Search results for "ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT"
showing 10 items of 301 documents
Vegetation fire emissions and their impact on air pollution and climate
2009
Gaseous and particulate emissions from vegetation fires substantially modify the atmospheric chemical composition, degrade air quality and can alter weather and climate. The impact of vegetation fire emissions on air pollution and climate has been recognised in the late 1970s. The application of satellite data for fire-related studies in the beginning of the 21th century represented a major break through in our understanding of the global importance of fires. Today the location and extent of vegetation fires, burned area and emissions released from fires are determined from satellite products even though many uncertainties persist. Numerous dedicated experimental and modeling studies contri…
Mitigating the Climate Change Impacts of Aviation through Behavioural Change
2020
Aviation plays a crucial role for economic development and social welfare, but at the same time it also significantly contributes to climate change. Therefore, if the industry wants to follow the same growth path as it has in the past, it will need to mitigate its environmental impacts more seriously or it may otherwise face regulatory restrictions. The current literature has discussed five mitigation strategies. These are technological changes, market-based changes, operational changes, regulatory changes and behavioural changes. While several authors have regarded behavioural changes as the measure with the greatest mitigation potential, it is also the measure that has received far less a…
Life Cycle Assessment for Supporting Eco-Design: The Case Study of Sodium–Nickel Chloride Cells
2021
The European Union is moving towards a sustainable, decarbonized, and circular economy. It has identified seven key value chains in which to intervene, with the battery and vehicle value chain being one of them. Thus, actions and strategies for the sustainability of batteries need to be developed. Since Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a strategic tool for evaluating environmental sustainability, this paper investigates its application to two configurations of a sodium–nickel chloride cell (planar and tubular), focusing on the active material and the anode, with the purpose of identifying the configuration characterized by the lowest environmental impacts. The results, based on a “from cradle…
Life cycle assessment of storage systems: the case study of a sodium/nickel chloride battery
2014
This study assesses the energy and environmental impacts of sodium/nickel chloride batteries, one of the emerging battery technologies for energy storage and smart grids. The analysis was conducted using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology according to the standards of the ISO 14040 series. The study system was one sodium/nickel cell battery providing electric storage for a photovoltaic system, and the manufacturing, operation, and end-of-life steps were analysed. The results indicated that the operation step has the greatest energy impact (55-70% of the total), with the manufacturing step, particularly cell manufacturing, contributing the greatest environmental impact (>60% of the total)…
An integrated energy simulation and life cycle assessment to measure the operational and embodied energy of a Mediterranean net zero energy building
2022
Abstract Net Zero Energy Buildings can play a key role in reducing the energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and the use of natural resources associated to the built environment. It is widely recognized that in low energy building a shift in relevance may occur from the operational to the embodied impacts. However, building performance assessment focus mostly on the operational phase and on primary energy consumption. This study aims to assess the energy and environmental impacts of a residential net zero energy building expanding the analysis to the full life cycle and to a wide range of environmental impact categories. The methodological approach integrates a non-steady state building ener…
Cost-benefit analysis: A comparison between conventional and organic olive growing in the Mediterranean Area
2015
The conversion from conventional to organic management of olive growing has many benefits, such as increase of biodiversity, reduction of soil erosion and lower environmental impact. Since olive represents a main crop in the Mediterranean area, from a social, economic as well as environmental point of view, the aim of this paper has been to determine if the conversion from conventional to organic olive growing can increase the profitability of the farmer in Sicilian farms. Economic analysis has been carried out by means of cost-benefit analysis and financial indicators (NPV, B0/C0, IRR) show that organic growing would allow a better profitability for organic olive farms respect to conventio…
Ecklonia maxima-derivate seaweed extract supply as mitigation strategy to alleviate drought stress in chicory plants
2023
Extreme climatic conditions have a severe repercussion on agriculture and on food availability. Ecological means to overcome drought are important to improve agroecosystems sustainability and resilience. The use of an Ecklonia maxima-derivate seaweed extract (SwE) as a tool to mitigate drought constrain in chicory plants grown in greenhouse was evaluated. Plants were cultivated in plastic pots filled with peat and subjected to drought stress by retaining moisture range at 90–100% of water holding capacity (WHC) [well-watered (WW)], 60–70% WHC [moderate drought stress (MDS)] or 30–40% WHC [severe drought stress (SDS)]. Drought stress decreased plant growth traits and yield. However, in plant…
Electrical energy analysis and potential environmental improvements of sheet metal punching processes
2013
Discrete part manufacturing processes, in particular non-conventional production processes, are still poorly documented in terms of environmental footprint. Within the separating processes, sheet metal punching processes have not been analyzed yet from environmental point of view. The present paper aims to contribute to filling this knowledge gap. In particular, two different punching machine tool architectures were analyzed. Following the previously developed CO2PE methodological approach, power studies and a preliminary time study have been performed in order to understand the contribution of each sub-unit towards the total energy demand. The influence of the most relevant process paramet…
Tracing the fate of microplastic carbon in the aquatic food web by compound-specific isotope analysis
2019
Increasing abundance of microplastics (MP) in marine and freshwaters is currently one of the greatest environmental concerns. Since plastics are fairly resistant to chemical decomposition, breakdown and reutilization of MP carbon complexes requires microbial activity. Currently, only a few microbial isolates have been shown to degrade MPs, and direct measurements of the fate of the MP carbon are still lacking. We used compound-specific isotope analysis to track the fate of fully labelled 13C-polyethylene (PE) MP carbon across the aquatic microbial-animal interface. Isotopic values of respired CO2 and membrane lipids showed that MP carbon was partly mineralized and partly used for cell growt…
Climate Change and Energy Issues in the North
2011
Highly industrialized societies are mostly responsible for the emerging anthropogenic climate change. There are different ways to measure this responsibility (e.g., whether based on causal contribution or strict responsibility, see Muller et al. 2007). However, regardless of the specific method applied to measure the impact, presently, the USA and the EU are the global leaders in green house gas emissions with countries such as China, India and Brazil following closely behind. Globally, GHG emissions are still increasing among the highly industrialized countries, particularly in the USA – a country that never ratified the Kyoto Protocol. However, the EU has managed to curb its emissions, co…