scholarly journals Environmental Impacts of Electricity from Incineration and Gasification: How the LCA Approach Can Affect the Results

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Isabella Bianco ◽  
Deborah Panepinto ◽  
Mariachiara Zanetti
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Waste To Energy ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Sustainable Solutions ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
Economic Allocation ◽  
Accounting Rules ◽  
The Impact ◽  
By Products

Waste-to-energy (WtE) technologies can offer sustainable solutions for waste, which can no more be reused or recycled, such as the part of municipal solid waste (MSW) that is not suitable for recycling processes. This study focused on the environmental consequences of the production of electricity from incineration and gasification of MSW. To this aim, the standardised life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was used. A life cycle inventory, mainly composed by primary data, is provided. Starting from these data, different highly shared LCA approaches were used to calculate the potential impacts of 1 kWh provided by the two analysed WtE technologies. The different approaches concern the method of accounting for the by-products (through an economic allocation and a system expansion) and the inclusion/exclusion of environmental benefits due to the avoided landfill for the MSW. For each approach, impact-assessment results were calculated with the ReCiPe midpoint (H) method. A comparison was carried out (i) between the results obtained for the same WtE technology but calculated with different approaches and (ii) between the impact results of electricity generated by the two WtE technologies calculated with the same approach. From the study, it emerged that, according to the accounting rules, the impact results can significantly change and, for some impact categories, even lead to opposite conclusions. In the absence of category rules that harmonise the environmental assessments of WtE processes, it is therefore recommended that the development/use/reproduction/comparison of studies focused on the valorisation of waste should be carried out with caution.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment as a Methodological Framework for the Evaluation of the Environmental Sustainability of Pig and Pork Production in Ecuador

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11693
Author(s):  
Mayra L. Pazmiño ◽  
Angel D. Ramirez
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Photochemical Oxidation ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Pig Production ◽  
Environmental Burden ◽  
The Impact ◽  
By Products

Pork is one of the proteins of greatest demand worldwide. This study has evaluated the environmental sustainability of pig production by applying the life cycle assessment methodological framework. The system boundaries include feed production, pig production, slaughtering, and slaughterhouse by-product management. Within this context, three scenarios have been proposed: the first related to the management of slaughter by-products in an open dump, the second contemplates a model for using these by-products in a rendering plant, and a third where the environmental burden of slaughterhouse co-products is portioned according to economic allocation. The primary data collected correspond to the period of 2019 for the facilities of a producer in a coastal province of Ecuador. Three functional units were used—“1 kg of pig carcass at the slaughterhouse gate”, “1 kg pig live weigh at the farm gate”, and “1 kg of feed at the plant gate”. The impact categories included were global warming, fossil depletion, marine eutrophication, ozone layer depletion, particulate matter formation, photochemical oxidation formation, and terrestrial acidification. The results revealed that the production of ingredients for feed is the largest contributor to the environmental burden of pig and pork. The rendering of slaughter by-products that avoid the production of other fats and proteins results in a lower environmental impact than the other scenarios in almost all categories.

scholarly journals Investigating the Path from Supply Chain Integration to Business Performance: Evidence from a Sub-Saharan African Economy

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Annan ◽  
Nathaniel Boso ◽  
Dominic Essuman
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Financial Performance ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Product Life Cycle ◽  
Business Performance ◽  
Supply Chain Integration ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
The Impact

Following the growing concerns on the inconsistent findings in previous research and drawing on the social exchange and networking theories, this study re-examined the impact of supply chain integration (SCI) on business performance (i.e. value creation and financial performance). The study argues that the impact of SCI on financial performance is through value creation and is depended upon longevity of product life cycle. Using primary data from 79 firms in Ghana, the study finds that value creation is a short-run consequence of SCI while financial performance is a long-run outcome of SCI. Additionally, results show that the financial performance outcome of SCI is experienced more from integrative efforts than from the value creation outcome. Results further indicate that firms whose products stay relatively shorter on the market are more likely to experience lower positive impact of SCI on value creation, and thus firms’ ability to become proactive, monitor, and collect market information on product performance throughout its life cycle is key for coming out with strategies that will enable them maximize product’s life span so as to experience greater benefits that come with pursuing integration with other channel members.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Maize-Germ Oil Production and The Use of Bioenergy to Mitigate Environmental Impacts: A Gate-To-Gate Case Study

