Evaluation of Dredged Material Proposed for Ocean Disposal from Port Chester, New York

Port Chester was one of seven waterways that the US Army Corps of Engineers-New York District requested the Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory to sample and evaluate for dredging and disposal in March 1994. Tests and analyses were conducted on Port Chester sediment core samples. Because the Port Chester area is located on the border between New York and southeast Connecticut, its dredged material may also be considered for disposal at the Central Long Island Sound Disposal Site. The sediment evaluation consisted of bulk sediment chemical analyses, chemical analyses of site water and dredged material elutriate preparations, water-column and benthic acute toxicity tests, and bioaccumulation studies. Individual sediment core samples collected from Port Chester were analyzed for grain size, moisture content, and total organic carbon. In addition, sediment was analyzed for bulk density, specific gravity, metals, chlorinated pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyl congers, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and 1,4-dichlorobenzene

Long-Term climate change commitment and reversibility: An EMIC intercomparison

This is the final version of the article. Available from the American Meteorological Society via the DOI in this record.This paper summarizes the results of an intercomparison project with Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs) undertaken in support of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The focus is on long-term climate projections designed to 1) quantify the climate change commitment of different radiative forcing trajectories and 2) explore the extent to which climate change is reversible on human time scales. All commitment simulations follow the four representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and their extensions to year 2300. MostEMICs simulate substantial surface air temperature and thermosteric sea level rise commitment following stabilization of the atmospheric composition at year-2300 levels. The meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is weakened temporarily and recovers to near-preindustrial values in most models for RCPs 2.6-6.0. The MOC weakening is more persistent for RCP8.5. Elimination of anthropogenic CO2 emissions after 2300 results in slowly decreasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. At year 3000 atmospheric CO2 is still at more than half its year-2300 level in all EMICs forRCPs 4.5-8.5. Surface air temperature remains constant or decreases slightly and thermosteric sea level rise continues for centuries after elimination ofCO2 emissions in allEMICs.Restoration of atmosphericCO2 fromRCPto preindustrial levels over 100-1000 years requires large artificial removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and does not result in the simultaneous return to preindustrial climate conditions, as surface air temperature and sea level response exhibit a substantial time lag relative to atmospheric CO2. © 2013 American Meteorological Society.KZ and AJW acknowledge support from the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grant Program. AJW acknowledges support from NSERC's G8 Research Councils Initiative on Multilateral Research Funding Program. AVE and IIM were supported by the President of Russia Grant 5467.2012.5, by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, and by the programs of the Russian Academy of Sciences. EC, TF, HG, and GPB acknowledge support from the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. FJ, RS, and MS acknowledge support by the Swiss National Science Foundation and by the European Project CARBOCHANGE (Grant 264879), which received funding from the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013). PBH and NRE acknowledge support from EU FP7 Grant ERMITAGE 265170

Optimal design of water treatment processes

Predicted water shortages assign water treatment a leading role in improving water resources management. One of the main challenges associated with the processes remains early stage design of techno-economically optimised purification. This work addresses the current gap by undertaking a whole-system approach of flowsheet synthesis for the production of water at desired purity at minimum overall cost. The optimisation problem was formulated as a mixed-integer non-linear programming model. Two case studies were presented which incorporated the most common commercial technologies and the major pollution indicators, such as chemical oxygen demand, dissolved organic carbon, total suspended solids and total dissolved solids. The results were analysed and compared to existing guidelines in order to examine the applicability of the proposed approach

Development of a MINLP model for the optimization of a large industrial water system

This paper presents the design of a large water system within the production and packaging areas of a brewery. In order to accomplish the task, mathematical models were developed based on a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) formulation from the open literature. These models enable the investigation of several integration options: a) direct water re-use between batch and semi-continuous consumers operating within the same time interval and b) regeneration re-use options, by designing and scheduling an on-site wastewater treatment system. A multilevel strategy was applied for this large-scale industrial problem, which firstly decomposes design problem into several smaller integration problems concerning water consumers within each section of the brewery. At the following level, water re-use and regeneration re-use opportunities between the brewhouse and the packaging areas were explored for each working day. Finally, the design of an integrated water system was performed over the entire working week by fixing identified intra-daily matches between sections. An optimum water integration scheme is proposed based on the results obtained. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Development of a MINLP model for the optimization of a large industrial water system

This paper presents the design of a large water system within the production and packaging areas of a brewery. In order to accomplish the task, mathematical models were developed based on a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) formulation from the open literature. These models enable the investigation of several integration options: a) direct water re-use between batch and semi-continuous consumers operating within the same time interval and b) regeneration re-use options, by designing and scheduling an on-site wastewater treatment system. A multilevel strategy was applied for this large-scale industrial problem, which firstly decomposes design problem into several smaller integration problems concerning water consumers within each section of the brewery. At the following level, water re-use and regeneration re-use opportunities between the brewhouse and the packaging areas were explored for each working day. Finally, the design of an integrated water system was performed over the entire working week by fixing identified intra-daily matches between sections. An optimum water integration scheme is proposed based on the results obtained. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Synthesis of batch water network for a brewery plant

