Eco Global Evaluation: Cross Benefits of Economic and Ecological Evaluation

This paper highlights the complementarities of cost and environmental evaluation in a sustainable approach. Starting with the needs and limits for whole product lifecycle evaluation, this paper begins with the modeling, data capture and performance indicator aspects. In a second step, the information issue, regarding the whole lifecycle of the product is addressed. In order to go further than the economical evaluations/assessment, the value concept (for a product or a service) is discussed. Value could combine functional requirements, cost objectives and environmental impact. Finally, knowledge issues which address the complexity of integrating multi-disciplinary expertise to the whole lifecycle of a product are discussing.EcoSD NetworkEcoSD networ

Thermodynamic entropy as an indicator for urban sustainability?

As foci of economic activity, resource consumption, and the production of material waste and pollution, cities represent both a major hurdle and yet also a source of great potential for achieving the goal of sustainability. Motivated by the desire to better understand and measure sustainability in quantitative terms we explore the applicability of thermodynamic entropy to urban systems as a tool for evaluating sustainability. Having comprehensively reviewed the application of thermodynamic entropy to urban systems we argue that the role it can hope to play in characterising sustainability is limited. We show that thermodynamic entropy may be considered as a measure of energy efficiency, but must be complimented by other indices to form part of a broader measure of urban sustainability

Thermodynamic optimization of steady-flow industrial chemical processes

© 2018, The Author(s). Industrial steady-flow chemical processes are generally organised as a sequence of individually optimised operations. However, this may not achieve overall optimization since material (as recycle), heat and work transfers overall may not be well balanced. We introduce the idea of a preliminary overall thermodynamic balance to produce a reversible process, with the objective of minimising, for both economic and environmental reasons, the quality and quantity of energy used. This balance may later require adjustment to account for the realities of available materials and equipment. For this purpose, we introduce (i) a Carnot temperature, TCarnot, by which a Carnot machine (an engine which can operate as either a heat pump or a turbine) can supply the required heat at the correct temperature for a process to operate reversibly, that is with least energy, and (ii) the GH Diagram on which Carnot temperature-based processes are plotted in ?G–?H space. We demonstrate the utility of this analysis by simple application to the Haber–Bosch process for ammonia synthesis and by a sequence of operations for the synthesis of methanol. We also briefly introduce the state function exergy, which uses the natural environment as the reference base for energy in place of pure elements under standard conditions

Spatio-temporal variations of health costs caused by chemical fertilizer utilization in China from 1990 to 2012

The health impacts caused by chemical fertilizer utilization have challenged long-term sustainable development in many countries, particularly developing countries. Based on the emergy analysis method, we estimated the temporal and spatial variations of the health costs, through atmospheric, water, and soil pathways, of chemical fertilizer utilization in China during the period from 1990 to 2012. The results showed an obvious increasing trend of health costs from 1.8 billion Yuan in 1990 to 23.0 billion Yuan in 2012, while the ratio of health costs to agriculture output value declined slowly and became stable in recent years. Regional differences were remarkable and were significantly correlated to the levels of economic development (r = 0.843 and p < 0.001) and crop-sown area in the region (r = 0.588 and p < 0.001). Economically developed regions, especially the eastern coastal provinces, had much higher costs than the western regions. Meanwhile, fertilizer consumption shifted from the eastern to the northwest region, which was the same as the health costs. This study provides a reference to estimate the health costs of fertilizer utilization, and the results highlight the importance of sustainable development in China