Flavio Scrucca

Environmental impact of an Italian wine bottle: Carbon and water footprint assessment

The food sector represents one of the major impacting sectors from an environmental point of view and, among all the products, wine emerges as one of the most studied by the literature. Single-issue approaches are commonly used, but a more comprehensive analysis is desirable, since a single indicator does not properly track the pressure on the environment. This paper presents a combined carbon and water footprint assessment, with a cradle to grave approach, for a protected designation of origin Italian red wine, and suggests a correlation among the two indicators across the life cycle phases. A total CF equal to 1.07±0.09kgCO2eq/bottle and a total WF equal to 580±30l/bottle were calculated for the studied product and a direct proportionality was found between the total CF and the sum of WFgrey(indirect) and WFblue.

Comparative life cycle assessment of an innovative CSP air-cooled system and conventional condensers

PurposeIn this paper, a first prototype of the innovative modular air-cooled condenser (MACC) proposed under the EU-funded MACCSol research project (Development and verification of a novel modular air cooled condenser for enhanced concentrated solar power generation) is compared with a water-cooled condenser (WCC) and an air-cooled condenser (ACC) in a reference concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. The aim is to evaluate the complete environmental profile of each cooling option and to highlight the differences in terms of impacts.MethodsThe life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is being used in order to evaluate the life cycle impacts of the three condensers. Firstly, the life cycle impacts are evaluated through the most used methods International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 and Ecoindicator 99, using the SimaPro 7.3 software. Secondly, the Ecological Scarcity 2006 approach is used, since it takes into account the main issue of CSP plants: freshwater consumption.Results and discussionResults show that the impact of the MACC is comparable with the ACC one and, in particular, it results quite lower according to all the methods used. Evaluating the severity of local impact through the Ecological Scarcity 2006 method, since the site of operation of the condensers is characterized by medium water stress conditions, the WCC is the cooling option with the highest impact. The best cooling solution, instead, is represented by the MACC: its impact, in fact, results halved compared to WCC. The impact of MACC results significantly affected by the transport activity; therefore, the choice of the transport modes represents a key issue to optimize its life cycle impact.ConclusionsThe LCA analysis carried out definitely shows that the MACC condenser represents a valid alternative to the conventional cooling solutions in regions suitable for CSP plants. In particular, the environmental benefits achievable with the MACC result more evident with the increase of the direct normal irradiance (DNI). The transport activity planning resulted a key issue to further optimize the MACC life cycle impact.

Bio-based and recycled-waste materials in buildings: A study of energy performance of hemp-lime concrete and recycled-polyethylene terephthalate façades for office facilities in France and Italy

Global environmental issues are arising over the developed and developing world. Improving energy efficiency and reducing Green Gases emissions become the key issues in all the economic sectors and, in particular, the building sector that is one of the most energy-consuming. It is, therefore, important to find alternative building materials with low-environmental impact contributing to global sustainability. In that context, this study reports on the performance of sustainable materials produced from natural resources as hemp-concrete or from recycled-waste nonbiodegradable materials including recycled polyethylene terephthalate. Three façades employing three different materials (hemp-concrete, hemp-concrete with brick and recycled polyethylene terephthalate) were investigated in three cities in France (Nancy and Carpentras) and Italy (Perugia) with different climate. The energy performance of each façade was assessed in terms of cooling and heating demands, electrical consumption for a constant flow rate ventilation mode, considering different orientations. The study also shows the effect of window size (10%, 25%, and 40%) on the annual energy consumption.