83,210 research outputs found

    Sustainable seabed mining: guidelines and a new concept for Atlantis II Deep

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    The feasibility of exploiting seabed resources is subject to the engineering solutions, and economic prospects. Due to rising metal prices, predicted mineral scarcities and unequal allocations of resources in the world, vast research programmes on the exploration and exploitation of seabed minerals are presented in 1970s. Very few studies have been published after the 1980s, when predictions were not fulfilled. The attention grew back in the last decade with marine mineral mining being in research and commercial focus again and the first seabed mining license for massive sulphides being granted in Papua New Guinea’s Exclusive Economic Zone.Research on seabed exploitation and seabed mining is a complex transdisciplinary field that demands for further attention and development. Since the field links engineering, economics, environmental, legal and supply chain research, it demands for research from a systems point of view. This implies the application of a holistic sustainability framework of to analyse the feasibility of engineering systems. The research at hand aims to close this gap by developing such a framework and providing a review of seabed resources. Based on this review it identifies a significant potential for massive sulphides in inactive hydrothermal vents and sediments to solve global resource scarcities. The research aims to provide background on seabed exploitation and to apply a holistic systems engineering approach to develop general guidelines for sustainable seabed mining of polymetallic sulphides and a new concept and solutions for the Atlantis II Deep deposit in the Red Sea.The research methodology will start with acquiring a broader academic and industrial view on sustainable seabed mining through an online survey and expert interviews on seabed mining. In addition, the Nautilus Minerals case is reviewed for lessons learned and identification of challenges. Thereafter, a new concept for Atlantis II Deep is developed that based on a site specific assessment.The research undertaken in this study provides a new perspective regarding sustainable seabed mining. The main contributions of this research are the development of extensive guidelines for key issues in sustainable seabed mining as well as a new concept for seabed mining involving engineering systems, environmental risk mitigation, economic feasibility, logistics and legal aspects

    Data mining: a tool for detecting cyclical disturbances in supply networks.

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    Disturbances in supply chains may be either exogenous or endogenous. The ability automatically to detect, diagnose, and distinguish between the causes of disturbances is of prime importance to decision makers in order to avoid uncertainty. The spectral principal component analysis (SPCA) technique has been utilized to distinguish between real and rogue disturbances in a steel supply network. The data set used was collected from four different business units in the network and consists of 43 variables; each is described by 72 data points. The present paper will utilize the same data set to test an alternative approach to SPCA in detecting the disturbances. The new approach employs statistical data pre-processing, clustering, and classification learning techniques to analyse the supply network data. In particular, the incremental k-means clustering and the RULES-6 classification rule-learning algorithms, developed by the present authors’ team, have been applied to identify important patterns in the data set. Results show that the proposed approach has the capability automatically to detect and characterize network-wide cyclical disturbances and generate hypotheses about their root cause

    Modeling batch annealing process using data mining techniques for cold rolled steel sheets

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    The annealing process is one of the important operations in production of cold rolled steel sheets, which significantly influences the final product quality of cold rolling mills. In this process, cold rolled coils are heated slowly to a desired temperature and then cooled. Modelling of annealing process (prediction of heating and cooling time and trend prediction of coil core temperature) is a very sophisticated and expensive work. Modelling of annealing process can be done by using of thermal models. In this paper, Modelling of steel annealing process is proposed by using data mining techniques. The main advantages of modelling with data mining techniques are: high speed in data processing, acceptable accuracy in obtained results and simplicity in using of this method. In this paper, after comparison of results of some data mining techniques, feed forward back propagation neural network is applied for annealing process modelling. A good correlation between results of this method and results of thermal models has been obtained

    CO2 Emissions vs. CO2 Responsibility: An Input-Output Approach for the Turkish Economy

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    Recently, global warming (greenhouse effect) and its effects have become one of the hottest topics in the world agenda. There have been several international attempts to reduce the negative effects of global warming. Kyoto Protocol can be cited as the most important agreement which tries to limit the countries’ emissions within a time horizon. For this reason it becomes important to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions of countries. The aim of this study is to estimate the amount of CO2 -the most important greenhouse gas- emissions, for the Turkish economy. An extended input-output model is estimated by using 1996 data in order to identify the sources of CO2 emissions and to discuss the share of sectors in total emission. Besides ‘CO2 responsibility’, which takes into account the CO2 content of imports, is estimated for the Turkish economy. The sectoral CO2 emissions and CO2 responsibilities are compared and these two notions are linked to foreign trade volume. One of the main conclusions is that the manufacturing industry has the first place in both of the rankings for CO2 emissions and CO2 responsibilities; while agriculture and husbandry has the last place.CO2 responsibility, Turkey, input-output analysis

    Swedish Industry and Kyoto – An Assessment of the Effects of the European CO2 Emission Permit Trading System

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    We assess the effects on Swedish industry input and output demands of different climate policy scenarios connected to energy policy induced by the Kyoto protocol. A unique data set containing firm level data on outputs and inputs during the years 1991 – 2001 is used to estimate a factor demand model, which is then simulated for different policy scenarios. Sector specific estimation suggests that the proposed quadratic profit function specification exhibit properties and robustness that are consistent with economic theory; that is, all own-price elasticities are negative and all output elasticities are positive. Furthermore, the elasticities show that the input demands are, in most cases, relatively inelastic. Simulation of the model for 6 different policy scenarios reveal that the effects on Swedish base industry of a EU level permit trade system is dependent on (i) removal or no removal of current CO2 tax, (ii) the established price of permits, and (iii) what will happen to the electricity price. Our analysis show that changes in electricity price may be more important than the price of permits for some sectors.CO2- emissions; factor demand; fossil fuels; tradable permit market

    Swedish Industry and Kyoto An Assessment of the Effects of the European CO2 Emission Permit Trading System

    Get PDF
    We assess the effects on Swedish industry input and output demands of different climate policy scenarios connected to energy policy induced by the Kyoto protocol. A unique data set containing firm level data on outputs and inputs during the years 1991 – 2001 is used to estimate a factor demand model, which is then simulated for different policy scenarios. Sector specific estimation suggests that the proposed quadratic profit function specification exhibit properties and robustness that are consistent with economic theory; that is, all own-price elasticities are negative and all output elasticities are positive. Furthermore, the elasticities show that the input demands are, in most cases, relatively inelastic. Simulation of the model for 6 different policy scenarios reveal that the effects on Swedish base industry of a EU level permit trade system is dependent on (i) removal or no removal of current CO2 tax, (ii) the established price of permits, and (iii) what will happen to the electricity price. Our analysis show that changes in electricity price may be more important than the price of permits for some sectors.CO2-emissions; factor demand; fossil fuels; tradable permit market
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