With an increasing share of renewable energy technologies in our energy systems, the integration of not only direct emission (from the use phase), but also the total life cycle emissions (including ...emissions during resource extraction, production, etc.) becomes more important in order to draw meaningful conclusions from Energy Systems Analysis (ESA). While the benefit of integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) into ESA is acknowledged, methodologically sound integration lacks resonance in practice, partly because the dimension of the implications is not yet fully understood. This study proposes an easy-to-implement procedure for the integration of LCA results in ESA based on existing theoretical approaches. The need for a methodologically sound integration, including the avoidance of double counting of emissions, is demonstrated on the use case of Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell photovoltaic technology. The difference in Global Warming Potential of 19% between direct and LCA based emissions shows the significance for the integration of the total emissions into energy systems analysis and the potential double counting of 75% of the life cycle emissions for the use case supports the need for avoidance of double counting.
Increasing shares of renewable electricity generation lead to fundamental changes of the electricity supply, resulting in varying supply mixes and environmental impacts. The hourly-defined life cycle ...assessment (HD-LCA) approach aims to capture the environmental profile of electricity supply in an hourly resolution. It offers a flexible connectivity to unit commitment models or real-time electricity production and consumption data from electricity suppliers. When charging EVs, the environmental impact of the charging session depends on the electricity mix during the session. This paper introduces the combination of HD-LCA and smart charging and illustrates its impacts on the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of BEVs.
The integration of circular economy-based life cycle management (LCM) into product design and optimisation is essential for the transformation towards a circular economy (CE). However, companies ...often lack the expertise to adapt life-cycle design (LCD) thinking in their business operations and are in need of respective capacity building. To close this apparent gap is the aim of the project e-CirP (Embedding Circular Economy into Product Design and Optimization) where LUT University, Fraunhofer, Technical University of Denmark, University of Padova, Delft University of Technology, University of Helsinki and Metso Outotec have worked together to develop a program that allows Master students across Europe to learn how to integrate CE and Life Cycle Thinking principles into product design by analysing real industrial cases. In the project, modern pedagogical approaches have been applied. A modular training package covering general circular economy aspects, as well as detailed value chain perspectives, has been created. Next to the content-related aspects, a great focus was also on the support of so-called soft-skills development, e.g. through international student cooperation on case studies. The paper presents the perspective of participating students as well as the cooperating companies that supplied the industry cases to allow an overview of opportunities and challenges.
The beginning of the 21st century is marked by the fourth industrial revolution, which could be a great opportunity for a sustainable technological transformation. The key role of these technologies ...in the development of a more sustainable future implies the need for the evaluation and monitoring of both supply risks as well as environmental and social impacts of a number of raw materials in the supply chain. These raw materials that are important to the economy and might be under supply risk are referred to as Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) in the EU. The integration of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) - well established for sustainability evaluation - and Criticality Assessment (CA) – increasingly used as governance tool - is therefore consequent to support decision-making regarding efficient use those natural resources.
Based on a critical review of CA methods within and outside the framework of an LCSA, this research aimed to investigate the compatibility of CA methods with the life-cycle approach. The methods range from specific CA methodologies (e.g., NRC (USA) and EC-CA (EU)) to the existing methods integrating CA and LCSA (e.g., ESSENZ and GeoPolRisk). The evaluation of the methods was based on a set of criteria (e.g., acceptance and credibility) and further analysis of compatibility with frameworks from ISO 14040-44 and UNEP-SETAC. The current challenges for integration in the field are identified, namely: interpretation of criticality within the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic or environmental); the incompatibility among inventories and the characterization of material’s criticality; arbitrariness in the interpretation of what is “critical”; and the uncertainty intrinsic to CA models. Potential solutions towards the operationalization of criticality indicators in a product-oriented LCSA include the definition of the impact pathway of criticality in LCSA, the linkage of criticality indicators to product/technological flows, the use of intermediate indicators (supply risk and economic importance), the characterization of criticality at the normalization and weighting step, and addressing uncertainties in an LCSA. Further works of this research will explore the solutions proposed.
The development of sustainable and resource-efficient products requires consideration of multiple design targets concerning the whole product life cycle. Taking these factors into account leads to ...complex decision situations with conflicting targets and trade-offs. To support design engineers in these situations an Engineering Decision Support System (EDSS) has been developed. In this article, the overall concept of the EDSS is presented. Furthermore, one function of the EDSS to assist a systematic comparison of product variants is introduced in detail. It is based on combining an existing PLM solutions (in particular Siemens Teamcenter 11/Siemens NX9) and software for Life Cycle Assessment (GaBi 7). Beyond a proof of concept for information exchange between both systems a methodology is presented which enables design engineers to systematically assess and select multiple product variants based on their resource utilization. The approach is complemented with a comprehensive case study for different design options of a core slide. In the scope of this study, variations of geometry (solid vs. hollow design), materials (hot-working steel vs. nickel-based superalloy) and manufacturing processes (laser metal deposition vs. milling) were considered. Furthermore, a usability study of the decision support tool is shown.
