Introductory text about systems thinking : "Quantitative Analysis of Industrial Systems: Intellectual Framing"
The study of the biophysical basis of society follows both physical laws and social mechanisms/rationales. Physical laws such as the conservation of mass and energy guide the tracing of mass and energy flows in society, while social rationales motivate the use of economic models as well as different forms of social, cultural, and psychological inquiry.
To identify the actual potential environmental and resource impacts of a specific strategy, two things are required: First, a quantitative analysis of actual material and energy flows associated with the product, and second, a consistent systems perspective. The quantitative systems analysis of human environment-technology interactions, with focus on material and energy flows, is often labelled as ‘industrial ecology’.
Industrial ecology researchers study specific system linkages, including the service-stock-flow-impact linkage and global supply chains.
Climate change mitigation and the more widely framed sustainable development are commonly seen as ‘wicked problems’. Reductionism, a core scientific principle, does not work well with wicked problems. Reductionism in science means that complex phenomena are separated into many parts or components so they can be studied in isolation from their environment. Reductionism is also the basis of model development. Using scientific models of parts of reality, we can redesign and optimize those parts, create processes or products that emulate specific functionalities, combine these products, and apply them in new environments.
The connection between synthesized products and environmental and social impacts is invisible, but it is present. The different industrial and societal processes are not isolated from another; they are in relation to each other as they are linked by material and energy flows, by value chains, by ownership relations, by employment relations, by competition on the markets, and by their exploitation of commonly used natural resource pools.
An industrial process is more than the creation of products, it is also a source of emissions, a sink of resources, a place to work, an investment opportunity, and many more.
The reduction of reality into predictable local environments and repeatable processes is the basis of the industrial system and the synthesis of products generated by that system. The industrial system is embedded in the larger social and natural environment, and to tackle major challenges such as sustainable development the reduction and synthesis approach is not sufficient. This approach needs to be complemented by systems thinking, which is about understanding reality as a set of interrelated elements and studying complex phenomena from the perspective of different scientific disciplines.
A general theory of analyzing coupled human-environment systems
To identify the actual environmental and resource impacts of a specific product, two things are required: First, a quantitative analysis of actual material and energy flows associated with the product, and second, a consistent systems perspective.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the established method for quantifying resource demand and environmental impacts of products and services from the life cycle perspective. LCA covers the production, use, waste management, and recycling stages of products and services.
Input-output analysis (IO), which is an established tool in economics, has become the default method to determine country-specific environmental footprints for land, water, materials...Multiregional IO builds upon databases that cover the entire world economy, including bilateral trade
Because of this capital stock of energy, we have been able to maintain an energy input into the system, particularly over the last two centuries, much larger than we would have been able to do with existing techniques if we had had to rely on the current input of available energy from the sun or the earth itself. This supplementary input, however, is by its very nature exhaustible.
In regard to the energy system there is, unfortunately, no escape from the grim Second Law of Thermodynamics; and if there were no energy inputs into the earth, any evolutionary or developmental process would be impossible.
The time is not very far distant, historically speaking, when man will once more have to retreat to his current energy input from the sun, even though this could be used much more effectively than in the past with increased knowledge. Up to now, certainly, we have not got very far with the technology of using current solar energy, but the possibility of substantial improvements in the future is certainly high.
In the spaceman economy, what we are primarily concerned with is stock maintenance, and any technological change which results in the maintenance of a given total stock with a lessened throughput (that is, less production and consumption) is clearly a gain. This idea that both production and consumption are bad things rather than good things is very strange to economists, who have been obsessed with the income-flow concepts to the exclusion, almost, of capital-stock concepts.
Why should we not maximize the welfare of this generation at the cost of posterity? "Après nous, le deluge" has been the motto of not insignificant numbers of human societies. The only answer to this, as far as I can see, is to point out that the welfare of the individual depends on the extent to which he can identify himself with others, and that the most satisfactory individual identity is that which identifies not only with a community in space but also with a community extending over time from the past into the future. If this kind of identity is recognized as desirable, then posterity has a voice, even if it does not have a vote; and in a sense, if its voice can influence votes, it has votes too.
Strategies for Manufacturing. Waste from one industrial process can serve as the raw materials for another, thereby reducing the impact of industry on the environment
By the year 2030, 10 billion people are likely to live on this planet; ideally, all would enjoy standards of living equivalent to those of industrial democracies such as the U.S. or Japan. If they consume critical natural resources such as copper, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel and petroleum at current U.S. rates, and if new resources are not discovered or substitutes developed, such an ideal would last a decade or less. On the waste side of the ledger, at current U.S. rates 10 billion people would generate 400 billion tons of solid waste every year enough to bury greater Los Angeles 100 meters deep.
