Resource use and greenhouse gas emissions from grain-finishing beef cattle in seven Australian feedlots: a life cycle assessment

Grain finishing of cattle has become increasingly common in Australia over the past 30 years. However, interest in the associated environmental impacts and resource use is increasing and requires detailed analysis. In this study we conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) to investigate impacts of the grain-finishing stage for cattle in seven feedlots in eastern Australia, with a particular focus on the feedlot stage, including the impacts from producing the ration, feedlot operations, transport, and livestock emissions while cattle are in the feedlot (gate-to-gate). The functional unit was 1 kg of liveweight gain (LWG) for the feedlot stage and results are included for the full supply chain (cradle-to-gate), reported per kilogram of liveweight (LW) at the point of slaughter. Three classes of cattle produced for different markets were studied: short-fed domestic market (55–80 days on feed), mid-fed export (108–164 days on feed) and long-fed export (>300 days on feed). In the feedlot stage, mean fresh water consumption was found to vary from 171.9 to 672.6 L/kg LWG and mean stress-weighted water use ranged from 100.9 to 193.2 water stress index eq. L/kg LWG. Irrigation contributed 57–91% of total fresh water consumption with differences mainly related to the availability of irrigation water near the feedlot and the use of irrigated feed inputs in rations. Mean fossil energy demand ranged from 16.5 to 34.2 MJ lower heating values/kg LWG and arable land occupation from 18.7 to 40.5 m2/kg LWG in the feedlot stage. Mean greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the feedlot stage ranged from 4.6 to 9.5 kg CO2-e/kg LWG (excluding land use and direct land-use change emissions). Emissions were dominated by enteric methane and contributions from the production, transport and milling of feed inputs. Linear regression analysis showed that the feed conversion ratio was able to explain >86% of the variation in GHG intensity and energy demand. The feedlot stage contributed between 26% and 44% of total slaughter weight for the classes of cattle fed, whereas the contribution of this phase to resource use varied from 4% to 96% showing impacts from the finishing phase varied considerably, compared with the breeding and backgrounding. GHG emissions and total land occupation per kilogram of LWG during the grain finishing phase were lower than emissions from breeding and backgrounding, resulting in lower life-time emissions for grain-finished cattle compared with grass finishing.

Assessment and Life-Cycle Analysis of Recycled Materials for Sustainable Highway

Recycled materials replacing part of virgin materials in highway applications has shown great benefits to the society and environment. Beneficial use of recycled materials can save landfill places, sparse natural resources, and energy consumed in milling and hauling virgin materials. Low price of recycled materials is favorable to cost-saving in pavement projects. Considering the availability of recycled materials in the State of Maryland (MD), four abundant recycled materials, recycled concrete aggregate (RCA), recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), foundry sand (FS), and dredged materials (DM), were studied. A survey was conducted to collect the information of current usage of the four recycled materials in States’ Department of Transportation (DOTs). Based on literature review, mechanical and environmental properties, recommendations, and suggested test standards were investigated separately for the four recycled materials in different applications. Constrains in using these materials were further studied in order to provide recommendations for the development of related MD specifications. To measure social and environmental benefits from using recycled materials, life-cycle assessment was carried out with life-cycle analysis (LCA) program, PaLATE, and green highway rating system, BEST-in-Highway. The survey results indicated the wide use of RAP and RCA in hot mix asphalt (HMA) and graded aggregate base (GAB) respectively, while FS and DM are less used in field. Environmental concerns are less, but the possibly low quality and some adverse mechanical characteristics may hinder the widely use of these recycled materials. Technical documents and current specifications provided by State DOTs are good references to the usage of these materials in MD. Literature review showed consistent results with the survey. Studies from experimental research or site tests showed satisfactory performance of these materials in highway applications, when the substitution rate, gradation, temperature, moisture, or usage of additives, etc. meet some requirements. The results from LCA revealed significant cost savings in using recycled materials. Energy and water consumption, gas emission, and hazardous waste generation generally showed reductions to some degree. Use of new recycled technologies will contribute to more sustainable highways.

