Wind power electricity: the bigger the turbine, the greener the electricity?

Wind energy is a fast-growing and promising renewable energy source. The investment costs of wind turbines have decreased over the years, making wind energy economically competitive to conventionally produced electricity. Size scaling in the form of a power law, experience curves and progress rates are used to estimate the cost development of ever-larger turbines. In life cycle assessment, scaling and progress rates are seldom applied to estimate the environmental impacts of wind energy. This study quantifies whether the trend toward larger turbines affects the environmental profile of the generated electricity. Previously published life cycle inventories were combined with an engineering-based scaling approach as well as European wind power statistics. The results showed that the larger the turbine is, the greener the electricity becomes. This effect was caused by pure size effects of the turbine (micro level) as well as learning and experience with the technology over time (macro level). The environmental progress rate was 86%, indicating that for every cumulative production doubling, the global warming potential per kWh was reduced by 14%. The parameters, hub height and rotor diameter were identified as Environmental Key Performance Indicators that can be used to estimate the environmental impacts for a generic turbine.     

Regional characterization of freshwater Use in LCA: modeling direct impacts on human health

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology that quantifies potential environmental impacts for comparative purposes in a decision-making context. While potential environmental impacts from pollutant emissions into water are characterized in LCA, impacts from water unavailability are not yet fully quantified. Water use can make the resource unavailable to other users by displacement or quality degradation. A reduction in water availability to human users can potentially affect human health. If financial resources are available, there can be adaptations that may, in turn, shift the environmental burdens to other life cycle stages and impact categories. This paper proposes a model to evaluate these potential impacts in an LCA context. It considers the water that is withdrawn and released, its quality and scarcity in order to evaluate the loss of functionality associated with water uses. Regionalized results are presented for impacts on human health for two modeling approaches regarding affected users, including or not domestic uses, and expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALY). A consumption and quality based scarcity indicator is also proposed as a midpoint. An illustrative example is presented for the production of corrugated board with different effluents, demonstrating the importance of considering quality, process effluents and the difference between the modeling approaches.     

Life cycle assessment of Chinese shrimp farming systems targeted for export and domestic sales

We conducted surveys of six hatcheries and 18 farms for data inputs to complete a cradle-to-farm-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental performance for intensive (for export markets in Chicago) and semi-intensive (for domestic markets in Shanghai) shrimp farming systems in Hainan Province, China. The relative contribution to overall environmental performance of processing and distribution to final markets were also evaluated from a cradle-to-destination-port perspective. Environmental impact categories included global warming, acidification, eutrophication, cumulative energy use, and biotic resource use. Our results indicated that intensive farming had significantly higher environmental impacts per unit production than semi-intensive farming in all impact categories. The grow-out stage contributed between 96.4% and 99.6% of the cradle-to-farm-gate impacts. These impacts were mainly caused by feed production, electricity use, and farm-level effluents. By averaging over intensive (15%) and semi-intensive (85%) farming systems, 1 metric ton (t) live-weight of shrimp production in China required 38.3 ± 4.3 GJ of energy, as well as 40.4 ± 1.7 t of net primary productivity, and generated 23.1 ± 2.6 kg of SO(2) equiv, 36.9 ± 4.3 kg of PO(4) equiv, and 3.1 ± 0.4 t of CO(2) equiv. Processing made a higher contribution to cradle-to-destination-port impacts than distribution of processed shrimp from farm gate to final markets in both supply chains. In 2008, the estimated total electricity consumption, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions from Chinese white-leg shrimp production would be 1.1 billion kW·h, 49 million GJ, and 4 million metric tons, respectively. Improvements suggested for Chinese shrimp aquaculture include changes in feed composition, farm management, electricity-generating sources, and effluent treatment before discharge. Our results can be used to optimize market-oriented shrimp supply chains and promote more sustainable shrimp production and consumption.     

Influence of filling conditions on product quality and machine parameters in fermented coarse meat emulsions produced by high shear grinding and vacuum filling

The influence of process conditions (knife geometry, volume flow rate, and bulk mass temperature) on structure, physicochemical properties, and sensory performance of fermented coarse meat emulsions (aka salami) was evaluated. Salamis (65% lean pork meat, 35% pork belly) were prepared by passing mixtures through knife-plate assemblies with varying knife blade numbers (6–10). Casings were filled and fermented (22/25 days: 24–14 °C; 94–74% RH). Bulk mass temperature prior to processing was varied between −3 and +2 °C. Coarse meat emulsions produced with 8- and 10-arm knives yielded products with similar texture attributes and sensory performance. Energy consumption was reduced by 25% (eight blades) and 20% (10 blades) relative to six blades per knife. An increase of volume flow rate from 46 to 97 L/min had no negative effects on product appearance. Regardless of bulk mass temperature similar high quality products could be prepared. Swirling and delays during fermentation were not observed. Warmer raw material decreased energy consumption by 40%.     