Resources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias Gaglio ◽  
Elena Tamburini ◽  
Francesco Lucchesi ◽  
Vassilis Aschonitis ◽  
Anna Atti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Impact Categories ◽  
Industrial Processing ◽  
The Impact

The need to reduce the environmental impacts of the food industry is increasing together with the dramatic increment of global food demand. Circulation strategies such as the exploitation of self-produced renewable energy sources can improve ecological performances of industrial processes. However, evidence is needed to demonstrate and characterize such environmental benefits. This study assessed the environmental performances of industrial processing of maize edible oil, whose energy provision is guaranteed by residues biomasses. A gate-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach was applied for a large-size factory of Northern Italy to describe: (i) the environmental impacts related to industrial processing and (ii) the contribution of residue-based bioenergy to their mitigation, through the comparison with a reference system based on conventional energy. The results showed that oil refinement is the most impacting phase for almost all the considered impact categories. The use of residue-based bioenergy was found to drastically reduce the emissions for all the impact categories. Moreover, Cumulative Energy Demand analysis revealed that the use of biomass residues increased energy efficiency through a reduction of the total energy demand of the industrial process. The study demonstrates that the exploitation of residue-based bioenergy can be a sustainable solution to improve environmental performances of the food industry, while supporting circular economy.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Valuation of Biochar Production: Two Case Studies in Belgium

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 2166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Rajabi Hamedani ◽  
Tom Kuppens ◽  
Robert Malina ◽  
Enrico Bocci ◽  
Andrea Colantoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Pig Manure ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Life Cycle Perspective ◽  
The Impact

It is unclear whether the production of biochar is economically feasible. As a consequence, firms do not often invest in biochar production plants. However, biochar production and application might be desirable from a societal perspective as it might entail net environmental benefits. Hence, the aim of this work has been to assess and monetize the environmental impacts of biochar production systems so that the environmental aspects can be integrated with the economic and social ones later on to quantify the total return for society. Therefore, a life cycle analysis (LCA) has been performed for two potential biochar production systems in Belgium based on two different feedstocks: (i) willow and (ii) pig manure. First, the environmental impacts of the two biochar production systems are assessed from a life cycle perspective, assuming one ton of biochar as the functional unit. Therefore, LCA using SimaPro software has been performed both on the midpoint and endpoint level. Biochar production from willow achieves better results compared to biochar from pig manure for all environmental impact categories considered. In a second step, monetary valuation has been applied to the LCA results in order to weigh environmental benefits against environmental costs using the Ecotax, Ecovalue, and Stepwise approach. Consequently, sensitivity analysis investigates the impact of variation in NPK savings and byproducts of the biochar production process on monetized life cycle assessment results. As a result, it is suggested that biochar production from willow is preferred to biochar production from pig manure from an environmental point of view. In future research, those monetized environmental impacts will be integrated within existing techno-economic models that calculate the financial viability from an investor’s point of view, so that the total return for society can be quantified and the preferred biochar production system from a societal point of view can be identified.

scholarly journals Life-cycle assessment of decentralized solutions for wastewater treatment in small communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Lourenço ◽  
L. M. Nunes
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Activated Sludge ◽  
Constructed Wetlands ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Impact Categories ◽  
Standard Life ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This study benchmarks vermifiltration (VF) as secondary wastewater treatment in three nature-based decentralized treatment plants using life-cycle assessment. The comparison is justified by the comparatively easier and cheaper operation of VF when compared to more traditional technologies, including small rate infiltration (SRI), constructed wetlands (CW), and activated sludge (AS). Standard life cycle assessment was used and applied to three case studies located in southern Europe. Material intensity during construction was highest for VF, but impacts during operation were lower, compensating those of the other phases. Impacts during the construction phase far outweigh those of operation and dismantling for facilities using constructed wetlands and activated sludge, when the number of served inhabitants is small, and due to lack of economies of scale. VF used as secondary treatment was shown to contribute to reducing the environmental impacts, mainly in constructed wetlands and activated sludge. The replacement of CW by VF seems to bring important environmental benefits in most impact categories, in particular in the construction phase. The replacement by VF in facilities with SRI seems to result in the improvement of some of the impact categories, in particular in the operation phase. As for dismantling, no conclusive results were obtained.