Modelling and analysing cargo screening processes: a project outline

The efficiency of current cargo screening processes at sea and air ports is unknown as no benchmarks exists against which they could be measured. Some manufacturer benchmarks exist for individual sensors but we have not found any benchmarks that take a holistic view of the screening procedures assessing a combination of sensors and also taking operator variability into account. Just adding up resources and manpower used is not an effective way for assessing systems where human decision-making and operator compliance to rules play a vital role. For such systems more advanced assessment methods need to be used, taking into account that the cargo screening process is of a dynamic and stochastic nature. Our project aim is to develop a decision support tool (cargo-screening system simulator) that will map the right technology and manpower to the right commodity-threat combination in order to maximize detection rates. In this paper we present a project outline and highlight the research challenges we have identified so far. In addition we introduce our first case study, where we investigate the cargo screening process at the ferry port in Calais.

About time : life-cycle and cohort effects on support for Quebec sovereignty

L’appui à la souveraineté du Québec diminue-t-il avec l’âge, ou est-il le reflet de préférences générationnelles ? Cette recherche se base sur les théories du changement générationnel et de la socialisation politique pour répondre à cette question. À l’aide de données de sondages de 1985 à 2014, nous mesurons l’impact de l’âge et de la génération sur l’appui à cette option constitutionnelle chez les Québécois francophones. Nos deux hypothèses de recherche sont confirmées dans une certaine mesure. Premièrement, les Québécois ont moins tendance à appuyer la souveraineté en vieillissant. La relation négative entre ces variables devient par contre plus faible au début des années 2000. Deuxièmement, les Baby boomers (nés entre 1945 et 1964) ont une probabilité plus élevée d’être souverainistes que les autres générations, et ce peu importe leur âge. Ils sont suivis, dans l’ordre, par les Aînés (nés en 1944 et moins), la Génération X (nés entre 1965 et 1979) et les Milléniaux (nés en 1980 ou plus).

Age-Dependent Fragility and Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Timber and Steel Distribution Poles Subjected to Hurricanes

Power distribution systems are susceptible to extreme damage from natural hazards especially hurricanes. Hurricane winds can knock down distribution poles thereby causing damage to the system and power outages which can result in millions of dollars in lost revenue and restoration costs. Timber has been the dominant material used to support overhead lines in distribution systems. Recently however, utility companies have been searching for a cost-effective alternative to timber poles due to environmental concerns, durability, high cost of maintenance and need for improved aesthetics. Steel has emerged as a viable alternative to timber due to its advantages such as relatively lower maintenance cost, light weight, consistent performance, and invulnerability to wood-pecker attacks. Both timber and steel poles are prone to deterioration over time due to decay in the timber and corrosion of the steel. This research proposes a framework for conducting fragility analysis of timber and steel poles subjected to hurricane winds considering deterioration of the poles over time. Monte Carlo simulation was used to develop the fragility curves considering uncertainties in strength, geometry and wind loads. A framework for life-cycle cost analysis is also proposed to compare the steel and timber poles. The results show that steel poles can have superior reliability and lower life-cycle cost compared to timber poles, which makes them suitable substitutes.

Sustainable Energy Production in the United States: Life Cycle Assessment of Biofuels and Bioenergy

The United States of America is making great efforts to transform the renewable and abundant biomass resources into cost-competitive, high-performance biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower. This is the key to increase domestic production of transportation fuels and renewable energy, and reduce greenhouse gas and other pollutant emissions. This dissertation focuses specifically on assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of biofuels and bioenergy produced from renewable feedstocks, such as lignocellulosic biomass, renewable oils and fats. The first part of the dissertation presents the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy demands of renewable diesel (RD) and hydroprocessed jet fuels (HRJ). The feedstocks include soybean, camelina, field pennycress, jatropha, algae, tallow and etc. Results show that RD and HRJ produced from these feedstocks reduce GHG emissions by over 50% compared to comparably performing petroleum fuels. Fossil energy requirements are also significantly reduced. The second part of this dissertation discusses the life cycle GHG emissions, energy demands and other environmental aspects of pyrolysis oil as well as pyrolysis oil derived biofuels and bioenergy. The feedstocks include waste materials such as sawmill residues, logging residues, sugarcane bagasse and corn stover, and short rotation forestry feedstocks such as hybrid poplar and willow. These LCA results show that as much as 98% GHG emission savings is possible relative to a petroleum heavy fuel oil. Life cycle GHG savings of 77 to 99% were estimated for power generation from pyrolysis oil combustion relative to fossil fuels combustion for electricity, depending on the biomass feedstock and combustion technologies used. Transportation fuels hydroprocessed from pyrolysis oil show over 60% of GHG reductions compared to petroleum gasoline and diesel. The energy required to produce pyrolysis oil and pyrolysis oil derived biofuels and bioelectricity are mainly from renewable biomass, as opposed to fossil energy. Other environmental benefits include human health, ecosystem quality and fossil resources. The third part of the dissertation addresses the direct land use change (dLUC) impact of forest based biofuels and bioenergy. An intensive harvest of aspen in Michigan is investigated to understand the GHG mitigation with biofuels and bioenergy production. The study shows that the intensive harvest of aspen in MI compared to business as usual (BAU) harvesting can produce 18.5 billion gallons of ethanol to blend with gasoline for the transport sector over the next 250 years, or 32.2 billion gallons of bio-oil by the fast pyrolysis process, which can be combusted to generate electricity or upgraded to gasoline and diesel. Intensive harvesting of these forests can result in carbon loss initially in the aspen forest, but eventually accumulates more carbon in the ecosystem, which translates to a CO2 credit from the dLUC impact. Time required for the forest-based biofuels to reach carbon neutrality is approximately 60 years. The last part of the dissertation describes the use of depolymerization model as a tool to understand the kinetic behavior of hemicellulose hydrolysis under dilute acid conditions. Experiments are carried out to measure the concentrations of xylose and xylooligomers during dilute acid hydrolysis of aspen. The experiment data are used to fine tune the parameters of the depolymerization model. The results show that the depolymerization model successfully predicts the xylose monomer profile in the reaction, however, it overestimates the concentrations of xylooligomers.

