Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability最新文献

{"title":"Variability in costs of electrifying passenger cars in Canada","authors":"Bassam Javed, A. Giang, M. Kandlikar","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad253e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad253e","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The high cost of purchasing electric vehicles (EVs) compared to internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) is a major barrier to their widespread adoption. Additionally, the price disparity is not the same for all households. We conducted a total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis to compare the net present value of EV versus ICEV ownership for various household categories across Canada. We observed spatial and behavioral factors, including variations in costs of electricity, temperature, household archetypes and their purchase decisions, and access to charging infrastructure. We found that EVs are more cost-effective than ICEVs for certain daily driving distances, but typical households in Canada generally do not drive enough for lifecycle costs of EVs to be less than ICEVs. The province of Quebec has the most favorable conditions for EV ownership due to high purchase subsidies and low electricity prices. Variability in costs across other provinces and territories is mainly due to differences in rebates, electricity and gasoline prices, and tax rates. Our findings have implications for policymakers and consumers. For consumers comparing ICEVs to EVs based on a fixed budget, which may be consistent with how many households frame their purchase decision, willingness to accept smaller, non-luxury EVs can result in large cost savings. We also find that although temperature variation has a minimal effect on TCO, it does impact the “number of charge-ups”—a metric that we introduce to compare how many charging cycles a user may expect over the lifetime of a vehicle. The policy implication of this would be a need to consider regional differences in cold weather patterns when planning charging infrastructure deployment and the extent to which households in shared dwellings may face additional costs. Lastly, our findings strengthen the argument that equitably decarbonizing transportation will also require investment in strategies other than electrifying personal vehicles.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139811009","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 carbon footprint of future wood-based construction in Montreal","authors":"Felicity Meyer, Thomas Elliot, S. Craig, B. Goldstein","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad2153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad2153","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Engineered wood (EW) has the potential to reduce global carbon emissions from the building sector by substituting carbon-intensive concrete and steel for carbon-sequestering wood. However, studies accounting for material use and embodied carbon in buildings rarely analyze the city-scale or capture connections between the city and supplying hinterlands. This limits our knowledge of the effectiveness of decarbonizing cities using EW and its potential adverse effects, such as deforestation. We address this gap by combining bottom-up material accounting of construction materials with life cycle assessment to analyze the carbon emissions and land occupation from future residential construction in Montreal, Canada. We compare material demand and environmenetal impacts of recent construction using concrete and steel to construction using EW at the neighborhood, urban scales under high- and low-density growth scenarios. We estimate that baseline embodied carbon/capita across the Agglomeration of Montreal is 3.2 tonnes/carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq.), but this ranges from 8.2 tonnes CO2eq./capita in areas with large single-family housing to 2.0 tonnes CO2eq./capita where smaller homes predominate. A Montreal-wide transition to EW may increase carbon footprint by up to 25% under certain scenarios, but this varies widely across the city and is tempered through urban densification. Likewise, a transition to EW results in less than 0.001% land transformation across Quebec’s timbershed. Moreover, sustainable logging practices that sequester carbon can actually produce a carbon-negative building stock in the future. To decarbonize future residential construction, Montreal should enact policies to simultaneously promote EW and urban densification in future construction and work with construction firms to ensure they source timber sustainably.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"40 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139606549","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":"Evaluation of life cycle assessment (LCA) use in geotechnical engineering","authors":"Dora L. de Melo, A. Kendall, J. DeJong","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad2154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad2154","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In recent years, there has been a growing emphasis to incorporate sustainability metrics into geotechnical engineering design decisions, driven by the surging eco-consciousness of industry standards. Consequently, life cycle assessment (LCA) has emerged as a popular method for evaluating the environmental impacts of geotechnical systems or projects. This paper conducts a critical review of 54 publications that apply life cycle assessment to various geotechnical systems, including deep foundations, biogeotechnics, dams, ground improvement, earth retaining structures, tunnels, and others. This review assesses the current state of practice for LCA in geotechnical engineering, identifies common barriers to implementation, and provides suggestions for successful execution. While sustainability practices have been more readily adopted by some subdisciplines of civil engineering including structural and transportation, geotechnical engineering faces distinct challenges due to its inherent site-specific nature, characterized by non-homogeneous soils and the necessity for bespoke solutions. Despite the notable increase in geotechnical LCAs , the absence of uniform standards remains a critical issue. Many studies could be improved by enhancing transparency in reporting data and results, clearly justifying input assumptions, and assessing the effects of variable soil conditions. Geotechnical LCA studies often concentrate on highly specialized problems, limiting the relevance of findings to other projects and impeding the development of clear recommendations for industry practitioners. Future research endeavors would benefit from establishment of comprehensive frameworks and multi-indicator models tailored to geotechnical systems to more accurately capture expected environmental impacts and opportunities for their reduction. A standardized approach could reduce redundancy in studies, encourage knowledge transfer, and provide a basis for broader applicability of sustainability practices in the geotechnical engineering profession.