Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability最新文献

{"title":"Strategic low-cost energy investment opportunities and challenges towards achieving universal electricity access (SDG7) in forty-eight African nations","authors":"I. Pappis","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac7900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac7900","url":null,"abstract":"Strategic energy planning to achieve universal electricity access and meet the future energy needs of African nations is essential to formulate effective policy measures for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Africa cannot afford a cost-prohibiting green energy transition to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7. In this study, I employ open-access energy models, enhanced with geospatial data, to identify least-cost power generation investment options for forty-eight African nations. Different levels of electricity consumption per capita and costs of renewables are considered across four scenarios. According to the analysis, to achieve universal electricity access by 2030 in Africa, the power generation capacity needs to increase between 211 GW–302 GW, depending on electricity consumption levels and the cost of renewables considered, leading electricity generation to rise between 6221 PJ–7527 PJ by 2030. Higher electricity generation levels lead to higher penetration of fossil fuel technologies in the power mix of Africa. Natural gas will be the dominant fossil fuel source by 2030, while the decreasing costs of renewables will lead solar to overtake hydropower. To meet the same electricity demand levels, decreasing the cost of renewables can enable a less carbon-intensive power system, although higher capacity is also needed. However, Africa is still hard to achieve its green revolution. Depending on electricity consumption levels and costs of renewables considered, grid-connected technologies are estimated to supply 85%–90% of total electricity generated in Africa in 2030, mini-grid technologies 1%–6%, and stand-alone technologies 8%–11%. Off-grid solar and hybrid mini-grid solar technologies are essential in electrifying residential areas. Higher penetration of renewable energy sources in the energy mix creates local jobs and increases cost-efficiency. The analysis demonstrates that 6.9 million to 9.6 million direct jobs, depending on the policies and renewable development levels, can be created in Africa by expanding the power sector from 2020 to 2030 across the supply chain. While increasing electricity consumption levels in Africa leads to higher total system costs, it is also estimated to create more jobs, fostering political and societal stability. Finally, the decreasing costs of renewables could further increase the penetration of renewables in the energy mix, leading to an even higher number of jobs.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125418124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Connecting the dots between urban infrastructure, well-being, livability, and equity: a data-driven approach","authors":"Kirti V. Das, A. Ramaswami, Yingling Fan, Jason Cao","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac7901","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac7901","url":null,"abstract":"Developing sustainable, livable and equitable cities is a major policy goal. However, livability metrics are amorphous, emphasizing different dimensions. This paper develops a novel data-driven approach by directly surveying subjective well-being (SWB) of urban residents, alongside satisfaction with key social–ecological–infrastructural–urban correlates to inform livability and equity priorities. Our survey is novel in quantifying SWB (Cantril ladder) of urban residents and evaluating both household- and neighborhood-level correlates while addressing confounding effects of socio-demographics and personality. We propose a three-way typology of provisioning systems—foundational, consistently important and added-bonus—based on their quantitative relationship with SWB. Implemented in the Twin-Cities USA, among 21 attributes, home heating-cooling, neighborhood greenery, access to public transportation and snow removal emerged as foundational in cold Minnesota climates; home size was consistently important and satisfaction with streets an added-bonus. Assessing inequality in foundational and consistently important categories revealed disparities by income and race, informing local infrastructure priorities for livability and equity. Key insights emerged on sufficiency and sustainability.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123291087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Minimizing environmental impacts of solar farms: a review of current science on landscape hydrology and guidance on stormwater management","authors":"Rouhangiz Yavari, Demetrius Zaliwciw, R. Cibin, L. McPhillips","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac76dd","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac76dd","url":null,"abstract":"As solar energy becomes an increasingly cheap source of renewable energy, major utility-scale ground solar panel installations, often called ‘solar farms’, are rapidly growing. With these solar farms often covering hundreds of acres, there is the potential for impacts on natural hydrologic processes, including runoff generation and erosion. Here we review the current state of scientific research on the hydrology and water quality impacts of solar farms, as well as management recommendations for minimizing any impacts. The limited field measurements indicate the redistribution of soil moisture around solar farms, but the net impacts on runoff and erosion are less clear. Research focused on coupling solar farms with agriculture as ‘agrivoltaics’ demonstrates reduced evaporative water losses and associated crop stress, particularly in more arid regions. With regards to land and the stormwater management associated with solar farms, most US states currently do not have solar farm-specific recommendations and instead defer to standard stormwater management permits and guidance. In states with solar farm-specific guidance, typical recommendations include minimizing construction-related compaction, ensuring a high cover of perennial vegetation with minimal maintenance, and designing with pervious space between solar panel rows to promote infiltration of any runoff; in some cases, structural stormwater management like infiltration basins may be required. In general, solar farms can be designed to minimize the impact on landscape ecohydrological processes, but more research is needed to determine whether current recommendations are adequate. In particular, there is a need for more field research on less ideal sites such as those with higher slopes.