ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF USING DESALINATED WATER IN CONCRETE PRODUCTION IN AREAS AFFECTED BY FRESHWATER SCARCITY

Up to 500 litres of water may be consumed at the batching plant per cubic meter of ready mix concrete, if water for washing mixing trucks and equipment is included. Demand for concrete is growing almost everywhere, regardless of local availability of freshwater. The use of freshwater for concrete production exacerbates stress on natural water resources. In water-stressed coastal countries such as Israel, desalinated seawater (DSW) is often used in the production of concrete. However, the environmental impacts of this practice have not yet been assessed. In this study the effect of using DSW on the water and carbon footprints of concrete was investigated using life cycle assessment. Water footprint results highlight the benefits of using DSW rather than freshwater to produce concrete in Israel. In contrast, because desalination is an energy intensive process, using DSW increases the greenhouse gas intensity of concrete. Nevertheless, this increase (0.27 kg CO2e/m3 concrete) is small, if compared to the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of concrete. Our results show that using untreated seawater in the mix (transported by truck from the coast) in place of DSW, would be beneficial in terms of water and carbon footprints if the batching plant were located less than 13 km from the withdrawal point. However, use of untreated seawater increases steel reinforcement corrosion, resulting in loss of structural integrity of the reinforced concrete composite. Sustainability of replacing steel with non-corrosive materials should be explored as a way to reduce both water and carbon footprints of concrete

Reporting only relative effect measures was potentially misleading: some good practices for improving the soundness of epidemiological results

Objective: In the medical and epidemiological literature there is a growing tendency to report an excessive number of decimal digits (often three, sometimes four), especially when measures of relative occurrence are small; this can be misleading. Study Design and Setting: We combined mathematical and statistical reasoning about the precision of relative risks with the meaning of the decimal part of the same measures from biological and public health perspectives. Results: We identified a general rule for minimizing the mathematical error due to rounding of relative risks, depending on the background absolute rate, which justifies the use of one or more decimal digits for estimates close to 1. Conclusions: We suggest that both relative and absolute risk measures (expressed as a rates) should be reported, and two decimal digits should be used for relative risk close to 1 only if the background rate is at least 1/1,000 py. The use of more than two decimal digits is justified only when the background rate is high (i.e., 1/10 py)

Clinical Psychology and Clinical Immunology: is there a link between Alexithymia and severe Asthma?

Background: Severe asthma patients are those suffering from asthma exacerbations despite adherence to maximal optimized asthma treatment such as high dose inhalant corticosteroids and long-acting beta2 agonists (ICS-LABA). It is estimated that about 300 million people in the world are affected from asthma and among them a percentage between 3-10% suffer from severe asthma. The prevalence of Alexithymia in chronic illness is notably high and it is strictly related to clinical severity of chronic diseases. Methods: Pub Med and Google Scholar databases were consulted using the terms “severe asthma” AND “alexithymia” to search English-language articles. According to inclusion criteria 37 articles were finally included and analyzed. Alexithymia may interfere with the perception of the disease and the patients’ awareness of the need of a strict follow-up, to adhere to the physicians’ treatment plans. Results: Alexithymia and related psychological distress as anxiety and depression may compromise the patient’s compliance and adherence, leading to a severe clinical presentation and pathologies’ course. This review highlights a potential relationship between alexithymia and severe asthma as a chronic inflammatory disease and the ways this correlation can be assessed and managed in the Outpatient Asthma Clinic to ensure a global approach to SA patients. Findings reported in literature suggest that, among severe asthma patients, alexithymia is present even if the prevalence of this disorder has not yet been defined. Conclusions: It is likely that the introduction of a gold standard clinical psychological evaluation in medical settings, such as clinical allergy and immunology, may allow to support suffering patients helping them to adequately elaborate their particular condition developing useful strategies to control and to manage with their severe asthma

The trade-off between bioenergy and emissions with land constraints

Agricultural biofuels require the use of scarce land, and this land has opportunity cost. We explore the objective function of a social planner who includes a land constraint in the optimization decision to minimize environmental cost. The inclusion of this land constraint in our optimization model motivates the measurement of emissions on a per-hectare basis. Switchgrass and corn are modeled as competing alternatives to show how the inclusion of a land constraint can influence life cycle rankings and alter policy conclusions. With land use unconstrained, ethanol produced from switchgrass is always an optimal feedstock relative to ethanol produced from corn. With land use constrained, however, our results show that it is unlikely that switchgrass would be optimal in the midwestern United States, but may be optimal in southern states if carbon is priced relatively high. Whether biofuel policy advocates for one feedstock over another should consider these contrasting results.This is a working paper of an article from Energy Policy, 54 (March 2013); 300-310. Doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.11.036.</p

Challenge clusters facing LCA in environmental decision-making—what we can learn from biofuels

Purpose Bioenergy is increasingly used to help meet greenhouse gas (GHG) and renewable energy targets. However, bioenergy’s sustainability has been questioned, resulting in increasing use of life cycle assessment (LCA). Bioenergy systems are global and complex, and market forces can result in significant changes, relevant to LCA and policy. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the complexities associated with LCA, with particular focus on bioenergy and associated policy development, so that its use can more effectively inform policymakers. Methods The review is based on the results from a series of workshops focused on bioenergy life cycle assessment. Expert submissions were compiled and categorized within the first two workshops. Over 100 issues emerged. Accounting for redundancies and close similarities in the list, this reduced to around 60 challenges, many of which are deeply interrelated. Some of these issues were then explored further at a policyfacing workshop in London, UK. The authors applied a rigorous approach to categorize the challenges identified to be at the intersection of biofuels/bioenergy LCA and policy. Results and discussion The credibility of LCA is core to its use in policy. Even LCAs that comply with ISO standards and policy and regulatory instruments leave a great deal of scope for interpretation and flexibility. Within the bioenergy sector, this has led to frustration and at times a lack of obvious direction. This paper identifies the main challenge clusters: overarching issues, application and practice and value and ethical judgments. Many of these are reflective of the transition from application of LCA to assess individual products or systems to the wider approach that is becoming more common. Uncertainty in impact assessment strongly influences planning and compliance due to challenges in assigning accountability, and communicating the inherent complexity and uncertainty within bioenergy is becoming of greater importance. Conclusions The emergence of LCA in bioenergy governance is particularly significant because other sectors are likely to transition to similar governance models. LCA is being stretched to accommodate complex and broad policy-relevant questions, seeking to incorporate externalities that have major implications for long-term sustainability. As policy increasingly relies on LCA, the strains placed on the methodology are becoming both clearer and impedimentary. The implications for energy policy, and in particular bioenergy, are large