unit Emergy Value (PUEV)
In emergy terms, alluvial mining is less efficient compared to open- 3.4. Sensitivity analysis
pit mining. That is, more resources are required in alluvial mining to
produce a ton of gold. While for open pit mining 5.9 × 1019 seJ is re- For open pit mining, the sensitivity analysis results are in Fig. 4. The
quired to produce a ton of gold, in alluvial mining 3.6 × 1020 seJ is largest variations in the sustainability indices occurs when the elec-
required (approximately 7 times more). tricity and machinery input are perturbed, these being the greatest
Co-products of gold are silver in the open pit mine and iron in the emergy inputs. Decreasing the consumption of electricity by 15% led to
alluvial mine. The PUEV for silver (at 5.2 × 1019 seJ/ton) is lower than decreases in ELR and EER of 8.0% and 7.9% respectively, and increases
for gold (at 5.9 × 1019 seJ/ton). Even though it does not have an eco- in ESI and EYR of 10% and 1.2% respectively. The same variation in
nomic value comparable to gold, the deposit in this case is richer in machinery consumption led to decreases in ELR and EER of 3.7% and
silver than in gold. The EER for silver is 10.1, which indicates that the 3.6% respectively, and increases in EYR and ESI of 0.5% and 0.9%.
mining company would receive less emergy from consumers compared For alluvial mining, the sensitivity analysis results are in Fig. 5. The
to the emergy invested in the process, but the aggregation of silver and largest variations in the sustainability indices occurs when the water
gold has EER < 1.0. In the alluvial mining, the PUEV for iron is less and machinery inputs are perturbated. Decreasing the water input led
than that for gold, despite the produced mass of these co-products being to a reduction in ESI of 23%, a reduction of 0.2% in both EYR and EER,
similar (3.1 tons/yr of gold and 2.0 tons/yr of ferrous minerals). The and an increase in ELR of 17.1%. Machinery reductions led to an in-
difference lies in iron’s low sale price. crease in EYR of 8.3% and in ESI of 4.5%, and reductions in ELR and
EER of 6.4%.
3.3. EM-LCA indices This sensitivity analysis quantified the improvements in apparent
sustainability that could be achieved by reducing the inputs that have
Tables 3 and 4 show that open-pit mining requires 7.5 × 1021 seJ major emergy contributions. Reducing the imported resources make the
for the air and water pollutants to be assimilated to below the relevant greatest improvements. Reducing water input in alluvial mining acted
limits. 99% of the ecological services emergy is due to water emissions to reduce apparent sustainability, since water is considered a renewable
(chromium ion emissions) and only 1% is due to air emissions (nitrogen input in this case, drawing attention to the importance of this as-
oxides). In alluvial mining, emissions to air and water are much lower sumption, and the importance of achieving a balance between use of
with a value equal to 3.2 × 1017 seJ, with nickel and nitrogen oxides the two types of resource. Even reducing the important inputs by 15%,
being the main contributors of emissions to water and air respectively both extractive systems still have a high environmental load and high
(Appendix B). dependence on imported resources, and are considered to be un-
Finally, Table 5 summarizes the emergy sustainability indices de- sustainable according to ESI.
scribed in Section 3.2 and the EM-LCA indices described in Section 3.3.
4. Assessment of the applicability of emergy and EM-LCA
Table 3
Ecological services (seJ) by waterborne pollution in open-pit and alluvial There is a common perception that mining cannot be a sustainable
mining. activity because operations have a finite lifespan and the dependence of
Waterborne Dilution mass, Mdil [seJ] Eswater [seJ] humanity on non-renewable resources cannot go on indefinitely
pollution (Sterman, 2012). In addition, mines extract non-renewable resources to
Open-pit Alluvial Open-pit Alluvial mining support current livelihoods and lifestyles while creating a lasting en-
mining mining mining vironmental burden and uncertain benefits for future generations
Arsenic, ion 3.71E+12 1.37E+08 5.60E+20 2.06E+16 (Kirsch, 2009; Whitmore, 2006; Young and Septoff, 2002). The con-
Cadmium, ion 5.41E+12 2.34E+08 8.15E+20 3.53E+16 troversy over the sustainability of mining is exacerbated by the absence
Chromium, ion 4.99E+13 1.64E+08 7.52E+21 2.47E+16 of quantifiable sustainability indicators that provide a scientific, ob-
Copper, ion 1.86E+12 2.45E+08 2.80E+20 3.69E+16 jective foundation for comparing the sustainability of alternative ex-
Nickel, ion 1.87E+13 2.11E+09 2.82E+21 3.18E+17
traction technologies (Molina and Restrepo, 2010). This research has
Zinc, ion 3.58E+11 1.50E+07 5.39E+19 2.26E+15
Total Ecological Services (seJ) 7.52E+21 3.18E+17 aimed to demonstrate and assess the applicability of emergy indicators
in this context.

