The influence of naturally-occurring organic acids on model estimates of lakewater acidification using the model of acidification of groundwater in catchments (MAGIC)

A project for the US Department of Energy, entitled Incorporation of an organic acid representation into MAGIC (Model of Acidification of Groundwater in Catchments) and Testing of the Revised Model UsingIndependent Data Sources'' was initiated by E S Environmental Chemistry, Inc. in March, 1992. Major components of the project include: improving the MAGIC model by incorporating a rigorous organic acid representation, based on empirical data and geochemical considerations, and testing the revised model using data from paleolimnological hindcasts of preindustrial chemistry for 33 Adirondack Mountain lakes, and the results of whole-catchment artificial acidification projects in Maine and Norway. The ongoing research in this project involves development of an organic acid representation to be incorporated into the MAGIC modeland testing of the improved model using three independent data sources. The research during Year 1 has included conducting two workshops to agree on an approach for the organic acid modeling, developing the organic subroutine and incorporating it into MAGIC (Task 1), conducing MAGIC hindcasts for Adirondack lakes and comparing the results with paleolimnological reconstructions (Task 2), and conducting site visits to the manipulation project sites in Maine and Norway. The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of the work that has been conducted on this project during Year 1. Tasks 1 and 2 have now been completed

Does a battery-electric truck make a difference? – Life cycle emissions, costs, and externality analysis of alternative fuel-powered Class 8 heavy-duty trucks in the United States

Attempting to gain insights from how alternative fuel technologies employed in heavy-duty trucks (HDTs) differ with respect to their life-cycle emissions, costs, and externalities presents an important opportunity to develop a more holistic overall analysis of future HDTs. To this end, this study uses a hybrid life-cycle assessment method to analyze and compare alternative fuel-powered Class 8 HDTs. To account for the uncertainty in the data a Monte Carlo simulation is also applied. The HDTs considered in this analysis (biodiesel (B20), compressed natural gas (CNG), hybrid, and BE HDTs) are compared to the diesel HDT (conventional HDT). The results show that BE HDTs outperform all other types of trucks overall, despite their incremental costs and electricity generation-related emissions. Furthermore, if such a BE truck were to run on electricity generated in the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) NERC region, fuel-consumption related GHGs emissions from BE HDTs could decrease by as much as 63 percent. It has also been found that, although there is a slight difference between the life-cycle costs (LCCs) of conventional HDTs and CNG-powered HDTs, the latter emits 33% more GHGs than the former. Moreover, this study concludes that CNG trucks yield no improvements in either HDT\u27s life-cycle environmental impacts or LCCs compared to their conventional counterparts. Providing that electricity is generated from renewable energy sources, the use of BE trucks would significantly improve the life-cycle performance of a truck as well as ambient air quality