Life cycle environmental assessment of lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries for plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles

This study presents the life cycle assessment (LCA) of three batteries for plug-in hybrid and full performance battery electric vehicles. A transparent life cycle inventory (LCI) was compiled in a component-wise manner for nickel metal hydride (NiMH), nickel cobalt manganese lithium-ion (NCM), and iron phosphate lithium-ion (LFP) batteries. The battery systems were investigated with a functional unit based on energy storage, and environmental impacts were analyzed using midpoint indicators. On a per-storage basis, the NiMH technology was found to have the highest environmental impact, followed by NCM and then LFP, for all categories considered except ozone depletion potential. We found higher life cycle global warming emissions than have been previously reported. Detailed contribution and structural path analyses allowed for the identification of the different processes and value-chains most directly responsible for these emissions. This article contributes a public and detailed inventory, which can be easily be adapted to any powertrain, along with readily usable environmental performance assessments.     

Land-use and alternative bioenergy pathways for waste biomass

Rapid escalation in biofuels consumption may lead to a trade regime that favors exports of food-based biofuels from tropical developing countries to developed countries. There is growing interest in mitigating the land-use impacts of these potential biofuels exports by converting biorefinery waste streams into cellulosic ethanol, potentially reducing the amount of land needed to meet production goals. This increased land-use efficiency for ethanol production may lower the land-use greenhouse gas emissions of ethanol but would come at the expense of converting the wastes into bioelectricity which may offset fossil fuel-based electricity and could provide a vital source of domestic electricity in developing countries. Here we compare these alternative uses of wastes with respect to environmental and energy security outcomes considering a range of electricity production efficiencies, ethanol yields, land-use scenarios, and energy offset assumptions. For a given amount of waste biomass, we found that using bioelectricity production to offset natural gas achieves 58% greater greenhouse gas reductions than using cellulosic ethanol to offset gasoline but similar emissions when cellulosic ethanol is used to offset the need for more sugar cane ethanol. If bioelectricity offsets low-carbon energy sources such as nuclear power then the liquid fuels pathway is preferred. Exports of cellulosic ethanol may have a small impact on the energy security of importing nations while bioelectricity production may have relatively large impacts on the energy security in developing countries.     

Replacing gasoline with corn ethanol results in significant environmental problem-shifting

Previous studies on the life-cycle environmental impacts of corn ethanol and gasoline focused almost exclusively on energy balance and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and largely overlooked the influence of regional differences in agricultural practices. This study compares the environmental impact of gasoline and E85 taking into consideration 12 different environmental impacts and regional differences among 19 corn-growing states. Results show that E85 does not outperform gasoline when a wide spectrum of impacts is considered. If the impacts are aggregated using weights developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), overall, E85 generates approximately 6% to 108% (23% on average) greater impact compared with gasoline, depending on where corn is produced, primarily because corn production induces significant eutrophication impacts and requires intensive irrigation. If GHG emissions from the indirect land use changes are considered, the differences increase to between 16% and 118% (33% on average). Our study indicates that replacing gasoline with corn ethanol may only result in shifting the net environmental impacts primarily toward increased eutrophication and greater water scarcity. These results suggest that the environmental criteria used in the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) be re-evaluated to include additional categories of environmental impact beyond GHG emissions.     

Sustainability and energy development: influences of greenhouse gas emission reduction options on water use in energy production

Climate change mitigation strategies cannot be evaluated solely in terms of energy cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential. Maintaining GHGs at a "safe" level will require fundamental change in the way we approach energy production, and a number of environmental, economic, and societal factors will come into play. Water is an essential component of energy production, and water resource constraints will limit our options for meeting society's growing demand for energy while also reducing GHG emissions. This study evaluates these potential constraints from a global perspective by revisiting the climate wedges proposal of Pacala and Socolow (Science2004, 305 (5686), 968-972) and evaluating the potential water-use impacts of the wedges associated with energy production. GHG mitigation options that improve energy conversion or use efficiency can simultaneously reduce GHG emissions, lower energy costs, and reduce energy impacts on water resources. Other GHG mitigation options (e.g., carbon capture and sequestration, traditional nuclear, and biofuels from dedicated energy crops) increase water requirements for energy. Achieving energy sustainability requires deployment of alternatives that can reduce GHG emissions, water resource impacts, and energy costs.     

