Issues accessing density of wood-based flows

[deanmalmgren]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question. If there's a better spot, please redirect me to the appropriate resource.

I am loading the USLCI and US Electric JSON-LD from this repository to have it loaded into our platform at @PlanetFWD so that we can keep our database up to date with USLCI. I've been able to work through most of the details of getting this to work properly, but I'm having trouble with a units mismatch on some flows. For example, Wood fuel, MDF, generated on-site, combusted in industrial boiler (in units of mass) uses Medium density fiberboard (MDF), at MDF mill (with a reference flow in units of volume). I can see in the description of the reference material that the density is 741 kg/m3, but I'm looking for a reliable way to parse this information programmatically. Any guidance here?

For reference, I have noticed that this issue impacts the following reference materials:

• Solid strip and plank flooring, hardwood, E
• Sawn lumber, hardwood, planed, kiln dried, at planer mill, SE
• Engineered flooring, hardwood, unfinished, E
• Roundwood, hardwood, green, at logyard, SE
• Medium density fiberboard (MDF), at MDF mill
• Particleboard, average, softwood, particleboard mill
• Roundwood, hardwood, green, at mill, E
• Roundwood, hardwood, green, at mill, NE-NC
• Roundwood, hardwood, green, at mill, SE
• Roundwood, hardwood, green, at logyard, NE-NC
• Bucked and debarked log, hardwood, green, at veneer mill, E

Separately, I've noticed that there is a precedent with natural gas of storing the density of the material on the flow object within the flowProperties key, but this pattern does not appear to be followed for wood-based flows. For example, Natural gas, combusted in industrial boiler, at hydrocracker, for butadiene uses Natural gas, processed, for energy use, at plant and the density is available from the associated flow Natural gas, production mixture, to energy use. Is it common to store the density in flowProperties like this? If so, is there an appropriate place to create a pull request to add this in for these wood-based flows?

My temporary workaround has been to just create a local density map for wood-based flows, but this is a really unsatisfying and prone to inconsistencies with USLCI that I would prefer to avoid.

Thanks in advance for your help. 🙏

[bl-young]

It looks like the Wood fuel, MDF, generated on-site, combusted in industrial boiler process uses one of the co-products from the MDF Mill. Both the Wood Fuel, and the Wood Fuel, sanderdust are in units of Mass, though the reference flow of the MDF is in volume. So in this case, the units shouldn't need conversion (they can remain as mass). Note that in this process, it is currently constructed to use a mass allocation - see the note in the "intended application" field and on the allocation factors tab.

Yes, the Flow Properties field could be a place to find that kind of conversion information, and I expect this would support your efforts to incorporate that data programmatically. We will review if this can be added for the next release.

If so, is there an appropriate place to create a pull request to add this in for these wood-based flows?

Unfortunately not, though thank you for the offer -as the Federal LCA Commons data do not use git directly. But raising this issue here is the next best step.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question. If there's a better spot, please redirect me to the appropriate resource.

Yes - this is a fine place to raise these issues related to USLCI. I'll also point you to the companion documentation site which has a lot of resources for USLCI and all repositories on the Federal LCA Commons