8
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al. Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600

Table 4
Ecological services (seJ) by airborne pollution in open-pit and alluvial mining.
Airborne pollution Dilution mass, Mdil Kinetic Energy, K Esair

Open-pit mining Alluvial mining Open-pit mining Alluvial mining Open-pit mining Alluvial mining

Nitrogen oxides 1.20E+14 2.81E+10 2,99E+14 7.02E+10 7.53E+17 1,77E+14

Particles, > 2.5 µm, < 10 µm 6.72E+13 7.67E+07 1,68E+14 3,62E+10 4.23E+17 9,13E+13
Sulfur dioxide 1.07E+13 2.05E+10 2.67E+13 5.12E+10 6.73E+16 1,29E+14
Total Ecological Services (seJ) 7.53E+17 1.77E+14

Table 5 Results illustrate that open-pit and alluvial mining may be con-
Emergy indicators vs EM-LCA indicators to open-pit and alluvial mining pro- sidered as relatively unsustainable, with the comparison of the various
cess. indices generally favouring the alluvial approach. The emergy results
Emergy indicator Open-pit mining Alluvial mining illustrate that the alluvial system has poor sustainability performance
(exemplified by the low ESI values), slightly worse than an in-
Emergy EM-LCA Emergy EM-LCA dependently studied underground mine (Asamoah et al., 2017), but
slightly better than the studied open-pit mine. Benchmarking against
Enviromental Loading Ratio, 74.1 576.5 59.4 59.5
ELR comparable mine projects is not possible because emergy evaluations of
Emergy Yield Ratio, EYR 1.14 1.02 2.15 2.10 both alluvial mining and open-pit mining are absent from the literature.
Emergy Sustainable Indices, 0.02 1.76E−03 0.04 3.46E−02 Indeed, sustainability evaluations of alluvial mining are very limited
ESI because that type of mining is widely accepted practice only in Latin
Emergy Inversion Ratio, EIR 7.15 61.66 0.87 0.91
Emergy Exchange Ratio, EER 0.12 0.96 0.77 0.79
America countries. Furthermore, there is not yet a significant database
Product Unit Emergy Value 5.91E+19 4.54E+20 3.64E+20 3.72E+20 of emergy indices to benchmark the gold mines against other industries.
Gold, PUEV [seJ/ton] Nevertheless, it is useful to compare the main indicators analyzed here
Product Unit Emergy Value 5.22E+19 4.01E+20 5.65E+20 5.7E+20 with those from Asamoah et al. (2017).
Silver, PUEV [seJ/ton]
The ELR results from Asamoah et al. (2017) indicate that the Gha-
Imported Resource F, – 8.51E+21 – 5.26E+20
modified [seJ/yr] nian alluvial mine (ELR = 4.3) and underground mine (ELR = 2.5)
Ecological services (%) 86.99 0.03 have lower environmental impact than the Colombian alluvial mine
E, [seJ/yr] 1.13E+21 8.56+21 1.13E+21 1.13E+21 (ELR = 74.6) and open-pit mine (ELR = 59.4). This may be because the
Ghanian mines were smaller-scale and relied less on imported re-
sources. However, as previously noted, ELR is sensitive to uncertainty

81.00 1.16
Enviromental loading ratio (ELR)

79.00 1.16
Inorganic soil Inorganic soil
removed removed
Emergy yiel ratio (EYR)

77.00 1.15
Fuel Fuel
75.00 1.15

73.00 Electricity 1.14 Electricity

71.00 1.14
Explosives Explosives
69.00 1.13
Machinery 1.13 Machinery
67.00

65.00 1.12
-15% Baseline 15% -15% Baseline 15%

a) b)

0.02 0.14

0.02
Emergy sustainable indices (ESI)

Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER)

Inorganic soil 0.14 Inorganic soil

0.02 removed removed
0.02 Fuel 0.13 Fuel
0.02
Electricity 0.13 Electricity
0.02

0.01 Explosives 0.12 Explosives

0.01
Machinery 0.12 Machinery
0.01

0.01 0.11
-15% Baseline 15% -15% Baseline 15%
c) d)

Fig. 4. Open-pit mine: sensitivity of a) ELR. b) EYR. c) ESI. d) EER. when changing the five inputs with highest contributions to the total emergy.