Perchlorate in the United States. Analysis of relative source contributions to the food chain

Perchlorate has been considered by some a potential threat to human health, especially to developing infants and children because it may inhibit iodide uptake by the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) of the thyroid. In the United States, during the last several decades, environmental perchlorate has had three recognized sources stemming from (a) its use as an oxidizer (including in rocket propellants), (b) its presence in Chilean nitrate fertilizer (CNF), and (c) natural production. An analysis of the relative source strengths and how they may influence entry into the food chain has not been conducted. Averaged over the last --60 years, we estimate that the source strengths have been (a) 10.6, (b) 0.75, and (c) 0.13-0.64 Gg/y for the United States as a whole. Of this, while (b) and (c) represent actual dispersed amounts, the figure in (a) is the amount of perchlorate produced and only a fraction (f) of it has been dispersed and often in a more localized fashion. In addition, dispersal of (b) has taken place only over agricultural land. Considering that the total land area in the United States is 5.5 x the arable land area, in terms of incorporation into the food chain,the figure cited in (b) has a proportionately greater impact. Most estimates of fwill thus suggest that over the considered period, the contribution of CNF to incorporation of perchlorate in the food chain has likely been comparable to oxidizer perchlorate, with natural production being a lesser source. Fireworks presently constitute a potentially important source of increasing importance but a quantitative impact cannotyet be assessed.     

Geospatial analysis of potential water use,water stress,and eutrophication impacts from US dairy production

Water resource impacts from US dairy production include water use (scarcity impacts) and water quality (eutrophication impacts). These impacts are location-specific, depending upon characteristics of the region and watershed where on-farm dairy and feed production occurs. The objectives of this analysis were to evaluate the impact of US on-farm dairy production on water scarcity across the US, and evaluate dairy production's impact on eutrophication processes within watersheds as well as on the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. The primary water-utilization challenge for dairy producers is irrigation for growing feed rather than on-farm use. Most dairy production in the US does not occur in water stressed areas with the exception of production in some western states. The potential impacts on local (P pollution) and regional (N pollution to the Gulf of Mexico) watershed eutrophication are more likely to occur from feed production than from on-farm dairy activities.     

Sustainability of meat production beyond carbon footprint: a synthesis of case studies from grazing systems in Uruguay

Livestock production has been challenged as a large contributor to climate change, and carbon footprint has become a widely used measure of cattle environmental impact. This analysis of fifteen beef grazing systems in Uruguay quantifies the range of variation of carbon footprint, and the trade-offs with other relevant environmental variables, using a partial life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Using carbon footprint as the primary environmental indicator has several limitations: different metrics (GWP vs. GTP) may lead to different conclusions, carbon sequestration from soils may drastically affect the results, and systems with lower carbon footprint may have higher energy use, soil erosion, nutrient imbalance, pesticide ecotoxicity, and impact on biodiversity. A multidimensional assessment of sustainability of meat production is therefore needed to inform decision makers. There is great potential to improve grazing livestock systems productivity while reducing carbon footprint and other environmental impacts, and conserving biodiversity.     

Simultaneous Extraction of Carboxylated Cellulose Nanocrystals and Nanofibrils via Citric Acid Hydrolysis—Sustainable Route

In this study, cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) with surface carboxylic groups were prepared from bleached softwood pulp by hydrolysis with concentrated citric acid at concentrations of 60 wt%~80 wt%. The solid residues from acid hydrolysis were collected for producing cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) via post high-pressure homogenization. Citric acid could be easily recovered after hydrolysis reactions through crystallization due to its low water solubility or through precipitation as a calcium salt followed by acidification. Several important properties of CNC and CNF, such as dimension, crystallinity, surface chemistry, thermal stability, were evaluated. Results showed that the obtained CNC and CNF surfaces contained carboxylic acid groups that facilitated functionalization and dispersion in aqueous processing. The recyclability of citric acid and the carboxylated CNC/CNF give the renewable cellulose nanomaterial huge potential for a wide range of industrial applications. Furthermore, the resultant CNC and CNF were used as reinforcing agents to make sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) films. Both CNC and CNF showed reinforcing effects in CMC composite films. The tensile strength of CMC films increased by 54.3% and 85.7% with 10 wt% inclusion of CNC and CNF, respectively. This study provides detailed information on carboxylated nanocellulose prepared by critic acid hydrolysis; a sustainable approach for the preparation of CNC/CNF is of significant importance for their various uses.     