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"17 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139607761","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":"When energy doesn’t add up: use of an energyshed framework in assessing progress towards renewable energy transitions","authors":"Kayla Garrett, R. Mcmanamay, C. Derolph","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad0fef","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad0fef","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Global progress in energy transitions to support climate mitigation goals has been slower than anticipated; this has prompted shifts away from traditional paradigms of regulated energy ownership towards a model of energy democratization by local communities and individuals. For example, in the United States, local communities in over 250 cities, counties, and states have made pledges to reach 100% renewable electrification by target dates ranging from 2020 to 2050. However, the availability of infrastructure and the competition for renewable energy resources, as well as lack of awareness of these limitations, present significant barriers to overcome. In this study, we explored a subset of 31 of these cities to assess their current electricity generation and how much further they have to go to meet their goals. Through an energyshed framework, we estimated powerplant electricity allocation to each city assuming competition for power from various renewable and non-renewable resource types, as well as look at the ‘best case scenario’ assuming 100% allocation of renewable-sourced electricity for a handful of cities in order to understand the existing and planned energy mixes for 2021 and the following 20 years. It is likely most cities will meet 10% of their energy demand with renewable energy, with best cases scenarios reaching between 35% and 65% renewable penetration, within the next 20–30 years. This highlights the need for infrastructural development in the energy sector, as well as intentional planning efforts in order to make these energy goals a reality.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"105 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139614632","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":"Temporal public perceptions and experiences during water service disruptions: the case of Jackson, Mississippi","authors":"H. Safarpour, Lauryn A. Spearing","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad1bb8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad1bb8","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Failures in urban water systems are becoming a common occurrence in the US due to disasters, aging infrastructure, and financial constraints, among other concerns. For example, Jackson, Mississippi has experienced reoccurring water outages, burdening community members as they must seek alternative water sources. Prior research has primarily focused on technical, institutional, and public health aspects of water crises, with limited attention to community perspectives. Understanding such social aspects can shed light on, for example, community priorities, levels of trust, mental health concerns, and communication gaps. Here, we document the temporal experiences and perceptions of community members during the Jackson Water Crises. To do so, we qualitatively analyzed news media data and employed topic modeling techniques on social media data from two years, capturing two specific crises. Our results reveal the cascading impacts of water outages on end-users, including financial, social, and technical issues. For example, over time, results indicate that trust in the government and water providers in Jackson eroded, which may hinder public support. Our results show that social media can be a useful tool for utilities to understand public perceptions in real-time. Recommendations proposed here can inform future responses to water crises in Jackson and other communities, ensuring end-users perspectives are incorporated.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"17 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139382944","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":"Life cycle environmental benchmarks for Flemish dwellings","authors":"L. Mouton, D. Ramon, D. Trigaux, K. Allacker, Robert H Crawford","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad1bb7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad1bb7","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 To reduce the environmental effects caused by buildings, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly applied. Recently, national building regulations have implemented LCA requirements to support building life cycle impact reduction. A key element in these regulations are environmental benchmarks which allow designers to compare their buildings with reference values. This study develops bottom-up life cycle environmental benchmarks that represent conventional construction in Flanders, Belgium. The study investigates the potential of using a database of building energy performance calculations. Specifically, this study considers 39 residential buildings identified as representative of the Flemish Energy Performance of Buildings (EPB) database of 2015-2016, applying modifications to establish scenarios that are still relevant in 2025. The buildings are assessed with the Belgian LCA tool TOTEM to calculate an aggregated score based on the European Product Environmental footprint (PEF) weighting approach and including 12 main impact categories. In addition to the aggregated score, the Climate Change (CC) indicator is analysed individually. In view of the benchmarks, variations were applied to the 39 buildings in terms of heating system and materialisation. The variation in heating system included changing gas boilers to electric heat pumps to comply with upcoming (2025) Flemish building regulations. The variations in materials included three sets of conventional Flemish building element compositions that were applied to generate a wider spread of impact results as a basis for benchmarks. Benchmark values were derived through a statistical analysis of the 117 variants: a best-practice value (10th percentile), reference value (median) and limit value (90th percentile). For the environmental score, the benchmark values are 86, 107 and 141 millipoints per square meter of gross heated floor area (mPt/m²GHFA), respectively; for CC, the benchmark values are 844, 1015 and 1284 kg CO2-eq/m²GHFA. Finally, the study discusses the representativeness, implications and limitations of the final benchmarks and benchmark approach.