This paper presents an industrial application of mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) models for the optimisation of a water network, which was initiated by an integral need for cleaner production within a brewery. Several mathematical models were developed in order to reduce the use of freshwater, whilst considering the specific requirements of each particular production section. These models are based on the design method developed by Kim and Smith [1]. The original formulation is modified to enable efficient integration of discontinuous and semi-continuous water-using processes in the packaging area. Semi-continuous processes are treated as water sources of limited capacity. The option of installing storage tanks for semi-continuous water streams is included in the model, in order to re-use these streams during the shutdown periods of semi-continuous operations. The original model is additionally extended with the option of installing local (on-site) wastewater treatment units operating either in batch or semi-continuous modes. This enables the analysing of opportunities for regeneration re-use within the production area, i.e. the brewhouse with a cellar, because of high contaminant concentrations at these sites. The scheduling of batch wastewater treatment units is performed simultaneously in order to adjust the treatment schedule to a fixed schedule of batch processes. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Water Network Synthesis for Mixed Batch-Continuous Processes

This paper presents a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) mathematical model for optimizing water re-use and regeneration re-use in batch-continuous processes. This model is based on a design method developed by Kim and Smith (2004) and performs efficient integration of discontinuous water-using operations, and continuous wastewater streams with low contaminant concentrations (with or without storage tanks for continuous streams). In addition, synthesis of batch and/or continuous local wastewater treatment system can be performed simultaneously. The developed model was applied on industrial case study, at a Brewery. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Energy saving opportunities in heat integrated beverage plant retrofit

This paper presents practical applications of mathematical programming for energy integration in a large beverage plant. The opportunities of heat integration between batch operations were analysed by a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model, which was slightly modified by considering specific industrial circumstances. The feasibility of combined electricity, heating and cooling production was studied using a simplified MILP model, developed for the selection of an optimal polygeneration system. The superstructure includes cogeneration systems with different prime movers (steam turbine and gas turbine), and a trigeneration system with a back-pressure steam turbine. The proposed heat integration scheme and the selected cogeneration system may improve a company's economic performance and reduce its environmental impact. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Synthesis of batch water network for a brewery plant

This paper presents an industrial application of mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) models for the optimisation of a water network, which was initiated by an integral need for cleaner production within a brewery. Several mathematical models were developed in order to reduce the use of freshwater, whilst considering the specific requirements of each particular production section. These models are based on the design method developed by Kim and Smith [1]. The original formulation is modified to enable efficient integration of discontinuous and semi-continuous water-using processes in the packaging area. Semi-continuous processes are treated as water sources of limited capacity. The option of installing storage tanks for semi-continuous water streams is included in the model, in order to re-use these streams during the shutdown periods of semi-continuous operations. The original model is additionally extended with the option of installing local (on-site) wastewater treatment units operating either in batch or semi-continuous modes. This enables the analysing of opportunities for regeneration re-use within the production area, i.e. the brewhouse with a cellar, because of high contaminant concentrations at these sites. The scheduling of batch wastewater treatment units is performed simultaneously in order to adjust the treatment schedule to a fixed schedule of batch processes. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

An integrated sustainability performance assessment and benchmarking of breweries

Breweries are responding to some sustainabil-ity challenges but many of them find sustainability assessment and reporting to be very complex, difficult, and time-consuming tasks. Despite several existing frameworks for the sustainability assessment of companies, none of them specifically addresses breweries. They do not provide them with a transparent, comprehensive, and integrated approach to sustainability assessment, adjusted to the particular circumstances of traditional beer production. In view of these requirements by the brewing industry, this article aims to support breweries in sustainability assessment activities by proposing a methodology for integrated performance assessment. This methodology proposes environmental, societal, economic, and integrated indicators reflecting the characteristics of the brewing industry, compatible with those general indicators proposed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Although it is important to assess sustainability using several indicators, it may sometimes be difficult to make decisions based on a wide number of performance measurements. Thus, the proposed methodology gradually aggregates sustainable development indicators into sustainability sub-indices and, finally, to a composite sustainability index that tracks integrated information on the economic, environmental, and societal performances of a brewery over time. They can be used both internally, for the identification of "hot spots" and externally, for sustainability reporting and stakeholder engagement. Since breweries strive to outperform their competitors, the proposed methodology enables the benchmarking of a brewery against best performance practices, as a catalyst for improvement and innovation, by providing benchmark values for each indicator. The case study presented in this article illustrates how the proposed methodology could be easily applied in practice, and stimulates breweries to test their effectiveness themselves. © 2011 Springer-Verlag