Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability最新文献

{"title":"Prioritising climate adaptation options to minimise financial and distributional impacts of water supply disruptions","authors":"Olivia Becher, J. Verschuur, R. Pant, Jim Hall","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad0ff0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad0ff0","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Climate-related disruptions to water supply infrastructure services incur direct financial losses to utilities (e.g. to repair damaged assets) and externalise a societal cost to domestic customers due to additional costs that they may incur (e.g. to acquire water from alternative sources). The latter often represents an uncompensated social burden, which should be properly accounted for in investment planning. Here we present a new framework for quantifying direct financial risks burdened by utilities and alternative water purchase losses incurred by domestic customers, including those in low-income groups, during flood- and drought-induced utility water supply disruptions. This framework enables the comparison of benefit-cost ratios of a portfolio of flood protection and leakage reduction for water supply systems across the island of Jamaica. A system-level optioneering analysis allows the identification of the optimal adaptation option per system. We estimate that 34% of systems would benefit from flood defences and 53% would benefit from leakage reduction to adaptation to droughts. The benefit that could be achieved by implementing all system optimised adaptation options is estimated to be 720 million Jamaican dollars per year on average, representing a substantial saving for the utility and its customers, including low-income customers. We identify options that offer strong synergies between economic and equity objectives for both types of adaptation option. The proposed framework is established to support the business case for climate adaptation in the water supply sector and to prioritise across flood and drought mitigation options. We take a first step towards mainstreaming equity considerations in water supply sector optioneering frameworks by estimating the contribution of adaptation options towards reducing household costs for low-income customers.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"51 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139961554","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":"Optimal fuel supply of green ammonia to decarbonise global shipping","authors":"J. Verschuur, N. Salmon, Jim Hall, René Bañares-Alcántara","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad097a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad097a","url":null,"abstract":"Green ammonia has been proposed as a technologically viable solution to decarbonise global shipping, yet there are conflicting ambitions for where global production, transport and fuelling infrastructure will be located. Here, we develop a spatial modelling framework to quantify the cost-optimal fuel supply to decarbonise shipping in 2050 using green ammonia. We find that the demand for green ammonia by 2050 could be three to four times the current (grey) ammonia production, requiring major new investments in infrastructure. Our model predicts a regionalisation of supply, entailing a few large supply clusters that will serve regional demand centres, with limited long-distance shipping of green ammonia fuel. In this cost-efficient model, practically all green ammonia production is predicted to lie within 40° latitudes North/South. To facilitate this transformation, investments worth USD 2 trillion would be needed, half of which will be required in low- and middle-income countries.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"47 22","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139442579","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":"Strategies for connecting whole-building LCA to the low-carbon design process","authors":"Kieren H. McCord, Heather E Dillon, Patricia Gunderson, Sadie Carlson, Adam Phillips, Darrin Griechen, Chrissi A. Antonopoulos","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad17ce","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad17ce","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Decarbonization is essential to meeting urgent climate goals. With the building sector in the United States accounting for 35% of total U.S. carbon emissions, reducing environmental impacts within the built environment is critical. Whole-building life cycle analysis (WBLCA) quantifies the impacts of a building throughout its life cycle. Despite being a powerful tool, WBLCA is not standard practice in the integrated design process (IDP). When WBLCA is used, it is typically either speculative and based on early design information or conducted only after design completion as an accounting measure, with virtually no opportunity to impact the actual design. This work proposes a workflow for fully incorporating WBLCA into the building design process in an iterative, recursive manner, where design decisions impact the WBLCA, which in turn informs future design decisions. We use the example of a negative-operational carbon modular building seeking negative upfront embodied carbon using bio-based materials for carbon sequestration as a case study for demonstrating the utility of the framework. Key contributions of this work include a framework of computational processes for conducting iterative WBLCA, using a combination of an existing building WBLCA tool (Tally) within the building information modeling (BIM) superstructure (Revit) and a custom script (in R) for materials, life cycle stages, and workflows not available in the WBLCA tool. Additionally, we provide strategies for harmonizing the environmental impacts of novel materials or processes from various life cycle inventory sources with materials or processes in existing building WBLCA tool repositories. These strategies are useful for those involved in building design with an interest in reducing their environmental impact. For example, this framework would be useful for researchers who are conducting WBLCAs on projects that include new or unusual materials and for design teams who want to integrate WBLCA more fully into their design process in order to ensure the building materials are consciously chosen to advance climate goals, while still ensuring best performance by traditional measures.