Life Cycle Assessment of the District Heating Distribution System in China — Network Construction

2012 ◽  
Vol 256-259 ◽  
pp. 2662-2666
Author(s):  
Zhen Li ◽  
Wei Wei Wang ◽  
Hong Ming Sun

In China, the environmental impact from the construction of the distribution system is seldom discussed. In this study, the environmental impact from construction of district pipes is considered. The purpose is to identify environmental significant parts in the construction of district pipes and to use the results in the actual projects including once more parts of the district distribution system have been investigated with LCA methodology.(Methods) Construction of district pipe networks according to the technical specification was studied. The total consumption of energy and materials was calculated based on budget norm for projects. The functional unit used in the study is construction of 100 metres of pipe system. The studied pipes are: pipe of the dimension DN100, DN200 (Seamless steel tubes) and DN500 (spirally welded steel tubes) .Urban environment surroundings were studied. A short description of the inventory, some inventory results and a life cycle impact assessment are presented. Based on the concept of the End-point damage weighting method, the total environment load is given.

2012 ◽  
Vol 256-259 ◽  
pp. 2652-2655
Author(s):  
Zhao Wang ◽  
Zhen Li ◽  
Hong Ming Sun

In China, the environmental impact from the construction of the distribution system is seldom discussed. In this study, the environmental impacts in production of district pipes are considered. The functional unit used in the study is production of one pipe unit. The studied pipes are: pipe of the dimension DN100, DN200 (Seamless steel tubes) and DN500 (spirally welded steel tubes) with specified length (12m). Based on the concept of the Distance-to-Target weighting method, the total environment load is given. The results can be used to identify environmental significant parts in the actual projects including once more parts of the district distribution system have been investigated with LCA methodology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 944 ◽  
pp. 1137-1143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ke Wei Lu ◽  
Xian Zheng Gong ◽  
Bo Xue Sun ◽  
Qing Ding

Tungsten is an important strategic metal, widely used in cemented carbide manufacturing, steel industry, and other economic fields. The amount of tungsten resource consumed in China each year accounts for more than 80% of the world’s annual total consumption. The purpose of this study is to quantify the environmental impact of tungsten production in China through the method of LCA. The result shows that, regarding the contributions of impact categories, the normalized value of HTP is the largest one among various impact categories, which accounts for 35.39% of the total environmental impact, followed by AP, PMFP, GWP, MDP, FDP, and POFP, respectively. The results also show that, regarding the contributions of production processes, smelting process is the largest contributor to the environmental burden of tungsten production due to the crystallization and calcination reduction occurred in the smelting process consumes a large amount of electricity, followed by mining, beneficiation, and transportation, respectively. The major academic contribution of this paper to the existing literatures is that we employed process-based analysis method, which could improve the accuracy of the study and provide practical advices for tungsten enterprises to reduce the environmental impact.


Author(s):  
Carlo De Servi ◽  
Lucia Rigamonti ◽  
Stefano Consonni

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.


2012 ◽  
Vol 578 ◽  
pp. 25-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Su ◽  
Hong Zhi Ma ◽  
Yu Hui Ma ◽  
Qun Hui Wang ◽  
Xing Yu Chen

Steel pipe applications are more widely used, but there are no comparative analysises about the environmental impact and energy consum of steel pipe and its production processes. This article investigated the environmental implications of three typical steel pipe production processes based on energy materials and life cycle assessment perspective. We modeled scenarios, calculated energy consumed and six aspects which classified as GWP, ODP, AP, EP, POCP and DUST. The rank of energy consumed in descending order is C-Pipe> H-Pipe> W-Pipe. Welded steel pipe is the best energy-friendly material in term of energy consumption. The rank of impact potential according to normalized results in descending order is GWP>AP>DUST>EP>POCP>ODP. The rank of impact potential according to weight factor in descending order is AP>DUST>GWP>ODP>EP>POCP. Acid Potential is the most significant factor. The weight factor of AP is almost twice as much as that of GWP. In environmental terms, the environmental depletion index of welded pipe production process is lowest with minimal environmental impact and the cold drawn pipe production process the highest with largest environmental impact. Welded steel pipe is the best environment-friendly material in term of environmental impact. Utilization of green energy and waste heat can effectively reduce the environmental implications for both hot rolling pipe and cold drawn pipe production processes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-299
Author(s):  
Fabian Diaz ◽  
Ieva Pakere ◽  
Francesco Romagnoli

AbstractNew district heating system technologies have arisen in the last years to deliver economic and environmental benefits to residential and commercial buildings. The extensive ranges of equipment, energy sources, temperature profile configurations, size of the network, energy demand, and many other intrinsic variables, make it difficult to identify if a determined district heating option is potentially better than another in environmental terms. As for the economic evaluation, there are several tools decision-makers can rely on to assess environmental performance. The main challenge is to provide a holistic point of view for which lifespan and complexity of implementable, new technological systems can be an obstacle. For this reason, in this paper, a Life Cycle Assessment is performed upon a technical evaluation of several district heating configuration options for the Gulbene region in Latvia, where DH systems in most of the assessed parishes are already operating under medium temperature regimes, also known as third-generation district heating. The goal of the study is to understand the environmental impact of moving from the current DH system to a low temperature one. Results show a considerable environmental benefit if low-temperature profiles, combined with the use of renewable energy sources are adopted in the current DH systems. A hotspot analysis is also performed showing the use stage is the one carrying most of the burden across the project’s lifetime, followed by infrastructure construction; also showing that the refurbishment of buildings does not play a major role in the total environmental impact contribution.


2020 ◽  
pp. 161-165
Author(s):  
Bertram de Crom ◽  
Jasper Scholten ◽  
Janjoris van Diepen

To get more insight in the environmental performance of the Suiker Unie beet sugar, Blonk Consultants performed a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study on beet sugar, cane sugar and glucose syrup. The system boundaries of the sugar life cycle are set from cradle to regional storage at the Dutch market. For this study 8 different scenarios were evaluated. The first scenario is the actual sugar production at Suiker Unie. Scenario 2 until 7 are different cane sugar scenarios (different countries of origin, surplus electricity production and pre-harvest burning of leaves are considered). Scenario 8 concerns the glucose syrup scenario. An important factor in the environmental impact of 1kg of sugar is the sugar yield per ha. Total sugar yield per ha differs from 9t/ha sugar for sugarcane to 15t/ha sugar for sugar beet (in 2017). Main conclusion is that the production of beet sugar at Suiker Unie has in general a lower impact on climate change, fine particulate matter, land use and water consumption, compared to cane sugar production (in Brazil and India) and glucose syrup. The impact of cane sugar production on climate change and water consumption is highly dependent on the country of origin, especially when land use change is taken into account. The environmental impact of sugar production is highly dependent on the co-production of bioenergy, both for beet and cane sugar.


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