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130922387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Energy–water nexus of formal and informal water systems in Beirut, Lebanon","authors":"Yasmina Choueiri, J. Lund, J. London, E. Spang","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac7252","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac7252","url":null,"abstract":"Many areas in the world with chronic and intermittent water shortages rely on informal water systems for much of their daily water needs with water from tanker trucks, purchased bottled water, rainwater cisterns, or pumped well water. These alternative sources all require varying amounts of energy. Water–energy nexus studies have not yet considered environmental impacts of informal water sources, specifically from an energy intensity and carbon emissions perspective. This study compares energy use and carbon emissions per cubic meter and per capita for both formal and informal water sources for a neighborhood in Beirut Lebanon. Energy use and carbon emissions are calculated for three delivery stages per source including pumping, treatment and distribution. The results show that informal sources have the highest energy use and carbon emissions. From the total water delivered to households, they account for 83% of energy use and 72% of carbon emissions per capita, even though they only provide 23% of total delivered volume per capita. Bottled water and distribution of water by tanker trucks have the highest energy intensity values per cubic meter of all water sources. Moreover, internal building water pumping, which is not typically accounted for, takes up to 14% of total energy use and 23% of total carbon emissions per capita compared to other water sources. To address model uncertainty, we conduct a sensitivity analysis, showing that the base model presented reasonably stable results and identifying the most sensitive parameters for further research. While informal sources help communities overcome water shortages they result with negative impacts. Strategies are proposed to improve the environmental performance of the Lebanese electrical grid, reduce water losses, replace inefficient truck engines and incentivize household to invest in low carbon technologies.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"103 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115732807","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Overlooked factors in predicting the transition to clean electricity","authors":"N. Martin, Cristina Madrid‐López, Gara Villalba-Méndez, Laura Talens-Peiró","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac70f7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac70f7","url":null,"abstract":"The transition to clean energy will require significant increases in electricity sourced from renewable energy technologies. While wind and solar photovoltaic sources are generally expected to overtake hydropower to dominate the renewable electricity supply market, numerous other technologies vie for a share in this rapidly evolving arena. To date, predicting the emergence of different technologies has relied on large-scale energy models that employ simplified optimisations of economic and emissions reductions outcomes. This is problematic as many additional factors, largely underrepresented in current models, are likely to co-determine technological emergence storylines in the real world. Here, we present a summary of the best available information for five key factors as they apply to the seven most common renewable electricity technology categories. The findings suggest that wind and solar photovoltaic technologies remain the most likely to dominate the market going forward but could face considerable raw material supply risk issues. Other potentially more desirable alternatives exist but face their own geographic and environmental limitations. Ultimately, the study demonstrates the potential and importance of expanding the use of other relevant factors in the forecasting of energy transition pathways and in the field of energy modelling as a whole.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114960924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phasing out coal power plants based on cumulative air pollution impact and equity objectives in net zero energy system transitions","authors":"Erin N. Mayfield","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac70f6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac70f6","url":null,"abstract":"Transitioning to a net zero economy entails rapidly retiring US coal power plants, a major source of both greenhouse gases and air pollution. Conceptualizations of just transitions often embed climate, socioeconomic, and environmental justice objectives. Here we evaluate the influence of cumulative air pollution impact and equity objectives in the context of coal electric power plant retirement decisions. Operating coal power plants accounted for approximately 11 600 mortalities ($100B in damages) in 2018, disproportionately impacting low income, nonwhite, and rural populations. To evaluate the future phase-out of coal generators, we optimize for alternative climate policy goals, in addition to air pollution objectives related to the distribution of impacts on the basis of income, race, voting patterns, population density, and National Ambient Air Quality Standards classifications. With policy goals to both achieve net zero emissions by mid-century and to minimize cumulative air pollution-related mortality, approximately 134 000 deaths ($1.2T) are avoided from 2020 to 2050 (relative to business-as-usual). We find that the way in which equity objectives are operationalized has a large influence on asset-level retirement decisions and policy design. Phase-out strategies associated with policy objectives to minimize cumulative mortalities across the US population are generally consistent with objectives to minimize impacts on vulnerable subpopulations, but differ from those that target geographically-defined vulnerable communities.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125398291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Material flow analysis of China’s five commodity plastics urges radical waste infrastructure improvement","authors":"Xiaomei Jian, Peng Wang, Ningning Sun, Wen Xu, Lingxuan Liu, Yichun Ma, Wei‐Qiang Chen","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac5642","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac5642","url":null,"abstract":"Plastic waste is one of the most pressing global environmental challenges. As the world’s largest plastic waste generator and importer, China has implemented various policies to promote sustainable plastic waste management. However, the quantitative understanding of China’s application-specific plastic waste recycling and its infrastructure development is still quite limited. Here, we build up a unified framework to investigate the recycling and the corresponding infrastructure status of five commodity plastics in China, which are polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (PE, PP, PVC, PS, ABS) from 2000–2019. We find that: (1) in total, China consumed around 981.4 million tons (Mt) of the five commodity plastics from 2000–2019, generating 590.4 Mt of plastic waste, only 27% of which was recycled, 34% was landfilled and 32% was incinerated; (2) PP (∼30%) and PE (∼28%) have the highest recycling rate in China, which is related to their huge consumption base, while PS and ABS have the lowest recycling rate at only ∼26%; (3) the waste recycling performance is determined by its applications, and the worst recycling rates (<20%) are the packaging and commodity sectors due to their poor collection, while higher recycling rates (⩾30%) are found in the building and construction, agriculture and transportation sectors due to the special waste collection systems in these sectors; (4) our further examination of the recycling potential reveals that around 56% of packaging waste can be recycled by adjusting waste management infrastructure (in the collection, pre- and end-processing). Our results can help bridge information gaps and support policymaking to improve sustainable plastic waste management.