Life Cycle of Deccan Trap Magma Chambers: A Crystal Scale Elemental and Strontium Isotopic Investigation

The Deccan Trap basalts are the remnants of a massive series of lava flows that erupted at the K/T boundary and covered 1-2 million km2 of west-central India. This eruptive event is of global interest because of its possible link to the major mass extinction event, and there is much debate about the duration of this massive volcanic event. In contrast to isotopic or paleomagnetic dating methods, I explore an alternative approach to determine the lifecycle of the magma chambers that supplied the lavas, and extend the concept to obtain a tighter constraint on Deccan’s duration. My method relies on extracting time information from elemental and isotopic diffusion across zone boundary in an individual crystal. I determined elemental and Sr-isotopic variations across abnormally large (2-5 cm) plagioclase crystals from the Thalghat and Kashele “Giant Plagioclase Basalts” from the lowermost Jawhar and Igatpuri Formations respectively in the thickest Western Ghats section near Mumbai. I also obtained bulk rock major, trace and rare earth element chemistry of each lava flow from the two formations. Thalghat flows contain only 12% zoned crystals, with 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.7096 in the core and 0.7106 in the rim, separated by a sharp boundary. In contrast, all Kashele crystals have a wider range of 87Sr/86Sr values, with multiple zones. Geochemical modeling of the data suggests that the two types of crystals grew in distinct magmatic environments. Modeling intracrystalline diffusive equilibration between the core and rim of Thalghat crystals led me to obtain a crystal growth rate of 2.03x10-10 cm/s and a residence time of 780 years for the crystals in the magma chamber(s). Employing some assumptions based on field and geochronologic evidence, I extrapolated this residence time to the entire Western Ghats and obtained an estimate of 25,000 – 35,000 years for the duration of Western Ghats volcanism. This gave an eruptive rate of 30 – 40 km3/yr, which is much higher than any presently erupting volcano. This result will remain speculative until a similarly detailed analytical-modeling study is performed for the rest of the Western Ghats formations.

About time : life-cycle and cohort effects on support for Quebec sovereignty

L’appui à la souveraineté du Québec diminue-t-il avec l’âge, ou est-il le reflet de préférences générationnelles ? Cette recherche se base sur les théories du changement générationnel et de la socialisation politique pour répondre à cette question. À l’aide de données de sondages de 1985 à 2014, nous mesurons l’impact de l’âge et de la génération sur l’appui à cette option constitutionnelle chez les Québécois francophones. Nos deux hypothèses de recherche sont confirmées dans une certaine mesure. Premièrement, les Québécois ont moins tendance à appuyer la souveraineté en vieillissant. La relation négative entre ces variables devient par contre plus faible au début des années 2000. Deuxièmement, les Baby boomers (nés entre 1945 et 1964) ont une probabilité plus élevée d’être souverainistes que les autres générations, et ce peu importe leur âge. Ils sont suivis, dans l’ordre, par les Aînés (nés en 1944 et moins), la Génération X (nés entre 1965 et 1979) et les Milléniaux (nés en 1980 ou plus).