These calculations are not meant to be forecasts of a grim future. Instead they emphasize the incentives for recycling, conservation and a switch to alternative materials. They lead to the recognition that the traditional model of industrial activity in which individual manufacturing processes take in raw materials and generate products to be sold plus waste to be disposed of should be transformed into a more integrated model: an industrial ecosystem. In such a system the consumption of energy and materials is optimized, waste generation is minimized and the effluents of one process whether they are spent catalysts from petroleum refining, fly and bottom ash from electric-power generation or discarded plastic containers from consumer products serve as the raw material for another process.
The industrial ecosystem would function as an analogue of biological ecosystems. (Plants synthesize nutrients that feed herbivores, which in turn feed a chain of carnivores whose wastes and bodies eventually feed further generations of plants.) An ideal industrial ecosystem may never be attained in practice, but both manufacturers and consumers must change their habits to approach it more closely if the industrialized world is to maintain its standard of living and the developing nations are to raise theirs to a similar level without adversely affecting the environment.
Some manufacturers are already making use of "designed offal," or "engineered scrap," in the manufacture of metals and some plastics: tailoring the production of waste from a manufacturing process so that the waste can be fed directly back into that process or into a related one. Other manufacturers are designing packaging to incorporate recycled materials wherever possible or are finding innovative uses for materials that were formerly considered wastes.
In addition to promoting innovative waste-minimization schemes, governments need to focus on the economic incentives for sustainable manufacturing. Increased landfill costs have forced companies to improve industrial processes and reduce unrecyclable waste, but many small emissions are still controlled by classic end-of-pipe regulations that specify how much of each pollutant may be discharged.
Companies must meet regulatory requirements, but there are no direct advantages for manufacturers who capture and treat low-level effluents or who shift to production processes with more benign by products. Conventional economic methods take into account only the immediate effects of production decisions. If a manufacturer produces nonrecyclable containers, for example, taxpayers at large bear the increased landfill costs; if a power plant reduces emissions that cause acid rain, communities elsewhere are likely to reap the benefits. Returns to the manufacturer or utility are generally indirect.
Economic incentives alone are not enough to make the industrial ecosystem approach commonplace. Traditional manufacturing processes are designed to maximize the immediate benefits to the manufacturer and the consumer of individual products in the economy rather than to the economy as a whole. A holistic approach will be required if the proper balance between narrowly defined economic benefits and environmental needs is to be achieved. (Broadly defined, of course, economic and environmental goals are the same: bad places to live do not make for good markets.)
The ideal ecosystem, in which the use of energy and materials is optimized, wastes and pollution are minimized and there is an economically viable role for every product of a manufacturing process, will not be attained soon. Current technology is often inadequate to the task, and some of the knowledge needed to define the problems fully is lacking. The difficulties in implementing an industrial ecosystem are daunting, especially given the complexities involved in harmonizing the desires of global industrial development with the needs of environmental safety. Nonetheless, we are optimistic.
The incentive for industry is clear: companies will be able to minimize costs and stay competitive while adhering to a rational economic approach that accounts for global costs and benefits. Equally clear are the benefits to society at large: people will have a chance to raise their visible standards of living without incurring hidden environmental penalties that degrade the quality of life in the long run. Remembering that people and their technologies are a part of the natural world may make it possible to imitate the best workings of biological ecosystems and construct artificial ones that can be sustained over the long term.
Exercise: Energy service cascade and stock-flow-service nexus
Questions and tasks: Consider three services (e.g., thermal comfort/dwelling, transportation, nutrition, ...) and address the following questions, both with a quantitative analysis and a critical discussion! Select a meaningful population scope (e.g., for a single person, a family, a city with a certain population, or an entire country).
Nutrition, Transport and Housing
1) What functions do these services require and how can they be described quantitatively?
For Nutrition : operation of appliances, cooking
For Transport: operation vehicles, vehicle energy infrastructure, traffic infrastructure
For Housing: operations such as heating, cooling, water, appliances, lighting, cooking...
2) What products and in-use stocks are needed to provide these functions in the use phase, and how can these be meaningfully quantified (e.g. m² for buildings, xyz appliances for household activities)?
Fridge: items (#) for stock, and fridge-volume-hours for individual food items | ||||||
| Kitchen machines: # for stock, machine-operating minutes for individual dishes | ||||||
Kitchen stoves: # for stock, stove-operating minutes for individual dishes
|
Comments
Post a Comment