Annik Magerholm Fet

Use of Life Cycle Assessments To Evaluate the Environmental Footprint of Contaminated Sediment Remediation

Ecological and human risks often drive the selection of remedial alternatives for contaminated sediments. Traditional human and ecological risk assessment (HERA) includes assessing risk for benthic organisms and aquatic fauna associated with exposure to contaminated sediments before and after remediation as well as risk for human exposure but does not consider the environmental footprint associated with implementing remedial alternatives. Assessment of environmental effects over the whole life cycle (i.e., Life Cycle Assessment, LCA) could complement HERA and help in selecting the most appropriate sediment management alternative. Even though LCA has been developed and applied in multiple environmental management cases, applications to contaminated sediments and marine ecosystems are in general less frequent. This paper implements LCA methodology for the case of the polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and -furans (PCDD/F)-contaminated Grenland fjord in Norway. LCA was applied to investigate the environmental footprint of different active and passive thin-layer capping alternatives as compared to natural recovery. The results showed that capping was preferable to natural recovery when analysis is limited to effects related to the site contamination. Incorporation of impacts related to the use of resources and energy during the implementation of a thin layer cap increase the environmental footprint by over 1 order of magnitude, making capping inferior to the natural recovery alternative. Use of biomass-derived activated carbon, where carbon dioxide is sequestered during the production process, reduces the overall environmental impact to that of natural recovery. The results from this study show that LCA may be a valuable tool for assessing the environmental footprint of sediment remediation projects and for sustainable sediment management.

Environmental and Socioeconomic Impacts of Utilizing Waste for Biochar in Rural Areas in Indonesia−A Systems Perspective

Biochar is the product of incomplete combustion (pyrolysis) of organic material. In rural areas, it can be used as a soil amendment to increase soil fertility. Fuel-constrained villagers may however prefer to use biochar briquettes as a higher-value fuel for cooking over applying it to soils. A systems-oriented analysis using life cycle assessment (LCA) and cost benefit analysis (CBA) was conducted to analyze these two alternative uses of biochar, applying the study to a rural village system in Indonesia. The results showed soil amendment for enhanced agricultural production to be the preferential choice with a positive benefit to the baseline scenario of -26 ecopoints (LCA) and -173 USD (CBA) annually pr. household. In this case, the positive effects of carbon sequestration to the soil and the economic value of the increased agricultural production outweighed the negative environmental impacts from biochar production and the related production costs. Use of biochar in briquettes for cooking fuel yielded negative net effects in both the LCA and CBA (85 ecopoints and 176 USD), even when positive health effects from reduced indoor air pollution were included. The main reasons for this are that emissions during biochar production are not compensated by carbon sequestration and that briquette making is labor-intensive. The results emphasize the importance of investigating and documenting the carbon storage effect and the agricultural benefit in biochar production-utilization systems for a sustainable use. Further research focus on efficient production is necessary due to the large environmental impact of biochar production. In addition, biochar should continue to be used in those soils where the agricultural effect is most beneficial.

Review of methods for sustainability appraisals in ship acquisition

Ship acquisition requires simultaneous consideration of environmental, economic, technological and social performance of candidate design solutions. During the last few decades, multi-criteria decision-making tools have gained popularity as an approach to assisting decision makers when appraising ship design. However, applications are limited to a few methods mostly within the value function class. In this review, we explore the applicability of 12 multi-criteria decision-making methods for typical decision contexts in ship acquisition. Technical and practical method properties are defined before their operational value for evaluations in ship acquisition is assessed. Our results show that a wide range of methods currently not applied offer promising properties in these contexts.

Harmonization of Documentation for EPD-Generation: The Norwegian Model

This chapter gives an overview of the different requirements that have to be fulfilled for the generation of an EPD. The Norwegian EPD Foundation (in brief EPD-Norway) is the Norwegian organization for verification and registrations of EPDs for different types of products. EPD-Norway was established in 2002 and since then 23 PCRs and more than 200 EPDs have been registered under this system. However, analyses have shown that the format of the PCRs and EPDs within the Norwegian system have differed, and compared with international systems even greater differences have been observed. To compensate for this difference EPD-Norway has put effort into a harmonization of PCR-templates, into LCA-reporting practice and to EPD-schemes. A set of underlying procedures and databases are further developed to guide companies through the process of generating EPDs. The chapter will present the results of this process and ideas for further development of the system.

Fuzzy RBF assessment on productive efficiency of environmental impacted enterprise

The enterprise development pattern at the cost of environment has been questioned constantly. In peoples opinon, the enterprise should be responsible for social and environmental responsibility, and should bring environmental impacted target into the assessment of productive efficiency. In connection, with the issue of assessment on environment impacting production efficiency, this paper divides assessment target into three levels such as input, output and emission, utilizing fuzzy theory and RBF network technology to establish the model for the assessment on the environment impacting production efficiency, and using empirical examples to make network training and assessment. Through comparing BP neural network model and DEA assessment model, it is found that the assessment method combining fuzzy theory with RBF network has obvious advantage and feasibility of fast constringency and undivergent primary simulated value.

Remanufacturing as a Sustainable Strategy in Shipbuilding Industry

Shipbuilding industry in Norway, mainly operating in the Engineer-to-order environment, is one of the most innovative in the world in terms of technology and production methods. In this paper we investigate the applicability of the concept of remanufacturing in the shipbuilding industry. The research takes a case study approach to study the topic and also presents an overview of the existing literature on remanufacturing and its benefits for businesses and environment. A five stage framework is proposed for integrating the concept of remanufacturing into the strategic decision making process in shipbuilding companies. This framework would streamline the decision making process of shipbuilding companies entering the vessel remanufacturing business.

Grey RBF Neural Network Forecasting on LV under the View of Government Responsibility

At present, the domestic research on the scale of macroscopic logistics has yet belonged to the blankness, therefore, this research tries using LV in circulation and LV in stock to measure the logistics volume and forecasting it in a long period. In order to overcome the phenomenon of “floating upward” in long-term period, this paper establish the improved Grey RBF to forecast the LV next 5-10 year in Jilin province of China. The results show that the increased circulation of goods is the main reason leading to increased logistics volume, and the simulation also shows that the improved gray RBF neural network model is a good method for the government to establish the logistics development policy.