Life Cycle Assessment of Aluminum Alloy Cable and Copper Cable

The method of life cycle assessment (LCA) was applied to investigate the environmental impacts of aluminum alloy cable and copper cable which have the same current carrying capacity during the whole life cycle. The results showed that the six environmental characteristic indicators of aluminum alloy cable, including the Chinese abiotic depletion potential (CADP), the energy depletion potential, the acidification potential, the global warming potential, the eutrophication potential and the industrial water use, are superior to those of copper cable, and especially has significant advantage in CADP. For the aluminum alloy cable, only the land resource potential is higher than that of copper cable.