Life cycle assessment of residual forestry biomass chips at a power plant: a Portuguese case study

The residual forest biomass (RFB) sector has been experiencing strong development at European level and particularly in Portugal mainly due to the increase of energy production from renewable sources. The aim of this study is to assess the environmental impacts of eucalyptus RFB chips production chain in Portugal. The environmental and economic impact comparison of the processes included in the production chain is presented as well. The environmental impacts were calculated by the life cycle assessment approach described in the ISO 14040 series of standards. The production chain assessed included all processes from eucalyptus forest until the delivery of RFB chips at the power plant. The main conclusion of this study is that eucalyptus wood production is the process that presents the greatest environmental impact through the product life cycle.

Environmental assessment of industrial chemical and primary sector processes from a life cycle perspective

During the PhD program in chemistry at the University of Bologna, the environmental sustainability of some industrial processes was studied through the application of the LCA methodology. The efforts were focused on the study of processes under development, in order to assess their environmental impacts to guide their transfer on an industrial scale. Processes that could meet the principles of Green Chemistry have been selected and their environmental benefits have been evaluated through a holistic approach. The use of renewable sources was assessed through the study of terephthalic acid production from biomass (which showed that only the use of waste can provide an environmental benefit) and a new process for biogas upgrading (whose potential is to act as a carbon capture technology). Furthermore, the basis for the development of a new methodology for the prediction of the environmental impact of ionic liquids has been laid. It has already shown good qualities in identifying impact trends, but further research on it is needed to obtain a more reliable and usable model. In the context of sustainable development that will not only be sector-specific, the environmental performance of some processes linked to the primary production sector has also been evaluated. The impacts of some organic farming practices in the wine production were analysed, the use of the Cereal Unit parameter was proposed as a functional unit for the comparison of different crop rotations, and the carbon footprint of school canteen meals was calculated. The results of the analyses confirm that sustainability in the industrial production sector should be assessed from a life cycle perspective, in order to consider all the flows involved during the different phases. In particular, it is necessary that environmental assessments adopt a cradle-to-gate approach, to avoid shifting the environmental burden from one phase to another.

Advanced decision-support methods for the design, control, and optimization of perishable products life cycle

In the last decades, global food supply chains had to deal with the increasing awareness of the stakeholders and consumers about safety, quality, and sustainability. In order to address these new challenges for food supply chain systems, an integrated approach to design, control, and optimize product life cycle is required. Therefore, it is essential to introduce new models, methods, and decision-support platforms tailored to perishable products. This thesis aims to provide novel practice-ready decision-support models and methods to optimize the logistics of food items with an integrated and interdisciplinary approach. It proposes a comprehensive review of the main peculiarities of perishable products and the environmental stresses accelerating their quality decay. Then, it focuses on top-down strategies to optimize the supply chain system from the strategical to the operational decision level. Based on the criticality of the environmental conditions, the dissertation evaluates the main long-term logistics investment strategies to preserve products quality. Several models and methods are proposed to optimize the logistics decisions to enhance the sustainability of the supply chain system while guaranteeing adequate food preservation. The models and methods proposed in this dissertation promote a climate-driven approach integrating climate conditions and their consequences on the quality decay of products in innovative models supporting the logistics decisions. Given the uncertain nature of the environmental stresses affecting the product life cycle, an original stochastic model and solving method are proposed to support practitioners in controlling and optimizing the supply chain systems when facing uncertain scenarios. The application of the proposed decision-support methods to real case studies proved their effectiveness in increasing the sustainability of the perishable product life cycle. The dissertation also presents an industry application of a global food supply chain system, further demonstrating how the proposed models and tools can be integrated to provide significant savings and sustainability improvements.

Life Cycle Thinking for sustainability assessment and decision-making in selected food supply chains in Costa Rica

The Agenda 2030 contains 17 integrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 12 for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) promotes the efficient use of resources through a systemic change that decouples economic growth from environmental degradation. The Food Systems (FS) pillar in SDG 12 entails paramount relevance due to its interconnection to many other SDGs, and even when being a crucial world food supplier, the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Region struggles with environmental and social externalities, low investment in agriculture, inequity, food insecurity, poverty, and migration. Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) was regarded as a pertinent approach to identify hotspots and trade-offs, and support decision-making process to aid LAC Region countries as Costa Rica to diagnose sustainability and overcome certain challenges. This thesis aimed to ‘evaluate the sustainability of selected products from food supply chains in Costa Rica, to provide inputs for further sustainable decision-making, through the application of Life Cycle Thinking’. To do this, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) evaluated the sustainability of food-waste-to-energy alternatives, and the production of green coffee, raw milk and leafy vegetables, and identified environmental, social and cost hotspots. This approach also proved to be a useful component of decision-making and policy-making processes together with other methods. LCT scientific literature led by LAC or Costa Rican researchers is still scarce; therefore, this research contributed to improve capacities in the use of LCT in this context, while offering potential replicability of the developed frameworks in similar cases. Main limitations related to the representativeness and availability of primary data; however, future research and extension activities are foreseen to increase local data availability, capacity building, and the discussion of potential integration through Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA).

