scholarly journals Wood-Based Energy as a Strategy for Climate Change Mitigation in the Arctic-Perspectives on Assessment of Climate Impacts and Resource Efficiency with Life Cycle Assessment

2017 ◽  
pp. 61-66
Author(s):  
Laura Sokka
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Resource Efficiency ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Change Mitigation

scholarly journals Linking Service Provision to Material Cycles – A New Framework for Studying the Resource Efficiency-Climate Change Nexus (RECC)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Pauliuk ◽  
Tomer Fishman ◽  
Niko Heeren ◽  
Peter Berrill ◽  
Qingshi Tu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Resource Efficiency ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Material Cycle ◽  
Material Efficiency ◽  
Material Cycles ◽  
Change Mitigation

Material production accounts for 23% of all greenhouse gas emissions. More efficient use of materials – through decoupling of services that support human wellbeing from material use – is imperative as other emissions mitigation options are expensive. An interdisciplinary scientific assessment of material efficiency and its links to service provision, material cycle management, and climate policy is needed to identify effective strategies and help design the policy framework required for their implementation. We present RECC, the Resource Efficiency-Climate Change mitigation framework, a first step towards such a comprehensive assessment. RECC is based on dynamic material flow analysis and links the services provided (individual motorized transport and dwelling) to the operation of in-use stocks (passenger vehicles and residential buildings), to the expansion and maintenance of these stocks to their material cycles (major materials like steel and cement), and to energy use and climate impacts. A key innovation of RECC is the up-scaling of detailed descriptions of future product archetypes with different degrees of material and energy efficiency, which are simulated with engineering tools.We utilize RECC with augmented storylines of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) to describe future service demand and associated material requirements. Ten material efficiency strategies at different stages of the material cycle can be assessed by ramping up their implementation rates to the identified technical potentials. RECC provides scenario results for the life cycle impacts of ambitious service-material decoupling concurrent with energy system decarbonization, giving detailed insights on the resource efficiency-climate change mitigation nexus to policy makers worldwide.

Water, land and climate nexus of electricity from biomass

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nariê Souza ◽  
Thayse Hernandes ◽  
Karina M. B. Bruno ◽  
Daniele S. Henzler ◽  
Otávio Cavalett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Electricity Production ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Change Mitigation

<p>Driven by the expected population growth, the world faces now the challenge of meeting energy demands of about 9 billion people on the next decades and avoid dangerous climate change effects. In this context, Renewable Energy Systems (RES) are a key strategy to decarbonize the power sector and contribute to the climate change mitigation targets. In the Special Report on Climate Change and Land, IPCC calls attention to possible trade-offs, adverse side-effects and implications to sustainable development that the large-scale deployment of bioenergy may cause. A comprehensive understanding of the sustainability profile along the entire life-cycle of electricity production is fundamental if we want to realize the transition to cleaner technologies in the energy sector. In this study we analyze the water, land and climate impacts of electricity production systems in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We focus our analysis in the electricity production from sugarcane straw in Brazil, since there is a great opportunity for better using this lignocellulosic material for bioenergy applications. We relate appropriate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) indicators to multiple SDGs, considering attainable and potential sugarcane yields, derived from agroclimatic modeling. When discussing the sustainability of bioenergy production, a broader sustainability analysis, as provided by the SDGs, can help to identify water, land and climate nexus and suggest possible technological solutions for minimizing possible trade-offs among the different impacts. Our analysis demonstrates the nexus implications of electricity production from sugarcane biomass to the context of the SDGs, as well as the spatially explicit environmental implications of electricity production form sugarcane biomass.</p><p>Keywords: renewable energy systems, life cycle assessment, climate change mitigation, sustainable development</p>

scholarly journals Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies

2014 ◽  
Vol 112 (20) ◽  
pp. 6277-6282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edgar G. Hertwich ◽  
Thomas Gibon ◽  
Evert A. Bouman ◽  
Anders Arvesen ◽  
Sangwon Suh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Electricity Generation ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Electricity Supply ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Low Carbon Technologies ◽  
Change Mitigation

Decarbonization of electricity generation can support climate-change mitigation and presents an opportunity to address pollution resulting from fossil-fuel combustion. Generally, renewable technologies require higher initial investments in infrastructure than fossil-based power systems. To assess the tradeoffs of increased up-front emissions and reduced operational emissions, we present, to our knowledge, the first global, integrated life-cycle assessment (LCA) of long-term, wide-scale implementation of electricity generation from renewable sources (i.e., photovoltaic and solar thermal, wind, and hydropower) and of carbon dioxide capture and storage for fossil power generation. We compare emissions causing particulate matter exposure, freshwater ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and climate change for the climate-change-mitigation (BLUE Map) and business-as-usual (Baseline) scenarios of the International Energy Agency up to 2050. We use a vintage stock model to conduct an LCA of newly installed capacity year-by-year for each region, thus accounting for changes in the energy mix used to manufacture future power plants. Under the Baseline scenario, emissions of air and water pollutants more than double whereas the low-carbon technologies introduced in the BLUE Map scenario allow a doubling of electricity supply while stabilizing or even reducing pollution. Material requirements per unit generation for low-carbon technologies can be higher than for conventional fossil generation: 11–40 times more copper for photovoltaic systems and 6–14 times more iron for wind power plants. However, only two years of current global copper and one year of iron production will suffice to build a low-carbon energy system capable of supplying the world's electricity needs in 2050.

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