Friday, June 8, 2012

No. 131: Software to analyze the influence of electric appliances on environment (June 8, 2012)

Technology:
Toray and Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry (JEMAI) jointly developed software that enables users to analyze the influence of electric appliances on environment through the Internet. Toray’s T-E2A and JEMAI’s Multiple Interface Life Cycle Assessment (MiLCA) will be integrated to be a new software program. It will be available both in Japanese and English. You can download the software free in this website by the end of June, though the website is under construction now.  

It will help companies select raw materials and new production methods thoughtful of environment in new product development. It contains more than 3,000 kinds of data including emissions of carbon dioxide and those of contaminants per energy of raw materials. If you input the amount of a raw material to be used for a new product, you can analyze the raw material from such viewpoints as “Influence on global warming,” “Consumption of mineral resources and water resources,” “Toxic risk,” and “Production cost.”

You can also get information on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of such means of transport as truck and ship. For example, you can compare two cases: “A product produced an area inside Japan and shipped from there to Tokyo by truck” and “A product produced in China and shipped from China to Tokyo by ship.” Leading companies in such industries as auto, material, and electric appliance analyze the influence of their products on environment by themselves, but some small and medium-sized companies generally are not as advanced as leading companies. This software will be of great help to such small and medium-sized companies.