Converter used as a battery charger and a motor speed controller in an industrial truck

International audienc

Life Cycle Assessments of different electricity production scenarios in France with a variable proportion of nuclear energy

International audienceThe environmental impacts of four French scenarios of electricity production systems are compared. They propose a variable part of nuclear which is essentially replaced by wind and solar energy. The paper proposes a comparison of these scenarios based on a Life Cycle Assessments. The systems with a large part of intermittent wind and solar sources need a higher installed power. In addition, for the same installed power, renewable energies require more building materials than nuclear ones. Therefore, the environmental impacts of infrastructures increase with the part of renewable energy. During the use phase, the environmental impacts of fossil fuels, especially coal, are significant. Consequently, the best systems must use the least fossil fuels and need the lower installed power. Finally, if we exclude the risk of nuclear disaster and if we consider that nuclear wastes are well managed, the electricity production systems that achieve the lowest environmental impacts, with the same availability for the electricity to end users, are those that have a large part of nuclear power

Influence of a charging current with a sinusoidal perturbation on the performance of a lead-acid battery

International audienc

Comparative life cycle assessment of induction machines made with copper‐cage or aluminium‐cage rotors

International audienceThis paper deals with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of induction machines and try to determine whether a coppercage rotor is better than an aluminium-cage one, for a given using time and considering the global environmental footprint. The paper focuses on induction motors directly connected to the power grid, without electronic converters. The LCA takes into account the materials extraction, the machine construction, the use and the end of life for several criteria. In the first part, a copper conductor is compared to an aluminium one and results are discussed considering the part of recycled material in the rotor manufacturing process. In a second part, two machines with the same efficiency are compared. The environmental impacts differences are discussed. In the third part, two machines of the same sizes, but with a different rotor, are compared considering various usage times. The lower losses of the copper-rotor machine yield a significant advantage for the efficiency but the gains are smaller when the global life cycle is considered