9
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al.
Fig. 5. Alluvial mine: sensitivity of a) ELR. b) EYR. c) ESI. d) EER. when changing the five inputs with highest contributions to the total emergy.
in the inputs especially the renewable emergy accounting. Values of
EYR, and index that is more robust to uncertainties in the renewable
component, were more similar between the two mining case studies:
Asamoah et al. (2017) reported EYR = 1.4 for the alluvial mine and 1.3
for the underground mine, versus values of 1.1 and 2.1 for the Co-
lombian mines under study here. A common result is that ESI is < 1.0,
implying that minerals extraction is unsustainable. Asamoah et al.
(2017) reported ESI = 0.3 for the alluvial mine and 0.5 for the under-
ground mine, versus values of 0.02 and 0.04 for the Colombian mines.
Although the emergy accounting and EM-LCA provide some evi-
dence to support the miner’s choice of production system, in practice
the choice depends on a broad range of factors. As well as the factors
considered in the emergy and EM-LCA based indices (which included
resources input, outputs, their emergy values, and environmental loads
and their ecological service demands), the choice also depends on: re-
source types, abundance and location in the earth; access to land; mi-
neral sale price; type of technologies available; level of public and po-
litical support; among other determining factors. Additionally, while
the economic indicators used in the emergy and EM-LCA approaches
attempt to illustrate the gap between economic value attached to the
gold and the environmental cost, they omit numerous considerations
that influence the socio-economic value of a gold mine. Therefore, it is
desirable to use additional, complementary methodologies. Options
include Socio-Economic Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), which assesses
the social and socio-economic impacts that may directly affect stake-
holders positively or negatively during the life cycle of a product
(Jørgensen et al., 2008; UNEP/SETAC, 2009); and thermoeconomic
analysis, which performs economic analyses based on exergy, assigning
costs and/or prices to exergy-related variables with the aim of de-
termining the economic feasibility and profitability of a system (Bejan
et al., 1996; El-Sayed and Gaggioli, 1989). Therefore, we propose that
the EM-LCA approach can be used to supplement but not replace other
10
Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600
approaches.
Other limitations of the emergy methods relate to the assumptions
and simplifications inherent to the emergy accounting rules (Bastianoni
et al., 2007; Sciubba and Ulgiati, 2005). One issue that may particularly
affect mining applications is the rules around co-products, which re-
quire that each co-product is assigned the total emergy involved in the
co-production. As seen in the case study of the open-pit mine, this can
lead to the result that the co-product appears to be highly unsustain-
able, when in fact it is providing added value per unit emergy use. This
is non-intuitive and would affect the assessment of most mines. Im-
proved rules are needed to recognize the value of co-products in im-
proving the sustainability rating of the mines.
Another concern regarding applicability of EM-LCA to mining re-
lates to the treatment of ecological services for diluting airborne/wa-
terborne pollutants (Lou et al., 2015). These are treated as imported
resources rather than renewable, and hence have a detrimental rather
than positive influence on the ELR index. On one hand, it may be ar-
gued that air and water are renewable due to the cleansing role of the
hydrological and biogeochemical cycles driven largely by solar energy;
on the other hand, there is a potential loss of ecosystem services and
potential loss of human health due to the use of air and water resources
for dilution and the residual impacts of the diluted contaminants (Pan
and Li, 2016; Reza et al., 2014a). The latter may be especially true for
metals released from rocks by mining. This limitation of the EM-LCA
method can only be addressed satisfactorily by extending the concept of
EM-LCA to look more meaningfully at the life-cycle of contaminants in
the atmosphere and water over catchment and long time-scales. At
least, an informed judgement should be made of what proportion of the
emissions consumes “imported resources” during its assimilation to a
safe state.
Finally, a critical assumption in the case study application relates to
land and river degradation and the ability of the mine to restore land to
N.A. Cano Londoño, et al.
its previous value. Emergy analysis, as currently designed, assigns va-
lues to the effort made by nature to support the production process. As a
consequence, environmental degradation is represented by the use of
resources including the loss of soil and vegetation as part of site pre-
paration (e.g. Table 1). Any erosion and waste released to the en-
vironment as part of the site degradation is encompassed only as far as
the EM-LCA allows. Resources used for restoration or rehabilitation can
be included as imported resources (e.g. Table 1, phytoremediation and
herbaceous rehabilitation), based on the number of hectares restored.
Unless these values encompass the full resources required to restore or
