Substance flow analysis for nickel in mainland China in 2009

A comprehensive understanding of the flows and stocks of non-renewable resources plays an important role in the development of sustainable resource use policies. Substance flow analysis (SFA) is an established method to comprehensively analyze resource flows in the anthroposphere, and this paper conducts a quantitative SFA for nickel in mainland China for the year 2009. The analysis shows that total available primary nickel, total available nickel used in fabrication processes and in-use stock of nickel end-products during the year 2009 were 509.28 Gg, 647.25 Gg and 341.83 Gg respectively, and the net import reliance was about 73%. Some sustainability indicators can be derived from the SFA results, and these indicate that the sustainability of the Chinese nickel industry chain could be significantly improved. However, to conduct a comprehensive assessment of resource sustainability it would be necessary to derive systematic SFA indicators. The overall environmental burden exported from the Chinese nickel industry is greater than the imported burden, with the imported environmental burden resulting mainly from the smelting and refining of imported nickel ores. The results indicate that cradle-to-cradle management is important for Chinese nickel industry, including shrinking the milling and refining capacity, improvements to processing technology, and enlarging the capacity for domestic and imported waste management.