•Systematic comparison of manufacturing options enables resource efficient products.•Existing product knowledge can be used for decision support in new design projects.•PLM and LCA can be combined to store knowledge and simply create product variants.•Most efficient variants can be identified via pareto-analysis.
Orientador: Newton Muller Pereira
Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociencias
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Previous issue date: 2005
Resumo: Nessa Tese desenvolveu-se o conceito da Política Ambiental Transversal, que representa a internalização da sustentabilidade sócio-ambiental no conjunto das políticas públicas de uma localidade. Parte-se da premissa de que a política ambiental transversal é mais adequada do que a política ambiental exclusivamente setorial por possibilitar o alcance de modelos de desenvolvimento ambientalmente mais sustentáveis, tal qual preconiza a Agenda 21. Os objetivos da pesquisa foram caracterizar a política ambiental transversal nos seus aspectos teóricos e metodológicos e analisar dois estudos de caso: as políticas ambientais recentes dos estados amazônicos do Acre (estudo principal) e do Amapá (estudo complementar). Sob o ideário do ¿desenvolvimento sustentável¿, governos destes estados adotaram prioridades ambientais em seus programas, os quais podem representar iniciativas de transversalidade. Na investigação utilizou-se um arcabouço conceitual composto da sustentabilidade sócio-ambiental, de noções históricas do ambientalismo (com destaque para as escolas do Ecodesenvolvimento e da Ecologia Profunda), da Ecologia, do paradigma sistêmico (teorias da complexidade), da Análise de Políticas Públicas, das prioridades sócio-ambientais para o bioma amazônico, bem como das interfaces da questão ambiental com a Ciência e Tecnologia e com a Economia. A análise dos casos do Acre e do Amapá revelou que a variável ambiental tem sido incorporada em diversas políticas públicas, e isto pôde ser comprovado por meio da evolução positiva de indicadores de sustentabilidade nestes estados. Pode-se dizer, portanto, que em ambos estados ocorrem experiências de política ambiental transversal, embora com algumas limitações, o que demonstra que essa nova concepção tem sido uma tendência significativa. A caracterização teórico-metodológica da política ambiental transversal, feita com aportes da literatura, pôde então ser aprimorada com os resultados dos estudos de caso
Abstract: In this Thesis it was developed the concept of Transverse Environmental Policy, which represent the internalization of socio-environmental sustainability through a set of public policies of a locality. The premiss was that the transverse environmental policy is more successful that exclusive sectorial environmental policy to reach environmental more sustainable development models, as preconized by Agenda 21. The objectives of the research went to characterize the transverse environmental policy in its theoretical and methodological aspects and to analyze two case studies: recent environmental policies of the amazonian states of Acre (principal study) and Amapa (complemental study). By the approach of ¿sustainable development¿, governs of these states adopted environmental priorities in their programs, whose can represent transverse initiatives. In the investigation it was used a conceptual frame composed by socio-environmental sustainability, historic notions of environmentalism (with distinction to Ecodevelopment and Deep Ecology schools), Ecology, systemic paradigm (complexity theories), Public Policy Analysis, socio-environmental priorities for the amazonian biome, as with the interfaces of the environmental question with Science and Technology and the Economy. The analysis of Acre and Amapa cases revealed that environmental variable have been incorporated in diverse public policies, and this was confirmed by the positive evolution of sustainable indicators in these states. It can be affirmed, therefore, that in both states occur experiences of transverse environmental policy, in despite of some limitations, and this fact demonstrates that the new conception of environmental policy have been a significative tendency. The theoretic-methodological characterization of transverse environmental policy, made by literature resources, was then improved with the case studies results
Doutorado
Doutor em Política Científica e Tecnológica
Background
Fly ashes from municipal solid waste incineration contain significant amounts of (technology critical) elements. Processes to recover Cu or Zn are already in practice, but it still remains ...difficult to evaluate the full secondary resource potential of the ashes. One reason is the absence of a worldwide comparable analytical basis for detailed market analyses. To encounter this, (i) an advice on how to analyse 65 elements after microwave-assisted digestion by ICP-OES and ICP-MS is delivered, (ii) the heterogeneity (hours to annual cycle) is evaluated for a incineration plant, (iii) leaching efficiency with three different eluents and (iv) the market potential of the elements as commodities are evaluated.
Results and conclusions
Aqua regia digestion was found to be sufficient to evaluated the recovery potential; except for the mass constituents Al, Si, Sn, Ti and the trace components Cr, Hf, Nb, U and W, for which HF-containing digestions delivered better recoveries. On different time scales, ashes were very homogenous and HCl- as well as H
2
SO
4
-supported leaching delivered, satisfying results within an hour (exceptions are, e.g., Bi and Sb). By applying characterisation factors of the life cycle assessment impact category “Resource depletion—minerals and metals” supplemented by the list of critical raw materials of the EU: Ag, Bi, Cd, Ga, In and Sb are most interesting elements to be recovered in future activities.
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