rehabilitate the mined land to a standard condition (which might be the
pre-mining land use), rather than the actually planned or applied re-
sources, then there is no penalty for a poor restoration effort. There is
scope to extend the emergy approach to address this.
In addition to these important methodological limitations, there are
many uncertainties and gaps in input data and due to the necessary
generalizations about the UEV values across wide classes of inputs. One
of the potential input gaps is information about the geochemistry of
wastes. In the case study open-pit mine, approximately 70 substances
present in tails were considered, whereas for alluvial mining 17 sub-
stances were considered. It is assumed that the critical contaminants are
within each set. An important uncertainty is the UEV values. The case
study assumed values recommended for general use, but it is recognised
that they can change according to time, process, geography, and other
variables (Amaya, 2009). These uncertainties mean that the difference
in sustainability metrics between open-pit and alluvial mining must be
viewed with caution. For example, while there is a large gap between
the ELR values for the open-pit mine and the alluvial mine (74.6 and
59.4), these values are extremely sensitive to the estimate of the re-
newable resources because it is the denominator in Eq. (3). The same
type of sensitivity applies to all the other indices. Therefore, caution is
needed when interpreting the relative values. Although this paper has
not included a quantitative uncertainty analysis due to lack of
Supporting Information, the differences in EYR, ESI and EER, between
the two mine types may not be concluded with high confidence, with or
without including emissions, despite the differences in value (Table 5).
5. Conclusions
The sustainability of mining comes under much scrutiny and the
case for new mining project can rest on perceptions of the balance
between economic contribution and environmental burden. The large
amount of resources classed as “non-renewable” typically used in a
mining process means that environmental burden is usually viewed as
high. The concept of emergy, although well-established in general, has
not previously been used to quantify and compare the sustainability of
medium- to large-scale mines. Our case study of two gold mines in
Colombia supports the prevailing view about the sustainability of
mining. A range of emergy-based sustainability metrics indicated low
levels of sustainability. Although there were differences in sustain-
ability metric values between the two mining approaches, favouring the
alluvial approach, in most cases this was within the range of un-
certainty in the data. The paper went on to propose an extension to the
emergy analysis, EM-LCA, which integrates the emergy demands of the
production process with those of assimilating mine emissions. This
further reduced the apparent sustainability of the mines in particular
the open-pit mine.
The results demonstrate the need to implement mining methods that
focus on: a) reducing waste and emissions by more efficient technolo-
gies and use of resources, and recovery of value from waste. b)
Reducing dependence on imported resources and increasing depen-
dence on local renewable resources for example the use of bio-resources
instead of fossil based chemicals. Several questions were raised in the
paper about the assumptions and potential ambiguities in the emergy
accounting, reflecting wider arguments in the literature about the
method’s practical applicability. Nevertheless, the case study
11
Ecological Indicators 107 (2019) 105600
demonstrates that emergy accounting when extended to EM-LCA can be
a transparent and holistic approach to sustainability assessment that
encourages the use of renewable resources. As in all other methods,
interpretations of the results for supporting decisions should be made
cautiously and supplemented by complementary methodologies.
Acknowledgments
This project was carried out as part of the Doctoral Program funded
by the Department of Science and Technology of Colombia
(COLCIENCIAS). The authors thank the mining companies (open-pit
and alluvial mining technology) for the provided data and re-
commendations, Dr. Sue Vink for your recommendations as an expert
on the topic and Dr. John Posada for your insightful discussions and
feedback on models and interpretation of results. This research was
supported by the 1) School of Mines at the National University of
Colombia at Medellín (academic product of the project: “Evaluación de
la Sostenibilidad del Uso de Recursos Renovables, No Renovables y
Energéticos en un Sistema de Extracción Minero Tomando Como
Herramienta de Análisis el Análisis De Ciclo De Vida, el Método
Exergético y Emergético) and 2) Endeavor Australia Fellowship 3) The
authors would like to thank the DIME. Universidad Nacional de
Colombia, for the economic support.
Disclaimer
This research is focused on studying the sustainability of two dif-
ferent extraction mining processes such as open pit and alluvial mining
technologies. Data provided by mining companies is confidential in-
formation used only to academic purposes.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.105600.
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