Simultaneous Extraction of Carboxylated Celulose Nanocrystals and Nanofibrils via Citric Acid Hydrolysis——A Sustainable Route

In this study, cellulose nanocrystals(CNC) with surface carboxylic groups were prepared from bleached softwood pulp by hydrolysis with concentrated citric acid at concentrations of 60 wt%~80 wt%. The solid residues from acid hydrolysis were collected for producing cellulose nanofibrils(CNF) via post high-pressure homogenization. Citric acid could be easily recovered after hydrolysis reactions through crystallization due to its low water solubility or through precipitation as a calcium salt followed by acidification. Several important properties of CNC and CNF, such as dimension, crystallinity, surface chemistry, thermal stability, were evaluated. Results showed that the obtained CNC and CNF surfaces contained carboxylic acid groups that facilitated functionalization and dispersion in aqueous processing. The recyclability of citric acid and the carboxylated CNC/CNF give the renewable cellulose nanomaterial huge potential for a wide range of industrial applications. Furthermore, the resultant CNC and CNF were used as reinforcing agents to make sodium carboxymethyl cellulose(CMC) films. Both CNC and CNF showed reinforcing effects in CMC composite films. The tensile strength of CMC films increased by 54.3% and 85.7% with 10 wt% inclusion of CNC and CNF, respectively. This study provides detailed information on carboxylated nanocellulose prepared by critic acid hydrolysis; a sustainable approach for the preparation of CNC/CNF is of significant importance for their various uses.     

Is cumulative fossil energy demand a useful indicator for the environmental performance of products?

The appropriateness of the fossil Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) as an indicator for the environmental performance of products and processes is explored with a regression analysis between the environmental life-cycle impacts and fossil CEDs of 1218 products, divided into the product categories "energy production", "material production", "transport", and "waste treatment". Our results show that, for all product groups but waste treatment, the fossil CED correlates well with most impact categories, such as global warming, resource depletion, acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone formation, ozone depletion, and human toxicity (explained variance between 46% and 100%). We conclude that the use of fossil fuels is an important driver of several environmental impacts and thereby indicative for many environmental problems. It maytherefore serve as a screening indicatorfor environmental performance. However, the usefulness of fossil CED as a stand-alone indicator for environmental impact is limited by the large uncertainty in the product-specific fossil CED-based impact scores (larger than a factor of 10 for the majority of the impact categories; 95% confidence interval). A major reason for this high uncertainty is nonfossil energy related emissions and land use, such as landfill leachates, radionuclide emissions, and land use in agriculture and forestry.     

Water footprint of U.S. transportation fuels

In the modern global economy, water and energy are fundamentally connected. Water already plays a major role in electricity generation and, with biofuels and electricity poised to gain a significant share of the transportation fuel market, water will become significantly more important for transportation energy as well. This research provides insight into the potential changes in water use resulting from increased biofuel or electricity production for transportation energy, as well as the greenhouse gas and freshwater implications. It is shown that when characterizing the water impact of transportation energy, incorporating indirect water use and defensible allocation techniques have a major impact on the final results, with anywhere between an 82% increase and a 250% decrease in the water footprint if evaporative losses from hydroelectric power are excluded. The greenhouse gas impact results indicate that placing cellulosic biorefineries in areas where water must be supplied using alternative means, such as desalination, wastewater recycling, or importation can increase the fuel's total greenhouse gas footprint by up to 47%. The results also show that the production of ethanol and petroleum fuels burden already overpumped aquifers, whereas electricity production is far less dependent on groundwater.     

Life cycle assessment of Japanese high-temperature conductive adhesives

The electrically conductive adhesives (ECA) are on the verge of a breakthrough as reliable interconnection materials for electronic components. As the ban of lead (Pb) in the electronics industry becomes a reality, the ECA's could be attractive overall alternatives to high melting point (HMP) Pb-based solder pastes. Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to estimate trade-offs between the energy use and the potential toxicity of two future types of ECA's and one HMP Pb-based. The probability is around 90% that the overall CO2 emissions from an ECA based on a tin-bismuth alloy are lower than for a silver-epoxy based ECA, whereas the probability is about 80% that the cumulative energy demand would be lower. It is more uncertain whether the tin-bismuth ECA would contribute to less CO2, or consume less energy, than a HMP Pb-based solder paste. Moreover, for the impact categories contributing to the life-cycle impact assessment method based on end point modeling (LIME) damage category of human health, the tin-bismuth ECA shows a 25 times lower score, and a silver-epoxy based ECA shows an 11 times lower score than the HMP Pb-based solder paste. In order to save resources and decrease CO2 emissions it is recommended to increase the collection and recycling of printed board assemblies using silver-epoxy based ECA.     