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"23 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139383367","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":"Toward equitable grid resilience: operationalizing climate adaptation strategies to mitigate flooding impacts","authors":"Saeed Miraee-Ashtiani, Nariman L. Dehghani, F. Vahedifard, A. Shafieezadeh, Masoud Karimi-Ghartemani","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad111e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad111e","url":null,"abstract":"Disadvantaged communities are disproportionately affected by flooding, exacerbated by climate change. This paper presents a novel framework for incorporating environmental justice into climate adaptation planning of power grids against flooding. A new energy equity metric is introduced with the vision that addressing environmental justice warrants prioritizing disadvantaged communities that have lower risk thresholds. The framework is applied to a levee-protected IEEE standard test system in northern California. The grid performance disturbed due to flooded substations is investigated under current and future climate. The mathematical model of the framework is structured as a two-stage stochastic mixed-integer programming model. This model aims to minimize the equity gap in grid resilience (EGGR) between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged communities while enhancing the system resilience by reducing the risk of power outages due to flooding. The results show that climate change undermines grid resilience, with disproportionally worse impacts on disadvantaged communities. A significant EGGR is observed that worsens under a changing climate. For adaptation, the optimal placement of distributed energy resources is determined by maximizing the grid resilience to flooding while minimizing EGGR. The proposed framework can equip decision-makers with a robust tool for operationalizing equitable climate adaptation strategies for power grids.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"280 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139204959","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":"Net zero emission buildings: a review of academic literature and national roadmaps","authors":"Elín Þórólfsdóttir, Áróra Árnadóttir, J. Heinonen","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad0e80","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad0e80","url":null,"abstract":"Addressing the growing issue of climate change demands active measures. With its significant carbon footprint, the building industry needs to make immediate efforts contributing to achieving the Paris Agreement’s objective of restricting global warming to 1.5 °C. This review focuses on net zero emission buildings (NZEBs) which are claimed to offer a viable option to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment. The review covers both the recent academic literature on NZEBs, and the NZEB roadmaps from the member organizations of the World Green Building Council, focusing on those Green Building Councils actively working to implement NZEBs in their local contexts. By synthesizing a broad range of viewpoints and practices derived from academic literature and roadmaps, this review provides a holistic overview of the different perspectives to the current state of NZEBs and to their future. The review shows that NZEBs have the potential to provide significant environmental, economic, and social advantages, improving the built environment’s overall sustainability. The review also promotes a more thorough understanding over NZEBs that can facilitate collaborative policymaking and action amongst stakeholders.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":" 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139253098","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":"Impact of climate change on carbon emissions in future road design: frost protection of roads in temperate climates","authors":"Lisa Tronhuus Hannasvik, T. Kvande, Rolf A. Bohne, J. Gaarder, Inge Hoff, R. Evensen, Johnny M. Johansen","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad0dad","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad0dad","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this case study was to estimate the impact of future adaptation to climate change with respect to frost on emissions from road construction. Based on the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) published by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, the Norwegian Centre for Climate Services has predicted statistical frost quantities for the years 2071–2100 in Norway. Carbon emissions in production, loading, transportation, and construction related to the frost protection of roads were estimated based on the predictions and compared with frost protection based on frost quantities for the years 1981–2010. The case study covered two recently constructed four-lane highways in Norway that represent areas with minor and major frost quantities. Three alternative power sources for machinery and transportation were studied: fossil fuel, biofuel, and electricity. These alternatives were combined with two scenarios for climate change (RCPs): one intermediate (RCP4.5) and one business-as-usual scenario (RCP8.5). Based on the combined alternatives and RCPs, the estimated reduction in CO2-equivalents ranged from 22% to 90%.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"105 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139262909","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":"Leveraging environmental assessment and environmental justice to deliver equitable, decarbonized built infrastructure","authors":"Fiona Greer","doi":"10.1088/2634-4505/ad084b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ad084b","url":null,"abstract":"Climate change is the most pressing sustainability issue of our time, with anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions causing economic, environmental, and human health impacts. We need to achieve net-zero civil infrastructure systems to limit global temperature increases. Energy production and supply, transportation, buildings, and industry are examples of civil infrastructure systems. Examining the full scope of impacts throughout the conception, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning of infrastructure systems will allow for improved mitigation and adaptation planning. Current planning processes and mechanisms will need to be transformed to achieve ‘climate-smart’ infrastructure that focus on thoughtful minimization of impacts, cooperation with communities, and understanding the implications of failing to act. Social equity is often left as an afterthought in environmentally conscious infrastructure planning. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is the most complete and decision-powerful model for cataloging environmental impacts of a system. However, the methodology has limitations regarding how it might be leveraged to support multicriteria decision-making in decarbonizing our civil infrastructure systems, such as when trying to account for community preferences, an important element of a just transition. Future planning for the decarbonization of our built environment would benefit from a multi-criteria approach that encompasses elements of LCA, equity, and stakeholder collaboration, the latter two of which are key tenets for advancing environmental justice.","PeriodicalId":509119,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability","volume":"51 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139268861","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}