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"56 16","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138952543","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":"Rail industry knowledge, experience and perceptions on the use of nature-based solutions as climate change adaptation measures in Australia and the United Kingdom","authors":"Lorraine Blackwood, Fabrice G Renaud, Steven Gillespie","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad14ef","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad14ef","url":null,"abstract":"Nature-based solutions (NbS) have been identified as sustainable adaptation measures which could be applied to rail infrastructure in response to the impacts of climate change whilst also providing highly valued co-benefits. To date, however, only a limited number of examples of their use have been found in rail, and there has been little investigation into barriers to their uptake. We use an online questionnaire to examine rail industry professionals’ knowledge, experience and thoughts in relation to perceived and/or actual obstacles to the use of NbS as climate change adaptation (CCA) measures for railways, and establish what could aid their wider implementation. This research confirms multiple examples of NbS being used in rail which are not included in the literature, and identifies a lack of awareness of NbS as the largest perceived barrier to their uptake. Education on and promotion of NbS in the industry will therefore be key to its successful widespread deployment. Policy, standards, and client specification were viewed as the best vehicles to enable greater NbS uptake; rail NbS case studies are therefore recommended as means of gathering robust evidence and examples to inform the development of these instruments. Demonstration sites could be used to inform rail stakeholders and communities to garner wider support for the concept. These may also be valuable to the work of researchers and practitioners investigating the wider development and deployment of NbS as sustainable CCA measures across wider (non-rail) sectors and scenarios.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"33 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139008352","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":"Optimizing building solutions in a changing climate: parameter-based analysis of embodied and operational environmental impacts","authors":"D. Ramon, K. Allacker","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad139e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad139e","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Buildings contribute significantly to global energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Climate change affects building performance, particularly heating and cooling demands. While current policies focus on improving energy performance and reducing operational emissions, the embodied emissions from building materials become more significant in energy-efficient buildings. This study aims to investigate optimal building solutions considering both operational and embodied environmental impact in the context of climate change in the Belgian context. The research questions address the influence of building characteristics on environmental impact and the contribution of embodied and operational emissions to optimal design. The study employs parametric life cycle assessment and dynamic building energy simulation to explore design strategies for a medium-sized office building. The results reveal the trade-offs between operational and embodied impacts. Buildings with better energy performance exhibit higher embodied emissions, highlighting the importance of considering both aspects. Pareto optimal buildings are identified, minimizing total life cycle environmental cost and operational environmental cost. Insulation levels, solar shading, and orientation are key factors in achieving optimal design. HVAC systems and electricity mixes also significantly influence optimal solutions. Lightweight and heavyweight buildings have distinct characteristics affecting heating and cooling demands. Variations in electricity mixes impact energy consumption and environmental costs of different HVAC system scenarios. The study emphasizes the need for a holistic life cycle approach and considering both operational and embodied impacts in building design. It underscores the importance of optimizing building characteristics while addressing climate change challenges. Further research should explore additional factors such as night cooling, HVAC system performance under climate change, and the inclusion of financial costs and visual comfort in the analysis.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138589695","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":"Carbon storage in the built environment: a review","authors":"Stavroula Bjånesøy, A. Kinnunen, Hulda Einarsdóttir, J. Heinonen","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad139f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad139f","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 With a rapidly decreasing carbon budget, the urgency of deep GHG reductions becomes increasingly necessary. This accentuates the need for the emerging paradigm shift, transforming the built environment from a major source of CO2 emissions to a carbon sink. Biogenic carbon sequestration and storage (CSS) has the potential to play pivotal role as it offers multiple pathways for cities to improve their carbon sink capacity. There are various methods used to quantify the carbon storage potential of the built environment, and there is a lack of consensus on how biogenic carbon should be treated. This review aims to elucidate the ways in which scientific literature has considered carbon storage in the built environment by drawing a picture of the existing mechanism for carbon sequestration and storage in the urban built environment with the focus on the existing mechanism of biogenic CSS materials. Limitations and challenges of using biogenic CSS materials are identified to point out future research directions. In addition, barriers hindering wider utilization of CSS in the built environment are discussed.