Preparation and Characterization of Co3O4/Graphene/Cellulose Nanofiber Composite Films

Nanocellulose has served as an eye-catching nanomaterial for constructing advanced functional devices with renewability, light weight, flexibility, and environmental friendliness. In this study, Co₃O₄/graphene/cellulose nanofiber (CNF) flexible composite films, in which the CNF acted as a spacer for the graphene, were prepared via a facile and scalable vacuum filtration method. The effects of the CNF on the microstructure, hydrophilicity, thermal stability, tensile strength, surface resistance, and electrochemical performance of the Co₃O₄/graphene/CNF composite films were systematically investigated. The results showed that the synergistic interaction of the CNF and graphene substantially improved the overall properties of the Co₃O₄/graphene/CNF composite films, particularly their hydrophilicity and tensile strength. Meanwhile, Co₃O₄/graphene/CNF composite films with a CNF content of 4% appeared to have the optimal electrochemical performance, with an area specific capacitance of 56 mF/cm² and prominent capacitance retention of 95.6% at a current density of 1 A/g after 1000 cycles. This work demonstrated that the prepared Co₃O₄/graphene/CNF flexible composite films have great application potential in the field of flexible energy storage devices.     

Power-law relationships for estimating mass, fuel consumption and costs of energy conversion equipments

To perform life-cycle assessment studies, data on the production and use of the products is required. However, often only few data or measurements are available. Estimation of properties can be performed by applying scaling relationships. In many disciplines, they are used to either predict data or to search for underlying patterns, but they have not been considered in the context of product assessments hitherto. The goal of this study was to explore size scaling for commonly used energy conversion equipment, that is, boilers, engines, and generators. The variables mass M, fuel consumption Q, and costs C were related to power P. The established power-law relationships were M = 10(0.73.. 1.89)P(0.64.. 1.23) (R(2) ≥ 0.94), Q = 10(0.06.. 0.68)P(0.82.. 1.02) (R(2) ≥ 0.98) and C = 10(2.46.. 2.86)P(0.83.. 0.85) (R(2) ≥ 0.83). Mass versus power and costs versus power showed that none of the equipment types scaled isometrically, that is, with a slope of 1. Fuel consumption versus power scaled approximately isometrically for steam boilers, the other equipments scaled significantly lower than 1. This nonlinear scaling behavior induces a significant size effect. The power laws we established can be applied to scale the mass, fuel consumption and costs of energy conversion equipments up or down. Our findings suggest that empirical scaling laws can be used to estimate properties, particularly relevant in studies focusing on early product development for which generally only little information is available.     

纤维素纳米纤维/纳米蒙脱土复合气凝胶制备及其结构与性能

针对纤维素纳米纤维(CNF)气凝胶易燃、强力低等问题,利用纳米蒙脱土(MMT)共混改性纤维素纳米纤维,基于冷冻干燥的方法制备阻燃隔热的CNF/MMT复合气凝胶。研究了MMT质量分数对CNF/MMT复合气凝胶形貌结构、压缩性能、热稳定性、热导率和阻燃性能的影响。结果表明:MMT的引入使气凝胶具有更加紧密的片层结构,气凝胶力学性能、热稳定性和阻燃性能得到改善;在MMT质量分数为50%时,CNF/MMT复合气凝胶的表观密度最大且仅为0.016 8 g/cm³,应变为10%的应力最大为12.45 kPa,应变为70%的应力最大为77.93 kPa,导热系数最大为 0.04 W/(m·K); 气凝胶中MMT质量分数不低于42.9%时,复合基气凝胶的极限氧指数得到明显提升。     

Impact of aviation non-CO₂ combustion effects on the environmental feasibility of alternative jet fuels

Alternative fuels represent a potential option for reducing the climate impacts of the aviation sector. The climate impacts of alternatives fuel are traditionally considered as a ratio of life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to those of the displaced petroleum product; however, this ignores the climate impacts of the non-CO(2) combustion effects from aircraft in the upper atmosphere. The results of this study show that including non-CO(2) combustion emissions and effects in the life cycle of a Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (SPK) fuel can lead to a decrease in the relative merit of the SPK fuel relative to conventional jet fuel. For example, an SPK fuel option with zero life cycle GHG emissions would offer a 100% reduction in GHG emissions but only a 48% reduction in actual climate impact using a 100-year time window and the nominal climate modeling assumption set outlined herein. Therefore, climate change mitigation policies for aviation that rely exclusively on relative well-to-wake life cycle GHG emissions as a proxy for aviation climate impact may overestimate the benefit of alternative fuel use on the global climate system.