Sustainability of UK shale gas in comparison with other electricity options: Current situation and future scenarios.

Many countries are considering exploitation of shale gas but its overall sustainability is currently unclear. Previous studies focused mainly on environmental aspects of shale gas, largely in the US, with scant information on socio-economic aspects. To address this knowledge gap, this paper integrates for the first time environmental, economic and social aspects of shale gas to evaluate its overall sustainability. The focus is on the UK which is on the cusp of developing a shale gas industry. Shale gas is compared to other electricity options for the current situation and future scenarios up to the year 2030 to investigate whether it can contribute towards a more sustainable electricity mix in the UK. The results obtained through multi-criteria decision analysis suggest that, when equal importance is assumed for each of the three sustainability aspects shale gas ranks seventh out of nine electricity options, with wind and solar PV being the best and coal the worst options. However, it outranks biomass and hydropower. Changing the importance of the sustainability aspects widely, the ranking of shale gas ranges between fourth and eighth. For shale gas to become the most sustainable option of those assessed, large improvements would be needed, including a 329-fold reduction in environmental impacts and 16 times higher employment, along with simultaneous large changes (up to 10,000 times) in the importance assigned to each criterion. Similar changes would be needed if it were to be comparable to conventional or liquefied natural gas, biomass, nuclear or hydropower. The results also suggest that a future electricity mix (2030) would be more sustainable with a lower rather than a higher share of shale gas. These results serve to inform UK policy makers, industry and non-governmental organisations. They will also be of interest to other countries considering exploitation of shale gas

Strategies for Developing Sustainable Design Practice for Students and SME Professionals

Designers and engineers seem finally to be awakening to the challenge that sustainable development has given. Educators and students alike are keenly aware of the need to become more effective in the training and practice of their specific disciplines with respect to sustainability. \noindent In the past four years since this research has developed, there has been a marked change in the mass market appeal for sustainable products and services. Implementation of sustainable design practice from both recent graduates and also innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) at a local level is slow. One would assume that the consumer drive would push a change in design practice but perhaps the complexities of sustainable design along with the lack of experience in the field are providing barriers to designers and marketers alike. In addition the SME sector alone makes up the bulk of industry within the European Union (EU) varying in some countries from 80-95% of the total numbers of companies (Tukker et al. 2000). These industries by their nature find it difficult to dedicate expertise solely to sustainable development issues. The strategy outlined in this paper intended to introduce concepts of sustainable design thinking and practice to both SMEs and undergraduate students. \noindent This current and ongoing research qualitatively assesses appropriate models for educating for sustainable design thinking with SME employees and undergraduate design students. The sample groups include Industrial Design and Product Design undergraduate students in Ireland at the Institute of Technology, Carlow (IT Carlow), The University of Limerick (UL) and a sample of SMEs in the South East of Ireland, with broad national participation from other students of design and professionals from industry. Current levels of understanding of students and SME professionals of key environmental and social issues are measured

Determination of 'best available techniques' for integrated pollution prevention and control: A life cycle approach

The EC Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), now to be implemented in the UK under the Pollution Prevention and Control Act (1999), will widen the range of issues to be considered by enforcing authorities when determining the Best Available Techniques (BAT) for an installation. IPPC requires integrated control of emissions to air, water and land, the efficient use of energy and raw materials and the avoidance or reduction of impacts caused by disposal of wastes. This paper demonstrates that adopting a life cycle approach for the assessment of candidate techniques can fulfil these new requirements when choosing BAT. The glass manufacturing industry is used as a case study to show that the methodology can be used to assess both primary (in-process) and secondary (end-of-pipe) techniques for pollution prevention and control. General conclusions are drawn regarding the use of life cycle approaches to support the assessment of BAT, limitations in the current methodology and the requirements for future research. © Institution of Chemical Engineers

Environmental sustainability of cellulose-supported solid ionic liquids for CO2 capture

Solid ionic liquids (SoILs) with cellulose as a support have been demonstrated recently to be effective and low-cost sorbents for CO2 capture. However, at present it is not clear whether they remove more CO2 than is released in the rest of the life cycle, including their manufacture, regeneration and disposal. It is also unknown what other impacts they may have over the whole life cycle while attempting to mitigate climate change. Therefore, this study evaluates for the first time the life cycle environmental sustainability of cellulose-supported SoILs in comparison with unsupported SoILs and some other sorbents. Four SoILs are assessed for 11 life cycle impacts, including global warming potential (GWP), with and without the cellulose support: methyltrioctyl ammonium acetate ([N1888][Ac]), tetraethyl ammonium acetate ([N4444][Ac]), tetra-octylammonium bromide ([N8888]Br) and 1-butyl-4-methylimidazolium bromide ([Bmim]Br). They are compared with one of the ILs in the liquid state (trihexyltetradecylphosphonium 1,2,4-triazolide ([P66614][124Triz])) and with three conventional sorbents: monoethanolamine (MEA), zeolite powder and activated carbon. The results show that SoILs with cellulose loading in the range of 70%–80 wt% have better environmental performance per unit mass of CO2 captured than the unsupported SoILs. The net removal of CO2 eq. over the life cycle ranges from 20% for pure [Bmim]Br to 83% for [N1888][Ac] with 75% cellulose and for [N4444][Ac] with both 75% and 80% loadings. However, pure [N8888]Br generates three times more CO2 eq. over the life cycle than it removes. Among the SoILs, [N4444][Ac] with 80% cellulose has the lowest life cycle impacts for eight out of 11 categories. When compared to the conventional sorbents, it has significantly higher impacts, including GWP. However, it is more sustainable than [P66614][124Triz]. The results of this study can be used to target the hotspots and improve the environmental performance of cellulose-supported SoILs through sustainable design