Life cycle assessment (lca) of six separation methods of polyethylene and aluminum in tetra pak

In food and beverage industry, packaging plays a crucial role in protecting food and beverages and maintaining their organoleptic properties. Their disposal, unfortunately, is still difficult, mainly because there is a lack of economically viable systems for separating composite and multilayer materials. It is therefore necessary not only to increase research in this area, but also to set up pilot plants and implement these technologies on an industrial scale. LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) can fulfil these purposes. It allows an assessment of the potential environmental impacts associated with a product, service or process. The objective of this thesis work is to analyze the environmental performance of six separation methods, designed for separating the polymeric from the aluminum fraction in multilayered packaging. The first four methods utilize the chemical dissolution technique using Biodiesel, Cyclohexane, 2-Methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MeTHF) and Cyclopentyl-methyl-ether (CPME) as solvents. The last two applied the mechanical delamination technique with surfactant-activated water, using Ammonium laurate and Triethanolamine laurate as surfactants, respectively. For all six methods, the LCA methodology was applied and the corresponding models were built with the GaBi software version 10.6.2.9, specifically for LCA analyses. Unfortunately, due to a lack of data, it was not possible to obtain the results of the dissolution methods with the solvents 2-MeTHF and CPME; for the other methods, however, the individual environmental performances were calculated. Results revealed that the methods with the best environmental performance are method 2, for dissolution methods, and method 5, for delamination methods. This result is confirmed both by the analysis of normalized and weighted results and by the analysis of 'original' results. An hotspots analysis was also conducted.

Molecules Clarify a Cnidarian Life Cycle - The ""Hydrozoan'' Microhydrula limopsicola Is an Early Life Stage of the Staurozoan Haliclystus antarcticus

Background: Life cycles of medusozoan cnidarians vary widely, and have been difficult to document, especially in the most recently proposed class Staurozoa. However, molecular data can be a useful tool to elucidate medusozoan life cycles by tying together different life history stages. Methodology/Principal Findings: Genetic data from fast-evolving molecular markers (mitochondrial 16S, nuclear ITS1, and nuclear ITS2) show that animals that were presumed to be a hydrozoan, Microhydrula limopsicola (Limnomedusae, Microhydrulidae), are actually an early stage of the life cycle of the staurozoan Haliclystus antarcticus (Stauromedusae, Lucernariidae). Conclusions/Significance: Similarity between the haplotypes of three markers of Microhydrula limopsicola and Haliclystus antarcticus settles the identity of these taxa, expanding our understanding of the staurozoan life cycle, which was thought to be more straightforward and simple. A synthetic discussion of prior observations makes sense of the morphological, histological and behavioral similarities/congruence between Microhydrula and Haliclystus. The consequences are likely to be replicated in other medusozoan groups. For instance we hypothesize that other species of Microhydrulidae are likely to represent life stages of other species of Staurozoa.45

Atmospheric impacts of the life cycle emissions of fuel ethanol in Brazil: based on chemical exergy

An assessment is made of the atmospheric emissions from the life cycle of fuel ethanol coupled with the cogeneration of electricity from sugarcane in Brazil. The total exergy loss from the most quantitative relevant atmospheric emission substances produced by the life cycle of fuel ethanol is 3.26E+05 kJ/t of C(2)H(5)OH, Compared with the chemical exergy of 1 t of ethanol (calculated as 34.56E + 06 kJ). the exergy loss from the life cycle`s atmospheric emission represents 1.11% of the product`s exergy. The activity that most contributes to atmospheric emission chemical exergy losses is the harvesting of sugarcane through the methane emitted in burning. Suggestions for improved environmental quality and greater efficiency of the life cycle of fuel ethanol with cogenerated energy are: harvesting the sugarcane without burning, renewable fuels should be used in tractors, trucks and buses instead of fossil fuel and the transportation of products and input should be logistically optimized. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.