scholarly journals Quantifying the Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of a Mechanized Shelterwood Harvest Producing Both Sawtimber and Woodchips

Forests ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Joshua P. Weyrens ◽  
Obste Therasme ◽  
René H. Germain
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Carbon Storage ◽  
Pulp Mill ◽  
Forest Harvesting ◽  
Wood Products ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Carbon Neutral ◽  
The Impact

Forests are used to mitigate anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through carbon offset programs, and forest management is generally accepted as “carbon neutral”. However, forest harvesting operations depend heavily on fossil fuels, so it would be remiss to broadly paint all forms of management as carbon neutral without empirical verification of this claim. Biomass feedstock, as a means to supplant fossil fuel consumption, has received the bulk of investigative efforts, as the carbon benefit of biomass is one of the most contentious among wood products, because it does not create long-term carbon storage. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted on a winter shelterwood harvest occurring in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. Primary data were collected daily throughout the operation and used to model the impact attributed to producing clean chips and logs for delivery to a pulp mill and sawmill, respectively. This harvest produced 4894 Mg of clean chips and 527 Mg of sawtimber. We calculated that 39.77 and 25.16 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent were emitted per Mg of clean chips and sawtimber, respectively, with a total observed flow of GHG into the atmosphere between 206 and 210 thousand kilograms. The results contribute to our understanding of the global warming potential of implementing a forest harvest to produce raw materials for medium- and long-term carbon storage products such as paper and dimensional hardwood lumber.

Energetic and Environmental Analysis of a New Cogenerative Configuration for the Waste to Energy Plant of Piacenza

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo De Servi ◽  
Lucia Rigamonti ◽  
Stefano Consonni
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
District Heating ◽  
Back Pressure ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Waste To Energy ◽  
Assessment Methodology ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Energy Plant

This study aims at estimating the energy and environmental performances of a new cogenerative configuration of the waste to energy (WTE) plant in Piacenza. At present, the plant is authorized to treat 120,000 t/y of waste, but this limit does not represent the full treatment capacity of the facility. To exploit the plant potential and, at the same time, to reduce total equivalent emissions of the WTE process, a cogenerative configuration has been proposed. In this new scenario a back pressure turbine would be installed in parallel to the existing one, in order to supply heat to the district heating network of Piacenza and the total amount of waste treated per year by the facility would be increased to 134,100 t. The increase of 14,100 t should be satisfied by industrial and commercial waste, which would otherwise go to landfill. To compare the cogenerative scenario with the current situation, the environmental impact for the two cases has been evaluated by means of a life cycle assessment methodology. The results of the analysis show that the new configuration can ensure significant energy and environmental benefits.

Nutrition-oriented reformulation of extruded cereals and associated environmental footprint: a case study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Namy Espinoza-Orias ◽  
Antonis Vlassopoulos ◽  
Gabriel Masset
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Nutritional Quality ◽  
Food System ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Environmental Footprint ◽  
Breakfast Cereals ◽  
Environmental Consequences

Abstract Background The global food system faces a dual challenge for the decades ahead: providing nutritious food to a growing population while reducing its environmental footprint. Reformulation of food has been identified as a strategy to improve the nutritional quality of products; but the environmental consequences of such reformulations have rarely been studied. The objective was to assess the evolution of five environmental impact indicators following reformulations of extruded breakfast cereals. Methods Recipe, nutritional composition and sourcing data for three extruded breakfast cereals were retrieved from the manufacturer, at three distinctive time points of a 15-year reformulation cycle: 2003, 2010, and 2018. Nutritional information was summarized using the Nutri-Score indicator. The environmental impact of all recipes was assessed by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using five indicators: climate change (CC), Freshwater consumption scarcity (FWCS), Abiotic resource depletion (ARD), Land use impacts on biodiversity (LUIB), and Impacts on ecosphere/ecosystems quality (IEEQ). Life cycle inventory (LCI) was both primary data from the manufacturer and secondary data from usual third-party LCI datasets. Results Reformulation led to improved nutritional quality for all three products. In terms of environmental impact, improvements were observed for the CC, ARD and IEEQ indicators, with average reductions of 12%, 14% and 2% between 2003 and 208, respectively. Conversely, the FWCS and LUIB indicators were increased by 57% and 70%, respectively. For all indicators but ARD, ingredients contributed most to the environmental impact, while the absolute impacts of other stages of the supply chain (i.e. manufacturing, packaging, transport and end-of-life) reduced. A sensitivity analysis simulating no deforestation agricultural practices suggested that the CC indicator could be further reduced by 21 to 49% for the 2018 recipes. Conclusions This study highlighted the need to better account for the environmental consequences of changing food product recipes. While improvements can be achieved at all stages of products’ life cycles, agricultural commodities need to be the focus for further improvement, in particular in shelf-stable grain-based products such as extruded cereals. This could be achieved through selection of less demanding ingredients and improvements in agricultural practices.

