Développement d'une méthode d'analyse du cycle de vie conséquentielle prospective macroscopique : évaluation d'une politique de bioénergie dans l'union européenne à l'horizon 2025

Le développement des activités humaines s’accompagne le plus souvent d’impacts sur l’environnement. Compte tenu des capacités limitées de la planète à subir ces impacts, il devient nécessaire d’encadrer le développement futur de la société humaine afin d’en minimiser les impacts négatifs sur l’environnement. Pour ce faire, l’analyse de cycle de vie apparait comme étant un outil très puissant, car capable d’évaluer différents types d’impacts environnementaux en se basant sur l’ensemble des étapes du cycle de vie d’un produit ou d’un service. Cependant, à l’heure actuelle, la méthode d’analyse de cycle de vie ne parait pas adaptée à l’évaluation des choix politiques affectant un grand nombre de produits et services, choix qui sont néanmoins rendus nécessaires par certaines problématiques environnementales globales. En particulier, dans le cadre de la lutte contre les changements climatiques, l’analyse de cycle de vie ne permet pas de modéliser précisément les conséquences environnementales indirectes liées à la transition globale requise pour le secteur énergétique. Pour ce faire, il est nécessaire de modéliser l’ensemble de l’économie, car un changement important du secteur énergétique est susceptible d’affecter les autres secteurs économiques et donc d’occasionner indirectement des impacts environnementaux. Ainsi, cette thèse propose un nouvel outil de prise de décision, l’analyse de cycle de vie macroscopique, basé sur l’analyse de cycle de vie et le modèle macroéconomique GTAP. Cette nouvelle méthode a pour objectif l’évaluation des impacts environnementaux attribués aux changements à grande échelle survenant dans la société. L’évaluation environnementale de deux politiques énergétiques européennes sur la période 2005-2025 à l’aide de l’analyse de cycle de vie macroscopique illustre la capacité de la méthode à modéliser certains effets rebonds économiques néfastes à l’environnement et à positionner les bénéfices environnementaux d’une politique de bioénergie relativement aux impacts environnementaux causés par le développement global des activités humaines sur la période considérée. Il apparait aussi que la méthode permet d’identifier les régions les plus affectées et les périodes au cours desquelles les impacts environnementaux surviendraient. L’analyse de cycle de vie macroscopique ouvre d’importantes perspectives pour l’application de l’analyse de cycle de vie : alors que l’analyse de cycle de vie est habituellement utilisée pour évaluer le profil environnemental d’un produit ou d’un service, il devient désormais possible d’évaluer des décisions affectant simultanément de nombreux produits et services sur le long terme. Enfin, de par sa capacité à modéliser les sphères économique et environnementale, et grâce au développement de l’analyse de cycle de vie sociale, vi l’analyse de cycle de vie macroscopique tend à se positionner non pas seulement comme un outil d’évaluation environnementale, mais aussi comme un outil de développement durable. ---------- Most of the time, the increase in human activities harms the environment. Due to the capacity limit of the Earth to bear such impacts and considering the growth of world population and its demands, there is a need to manage the future growth of human society in order to mitigate its impacts on the environment. Life cycle assessment (LCA) seems to be a great methodology for this purpose because it assesses different types of environmental impacts of a product or service based on all of its life cycle stages. However, it appears that LCA is not adapted to the evaluation of large-scale international policies required for some environmental issues. Especially, current LCA methodology fails to properly model indirect consequences on the environment of a major change within the energy sector in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change. To model these indirect consequences on the environment, global economy modeling is required as a major change in the energy sector is expected to affect the rest of the economy and therefore to cause indirect environmental impacts. This is the goal of this university thesis: Develop a new decision tool "macroscopic life cycle assessment" using the LCA methodology and the GTAP macroeconomic model in order to assess environmental impacts caused by significant changes in human society. Application of macroscopic LCA to two different European energy policies for the 2005-2025 period shows its ability to model some rebound effects and to compare environmental benefits obtained from a bioenergy policy versus environmental impacts caused by the economic growth during 2005-2025. Additionally, the method allows to identify regions where and time periods when environmental impacts are expected to occur. Macroscopic LCA has important application opportunities for LCA: while the methodology is usually used to study the environmental profile of a product or service, it now becomes possible to evaluate environmental consequences of a decision affecting many products and services. Moreover, thanks to recent developments in social LCA and due to its capacity to model economic and environmental impacts, the macroscopic LCA will eventually become not only an environmental evaluation tool but a sustainable evaluation tool as well

Challenges and complexities in application of LCA approaches in the case of ICT for a sustainable future

In this work, three of many ICT-specific challenges of LCA are discussed. First, the inconsistency versus uncertainty is reviewed with regard to the meta-technological nature of ICT. As an example, the semiconductor technologies are used to highlight the complexities especially with respect to energy and water consumption. The need for specific representations and metric to separately assess products and technologies is discussed. It is highlighted that applying product-oriented approaches would result in abandoning or disfavoring of new technologies that could otherwise help toward a better world. Second, several believed-untouchable hot spots are highlighted to emphasize on their importance and footprint. The list includes, but not limited to, i) User Computer-Interfaces (UCIs), especially screens and displays, ii) Network-Computer Interlaces (NCIs), such as electronic and optical ports, and iii) electricity power interfaces. In addition, considering cross-regional social and economic impacts, and also taking into account the marketing nature of the need for many ICT's product and services in both forms of hardware and software, the complexity of End of Life (EoL) stage of ICT products, technologies, and services is explored. Finally, the impact of smart management and intelligence, and in general software, in ICT solutions and products is highlighted. In particular, it is observed that, even using the same technology, the significance of software could be highly variable depending on the level of intelligence and awareness deployed. With examples from an interconnected network of data centers managed using Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) technology and smart cooling systems, it is shown that the unadjusted assessments could be highly uncertain, and even inconsistent, in calculating the management component's significance on the ICT impacts.Comment: 10 pages. Preprint/Accepted of a paper submitted to the ICT4S Conferenc