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"5 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138586298","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":"Reply to ‘A commentary on “US power sector carbon capture and storage under the Inflation Reduction Act could be costly with limited or negative abatement potential”’","authors":"Emily Grubert, Frances Sawyer","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad0ff1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad0ff1","url":null,"abstract":"Here we reply to a comment by Dr. Robert Kennedy from the US Department of Energy (DOE) on our paper ‘US power sector carbon capture and storage under the Inflation Reduction Act could be costly with limited or negative abatement potential,’ which found that the 45Q carbon oxide sequestration tax credit incentivizes behaviors under profit-maximizing conditions that could increase rather than decrease GHG emissions in the power sector relative to a counterfactual without the tax credit. Our reply addresses claims that regulatory structures would prevent the negative outcomes we model in the original paper; that our cost and performance assumptions are inaccurate; and that other technologies will see growth. We show that the comment provides no evidence that our original analysis is incorrect and that information that has emerged since the March 2023 publication of our paper supports our assumptions, including public statements by carbon capture project proponents and new information about expected project costs. We agree with Dr. Kennedy that the incentives we highlight where 45Q might incentivize higher emissions at high cost are shocking; we disagree that we have incorrectly characterized these incentives. We share a belief that many of these loopholes can be closed, and disagree that they have already been closed.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"112 16","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138609448","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":"Comment on ‘US power sector carbon capture and storage under the Inflation Reduction Act could be costly with limited or negative abatement potential’","authors":"Robert Kennedy Smith","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad0fee","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad0fee","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":" 35","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138612181","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":"The mid-transition in the electricity sector: impacts of growing wind and solar electricity on generation costs and natural gas generation in Alberta","authors":"Kristina M E Pearson, Sara Hastings-Simon","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad0c3f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad0c3f","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In response to climate change, electricity grids are decreasing their carbon intensity with the addition of wind and solar variable generation (VREN). This leads to a mid-transition period, where renewable energy is unable satisfy electricity demand without contributions from other fossil sources such as natural gas , but also generates sufficiently to constrain conventional generation—changing their operating and market conditions. We use a simplified copper plate model, which scales up and down historical wind and solar generation, to examine how and when the patterns and generation costs for fossil fuel power could change by the increasing capacities of VREN on the relatively isolated Alberta electricity grid. We find that beginning at 20% VREN an increasingly diverse range and reduced hours of dispatched capacity is necessitated from the existing generation. However, even as capacity factors for fossil fuel generation decrease their costs remain reasonable and we found this to be a low-cost pathway for achieving moderate to deep emission reduction goals. A full 86% of demand could be met with VREN before generation costs exceeded 100$/MWh, allowing for an emissions reduction of 28.4 to 9 million tonnes/year of CO2eq, on a lifecycle basis. In order to capture and use the renewable generation, new and existing fossil fuel units require market incentives both for flexibility and to ensure they remain in place throughout the transitionary period as they are crucial to backstop variable renewable generation.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"60 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136281900","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 Perspective on tools for assessing the building sector’s greenhouse gas emissions and beyond","authors":"Fiona Greer, Paul Raftery, Gail Brager, Arpad Horvath","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad064d","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad064d","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Increasing impacts from anthropogenic climate change, coupled with the rising need to provide safe and healthy buildings in which people can live, work, and play, necessitates methods and tools for decarbonizing the building sector. Governments, industry, and others are interested in assessing both the embodied and operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of buildings. Stakeholders have embraced whole building life-cycle assessment (WBLCA) as a framework for quantifying the life-cycle impacts of buildings, from raw material extraction to the building’s end of life. The purpose of this perspective is to offer an analysis on prominently used WBLCA tools, focusing on how well the tools are suited for assessing the embodied and operational GHG emissions from all phases of a building’s life cycle, and to suggest recommendations for improving the tools. Existing WBLCA tools can provide a detailed assessment of most materials used in the building’s core and shell but lack the capability to quantify impacts accurately and comprehensively from all building systems as well as from the construction, transportation, operation, and end-of-life phases. Suggested short term improvements for the tools include: (1) increased standardization among tools and environmental product declarations (EPDs) to allow for detailed comparison among different material options earlier in the design process; (2) incorporation of verified, local-manufacturer EPDs for all building materials, components, and systems and of specific on-site conditions; and (3) integration of tradeoffs between embodied and operational design decisions. We need to move beyond the prevailing approach of using WBLCA tools to select building materials that have the lowest embodied footprint. Future WBLCA tools need to be able to assess, in detail, how different design, construction, transportation, operation, and end-of-life decisions for a building not only affect GHG emissions, but other key sustainability goals including resilience to climate change, environmental justice, and human health of local communities.","PeriodicalId":476263,"journal":{"name":"Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability","volume":"105 S1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135584715","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}