Comparative Analysis of Average Time of use of Home Appliances

The 24th CIRP Conference on Life Cycle Engineering, March 8-10, 2017, Kamakura, Japan.Greater appliance penetration has been associated with economic advancement, sophisticated lifestyles, improved safety, health and several environmental benefits. However, recent studies suggest that easier appliances acquisition also push reductions in the total time of appliance use, regardless of the gains achieved by technological advancement. With this respect, estimation of the total time of use of appliances is the first important step towards understanding such a trade-off. This study reports a summary of the average age of appliances in developing countries from Southeast Asia, Mexico and some developed countries, as well as a discussion of the relationship between income level and age of appliances using scatter plots of the summarised data. Six categories of appliances (personal computers, mobile phones, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners and TVs) were summarised from the literature, and the observed differences in the average age were hypothesised to have connection with income level and the appliance penetration rates. Average appliance age in a greater scale of income (using GNI per capita, PPP) also showed two main trends. Namely, a U-shaped and linear pattern in which the six appliances could be categorised

Global Resource Circularity for Lithium-Ion Batteries up to 2050: Traction and Stationary Use

The use of the lithium-ion battery (LIB) in both traction and stationary applications has become ubiquitous. It is essential that retired LIBs are wisely treated, with a basis in the concept of the circular economy, to mitigate primary resource use. A closed-loop repurposing and recycling treatment is required. Thus, using the concept of total material requirement as an indicator of natural resource use based on mining activity, a dynamic material flow analysis was executed considering the degradation of the battery, its lifespan, and demand patterns under several scenarios. Then, the effect of circularity on the savings in global natural resource use involved across the entire lifecycles of LIBs was evaluated. It was found that the global resource use for LIBs will increase to between 10 and 48 Gt in 2050. Circularity has the potential to contribute to an 8–44% reduction in the global resource use associated with LIBs in 2050. It was also found that a longer lifespan in the years leading up to 2050 would have a greater impact on the reduction of resource use for LIBs, despite the lower effectiveness of circularity, because it would reduce the demand for LIBs

Estimation of the Lifespan of Imported Passenger Vehicles in Mongolia

In the last few decades, there has been an increase in second-hand imported vehicles in developing countries, including Mongolia. However, the extension of vehicle lifespans abroad promotes circular economy activities. In this study, we investigated the lifespan of second-hand imported passenger vehicles and their implication for the future sustainability of the transportation sector in Mongolia. The methodology used in this study comprised three stages. First, we conducted surveys to investigate the trends in second-hand vehicles in Mongolia. Next, the results from the survey on passenger vehicles were classified into three major categories based on their mode of operation, namely fuel, liquefied gas petroleum (gas), and the hybrid engine vehicle (HV) (of which the Toyota Prius is the most used vehicle in Mongolia). Finally, we estimated the average lifespan of vehicles using the Weibull distribution to measure before and after the import. The results show that the total average lifespans of all vehicles range between 17.3 and 20.2 years, respectively. The results highlight the different shape parameters of each vehicle category (fuel, gas, and HV), providing a better understanding of each vehicle’s lifespan and providing insights on the future management of second-hand imported vehicles, lifecycles, and recycling potentials for the successful development of sustainable transport policies in Mongolia

Global Resource Circularity for Lithium-Ion Batteries up to 2050: Traction and Stationary Use

The use of the lithium-ion battery (LIB) in both traction and stationary applications has become ubiquitous. It is essential that retired LIBs are wisely treated, with a basis in the concept of the circular economy, to mitigate primary resource use. A closed-loop repurposing and recycling treatment is required. Thus, using the concept of total material requirement as an indicator of natural resource use based on mining activity, a dynamic material flow analysis was executed considering the degradation of the battery, its lifespan, and demand patterns under several scenarios. Then, the effect of circularity on the savings in global natural resource use involved across the entire lifecycles of LIBs was evaluated. It was found that the global resource use for LIBs will increase to between 10 and 48 Gt in 2050. Circularity has the potential to contribute to an 8–44% reduction in the global resource use associated with LIBs in 2050. It was also found that a longer lifespan in the years leading up to 2050 would have a greater impact on the reduction of resource use for LIBs, despite the lower effectiveness of circularity, because it would reduce the demand for LIBs

Estimation of the Lifespan of Imported Passenger Vehicles in Mongolia

In the last few decades, there has been an increase in second-hand imported vehicles in developing countries, including Mongolia. However, the extension of vehicle lifespans abroad promotes circular economy activities. In this study, we investigated the lifespan of second-hand imported passenger vehicles and their implication for the future sustainability of the transportation sector in Mongolia. The methodology used in this study comprised three stages. First, we conducted surveys to investigate the trends in second-hand vehicles in Mongolia. Next, the results from the survey on passenger vehicles were classified into three major categories based on their mode of operation, namely fuel, liquefied gas petroleum (gas), and the hybrid engine vehicle (HV) (of which the Toyota Prius is the most used vehicle in Mongolia). Finally, we estimated the average lifespan of vehicles using the Weibull distribution to measure before and after the import. The results show that the total average lifespans of all vehicles range between 17.3 and 20.2 years, respectively. The results highlight the different shape parameters of each vehicle category (fuel, gas, and HV), providing a better understanding of each vehicle’s lifespan and providing insights on the future management of second-hand imported vehicles, lifecycles, and recycling potentials for the successful development of sustainable transport policies in Mongolia

Evaluating Power Reliability Dedicated for Sudden Disruptions: Its Application to Determine Capacity on the Basis of Energy Security

Given that a continuous power supply is fundamental to the economy and human well-being, development of a self-sustained electrical systemthat can withstand sudden disturbances by employing both renewable energy and storage technology is of significant importance. Most of the existing reliability approaches hardly represent a particular method of analyzing system adapting ability to remain self-sufficient in the short-term after the occurrence of sudden disruptions. In addition, existing reliability indexes are developed based on past experience, hardly covering the prediction of disruption risks. As such, a new electricity reliability quantification approach dedicated for sudden disruptions was established and the newly proposed electricity reliability prediction index was evaluated. The developed index was applied to determine optimal capacity sizing in the context of energy security. The availability of such electricity reliability predictions will allow the facility engineer to make wiser decisions to maintain a continuous power supply even after the occurrence of sudden disturbances. The developed algorithm can be readily implemented in any electrical system network including microgrid and rural electrification

Resource intensity for menu items: how much land is required to provide for each dish?

In this study, we compute the Total Material Requirement (TMR) for dishes listed on popular cooking / recipe websites. TMR is an environmental index of a product representing the ultimate amount of raw extracted material necessary for producing a product. A high TMR equates to high mineral resource impact. In this study, we investigate the environmental impact of foods by calculating their TMR. food.com’s website was used as the source of recipes. 500,231 recipe data were obtained and the recipes decomposed into ingredients: the average number of ingredients per recipe was 9 and the standard deviation was 4.03. The ingredients and their respective quantities were converted into TMR and summed for each recipe. From among the recipes, 19,305 were ultimately used after filtering them to ensure that more than 70% of ingredients of a recipe were available in our TMR dictionary. Finally, we computed averages for dish types such as “salad”, “soup”, “cakes”, “pie”, “bread”, “cookies”, “pasta”, “muffin”, “pudding”, “pizza”, and “stew”, that were frequently used for recipe titles. As a result, we found that dishes using a larger amount of “butter” and “beef” have high mineral resource impact