Consideration of marginal electricity in real-time minimization of distributed data centre emissions

Among the innovative approaches to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of data centres during their use phase, cloud computing systems relying on data centres located in different regions appear promising. Cloud computing technology enables real-time load migration to a data centre in the region where the GHG emissions per kWh are the lowest. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to minimize GHG emissions cloud computing relying on distributed data centres. Unlike previous optimization approaches, our method considers the marginal GHG emissions caused by load migrations inside the electric grid instead of only considering the average emissions of the electric grid's prior load migrations. Results show that load migrations make it possible to minimize marginal GHG emissions of the cloud computing service. Comparison with the usual approach using average emission factors reveals its inability to truly minimize GHG emissions of distributed data centres. There is also a potential conflict between current GHG emissions accounting methods and marginal GHG emissions minimization. This conflict may prevent the minimization of GHG emissions in multi-regional systems such as cloud computing systems and other smart systems such as smart buildings and smart-grids. While techniques to model marginal electricity mixes need to be improved, it has become critical to reconcile the use of marginal and average emissions factors in minimization of and accounting for GHG emissions

Challenges and complexities in application of LCA approaches in the case of ICT for a sustainable future

ABSTRACT: In this work, three of many ICT-specific challenges of LCA are discussed. First, the inconsistency versus uncertainty is reviewed with regard to the meta-technological nature of ICT. As an example, the semiconductor technologies are used to high- light the complexities especially with respect to energy and water consumption. The need for specific representations and metric to separately assess products and technologies is discussed. It is highlighted that applying product-oriented approaches would result in abandoning or disfavoring of new technologies that could otherwise help toward a better world. Second, several believed- untouchable hot spots are highlighted to emphasize on their importance and footprint. The list includes, but not limited to, i) User Computer-Interfaces (UCIs), especially screens and displays, ii) Network-Computer Interlaces (NCIs), such as electronic and optical ports, and iii) electricity power interfaces. In addition, considering cross-regional social and economic impacts, and also taking into account the marketing nature of the need for many ICT’s product and services in both forms of hardware and soft- ware, the complexity of End of Life (EoL) stage of ICT products, technologies, and services is explored. Finally, the impact of smart management and intelligence, and in general software, in ICT solutions and products is highlighted. In particular, it is observed that, even using the same technology, the significance of software could be highly variable depending on the level of intelligence and awareness deployed. With examples from an interconnected network of data centers managed using Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) technology and smart cooling systems, it is shown that the unadjusted assessments could be highly uncertain, and even inconsistent, in calculating the management component’s significance on the ICT impacts

Consequences of future data center deployment in Canada on electricity generation and environmental impacts: a 2015-2030 prospective study

The environmental impacts of data centers that provide information and communication technologies (ICTs) services are strongly related to electricity generation. With the increasing use of ICT, many data centers are expected to be built, causing more absolute impacts on the environment. Given that electricity distribution networks are very complex and dynamic systems, an environmental evaluation of future data centers is uncertain. This study proposes a new approach to investigate the consequences of future data center deployment in Canada and optimize this deployment based on the Energy 2020 technoeconomic model in combination with life cycle assessment methodology. The method determines specific electricity sources that will power the future Canadian data centers and computes related environmental impacts based on several indicators. In case-study scenarios, the largest deployment of data centers leads to the smallest impact per megawatt of data centers for all of the environmental indicators. It is found that an increase in power demand by data centers would lead to a reduction in electricity exports to the United States, driving the United States to generate more electricity to meet its energy demand. Given that electricity generation in the United States is more polluting than in Canada, the deployment of data centers in Canada is indirectly linked to an increase in overall environmental impacts. However, though an optimal solution should be found to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions, it is not clear whether the environmental burden related to U.S. electricity generation should be attributed to the Canadian data centers

Les métabolites microbiens dans le traitement de l'eau potable

Description des micro-organismes responsables de problèmes de goûts/odeurs dans l'eau potable -- Description des molécules associées aux problèmes de goûts/odeurs dans l'eau potable -- Seuils de perception humaine des molécules odorantes rencontrées dans l'eau potable -- Échantillonnage pour les problèmes de goûts/odeurs dans l'eau potable -- Conservation des échantillons en vue d'analyse de goûts/odeurs -- Détection des goûts/odeurs dans l'eau potable -- Impact des problèmes de goûts/odeurs sur les consommateurs -- Résolution des problèmes de goûts/odeurs dans l'eau potable -- Problème des toxines algales dans l'eau potable -- Cyanobactéries -- Toxines algales -- Traitement des goûts/odeurs dans une municipalité de la région de Montréal -- Détection de la microcystine-LR dans la région de Montréal