scholarly journals A Systematic Review of the Discrepancies in Life Cycle Assessments of Green Concrete

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (22) ◽  
pp. 4803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hafez ◽  
Kurda ◽  
Cheung ◽  
Nagaratnam
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Portland Cement Concrete ◽  
Life Cycle Assessments ◽  
Market Prices ◽  
Green Concrete ◽  
Scenario Analyses ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Cradle To Gate ◽  
The Impact

It is challenging to measure the environmental impact of concrete with the absence of a consensus on a standardized methodology for life cycle assessment (LCA). Consequently, the values communicated in the literature for “green” concrete alternatives vary widely between 84 and 612 kg eq CO2/m3. This does not provide enough evidence regarding the acclaimed environmental benefits compared to ordinary Portland cement concrete knowing that the average for the latter was concluded in this study to be around 370 kg eq CO2/m3. Thus, the purpose of this study was to survey the literature on concrete LCAs in an attempt to identify the potential sources of discrepancies and propose a potential solution. This was done through examining 146 papers systematically and attributing the sources of error to the four stages of an LCA: scope definition, inventory data, impact assessment and results interpretations. The main findings showed that there are 13 main sources of discrepancies in a concrete LCA that contribute to the incompatibility between the results. These sources varied between (i) user-based choices such as depending on a cradle-to-gate scope, selecting a basic volume-based functional unit and ignoring the impact allocation and (ii) intrinsic uncertainty in some of the elements, such as the means of transportation, the expected service life and fluctuations in market prices. The former affects the reliability of a study, and hence, a concrete LCA methodology should not allow for any of the uncertainties. On the other hand, the latter affects the degree of uncertainty of the final outcome, and hence, we recommended conducting scenario analyses and communicating the aggregated uncertainty through the selected indicators.

scholarly journals Life Cycle and Economic Analyses of the Removal of Pesticides and Pharmaceuticals from Municipal Wastewater by Anodic Oxidation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3669
Author(s):  
Elena Surra ◽  
Manuela Correia ◽  
Sónia Figueiredo ◽  
Jaime Gabriel Silva ◽  
Joana Vieira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Anodic Oxidation ◽  
Municipal Wastewater ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
Economic Assessment ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Boron Doped Diamond ◽  
Removal Technologies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Environmental Burdens

Several pesticides and pharmaceuticals (PP) have been detected in the effluent of a full-scale Portuguese Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). Their presence contributed to the environmental burdens associated with the existing treatment of the Municipal Wastewater (MWW) in the impact categories of Human Carcinogenicity, Non-Carcinogenicity, and Freshwater toxicities on average by 85%, 60%, and 90%, respectively (ReciPe2016 and USEtox methods). The environmental and economic assessment of the installation of an Anodic Oxidation (AO) unit for PPs’ removal was performed through Life Cycle and Economic Analysis, considering two types of anodes, the Boron-Doped Diamond (BDD) and the Mixed Metal Oxides (MMO). The operation of the AO unit increased the environmental burdens of the system by 95% on average (USEtox), but these impacts can be partially compensated by the avoided the production of non-renewable energy in the Portuguese electricity mix by biogas cogeneration at the WWTP. If the construction of the AO unit and the manufacturing of the electrodes are considered, the Human and Freshwater Toxicities are often higher than the environmental benefits derived from the PPs’ removal. On the economic side, the MMO configuration is clearly more advantageous, whereas BDD is environmentally more favorable. The issue of the presence of PP in MWW effluents has to be addressed as an integrated solution both improving upstream PP’s management and adopting PP’s removal technologies strongly supported by renewable energies. Further insights are needed for the assessment of fate and of the environmental effects of PP in the sludge.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document