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130137919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A methodology for evaluating the effects of climate change on climatic design conditions for buildings and application to a case study in Madison, Wisconsin","authors":"Gesangyangji, D. Vimont, T. Holloway, D. Lorenz","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac6e01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac6e01","url":null,"abstract":"Climatic design conditions are widely used by the building community as environmental parameters informing the size and energy requirements for heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, along with other building design characteristics. Climatic design conditions are calculated by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers using historical climate data. Our work advances methods for projecting future climate design conditions based on data from global climate models. These models do not typically archive the hourly data required for climate design condition calculations, and they often exhibit large biases in extreme conditions, daily minimum temperatures and daily maximum temperatures needed for climatic design conditions. We present a method for rescaling historical hourly data under future climatic states to estimate the impact of climate change on future building climatic design conditions. This rescaling method is then used to calculate future climatic design conditions in Madison, Wisconsin, throughout the 21st century for two future greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. The results are consistent with a warming climate and show increases in heating, cooling, humidification and dehumidification design conditions, suggesting less extreme cold conditions and more extreme hot and humid conditions in Madison. The design conditions used for estimating energy demand, degree days, show that under a business-as-usual scenario, by the mid-century, building heating and cooling in Madison (climate zone 5A) will be similar to the current heating demand in Chicago, IL (climate zone 5A) and cooling demand in Baltimore, MD (climate zone 4A); by the late-century, building heating and cooling in Madison will resemble the current heating demand in St Louis, MO (climate zone 4A) and cooling demand in Augusta, GA (climate zone 3A). Given the rapid pace of climate change in the 21st century, our work suggests that historical design conditions may become obsolete during even the initial stages of a building’s expected life span. Changes in climatic design conditions in Madison highlight the importance of considering future climatic changes in building design to ensure that buildings built today meet the performance needs of the future.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116633039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparison and analysis of product stage and service life uncertainties in life cycle assessment of building elements","authors":"M. F. Morales, R. Ries, A. Kirchheim, A. Passuello","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac6d07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac6d07","url":null,"abstract":"Life cycle assessment (LCA) has the potential to inform building decisions from the planning process to conceptual design. As such, there is intrinsic uncertainty that needs to be explored further to allow for proper decisions to be made. These uncertainties may be related to parameter definition, such as life cycle inventory or model as service life definition. This paper aims to analyze the influence of two recognized sources of uncertainties in LCA of buildings: product stage uncertainties and uncertainties from SL during the use stage. The Monte Carlo simulation method is applied to conduct uncertainty analysis of the LCA results of four building elements, namely, external cement plaster, external clay brick wall, external painting and internal painting. The functional unit is 1 m2 of each building element. Three different building reference study periods are considered: 50, 120 and 500 years. A global warming potential impact category is chosen since it is one of the most significant indicators for climate change mitigation strategies. Results indicate that SL uncertainties are greater than product stage uncertainties for the four building elements analyzed. Furthermore, based on the findings from this study, distribution choice influences the uncertainty analysis results in Monte Carlo simulation. Standardizing modeling of SL in the LCA of buildings could guide building LCA practitioners and researchers and lead to more comparable results.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114571569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Building material stock analysis is critical for effective circular economy strategies: a comprehensive review","authors":"Rezvan Mohammadiziazi, M. Bilec","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ac6d08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ac6d08","url":null,"abstract":"Buildings account for the largest share of accumulated materials and waste globally. Tracking the material composition, quantity and location of these materials, known as building material stock analysis (MSA), is a first step in enabling the reuse or repurposing of materials, key strategies of the circular economy. While the number of building MSAs is growing, there is a need to coalesce methods, data and scope. Therefore, in this work, we reviewed and evaluated 62 journal and conference articles on MSA of buildings from different angles including scope, boundaries, archetype classification, material intensity determination, approaches (i.e. bottom-up, top-down, remote sensing) and quantity of materials to identify barriers, gaps and opportunities in this area along with its implications for decision-making, policy and regulations. We cataloged the three major approaches of MSAs and discuss their advantages and shortcomings. We also created a comprehensive directory of building archetypes, references and materials for future researchers. As expected, most of the studies estimated that concrete had the largest mass compared with other materials; however, mass-based distribution of materials showed significant variations in different building stocks across the world. Also, embedded plastics and their types remain under-represented in current studies. A major barrier to MSA is related to a lack of information on physical attributes and geographic information system, design and construction data. Policy makers can play a role in mitigating data barriers through instituting regulations that enforce the reporting of building-related data during the permitting process. Furthermore, outcomes of building MSA can help policy makers when considering incentives for design and construction that utilize these abundant building materials.","PeriodicalId":309041,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127944531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}