Michael Narodoslawsky

The Sustainable Process Index a new dimension in ecological evaluation

Abstract The Sustainable Process Index (SPI) is a measure developed to evaluate the viability of processes under sustainable economic conditions. Its advantages are its universal applicability, its scientific basis, the possibility of adoption in process analyses and syntheses, the high sensitivity for sustainable qualities, and the capability of aggregation to one measure. It has proved to be useful in industrial strategic planning. The concept of the SPI is based on the assumption that in a truly sustainable society the basis of economy is the sustainable flow of solar exergy. The conversion of the solar exergy to services needs area. Thus, area becomes the limiting factor of a sustainable economy. The SPI evaluates the areas needed to provide the raw materials and energy demands and to accommodate by-product flows from a process in a sustainable way. It relates these areas to the area available to a citizen in a given geographical (from regional to global) context. The data necessary to calculate the SPI are usually known at an early stage in process development. The result of the computation is the ratio between the area needed to supply a citizen with a given service and the area needed to supply a citizen with all possible services. Thus, it is a measure of the expense of this service in an economy oriented towards sustainability.

What environmental pressures are a region's industries responsible for? A method of analysis with descriptive indices and input–output models

Abstract A method to analyse the ecological sustainability of a regional economy is presented. It uses input–output models for evaluation of the region together with descriptive indices of the environmental pressures caused by the region. Environmental pressures considered are those that can be described as material flows from the anthroposphere to the ecosphere. The dissipation area index is introduced as a tool for an aggregated evaluation of these flows. The index evaluates the flows of different substances based on reference systems of the natural environment. In order to allow a clear and consistent evaluation with these instruments, a typology of a regions responsibility for environmental pressures is proposed. It distinguishes responsibility for direct and indirect environmental pressures and for environmental pressures inside and outside the boundaries of the region. The implications of various principles of regional responsibility are discussed. A case study of a small Austrian region illustrates the application of the methodology.

From waste to raw material—the route from biomass to wood ash for cadmium and other heavy metals

Abstract Energetic utilization of biomass is considered an environmentally safe way of providing energy, especially for process heat and district- heating purposes. The main advantage of energy from biomass is the CO2-neutrality of this energy-production process. However, this process produces a solid by-products, namely ash, that has to be considered. This ash contains nutrients like calcium, potassium and phosphorus that should be recycled to forest or agricultural soils, thus closing not only the carbon cycle but also the fluxes of mineral materials caused by these technologies. The problem is, however, that besides nutrients, the ash also contains heavy metals. Cadmium poses a special risk to the use of wood ash in agriculture. It pollutes a large fraction of the ash generated in a biomass combustion plant, namely the cyclone fly-ash and, to an even higher degree, the filter fly-ash or (where flue gas condensation is installed) the condensation sludge. A medium-term solution to the recycling of solid residues from biomass combustion is blending cyclone fly-ash and bottom ash and using the mixture in agriculture. Although a large part of nutrients might be recycled in this manner, care has to be taken of the relatively high amount of cadmium in this material. A new technology currently under development takes advantage of the different temperatures in a biomass combustion plant. This technology enables concentration of cadmium (and other volatile heavy metals) in a very small portion of the whole ash flux from a plant and the concentrations of environmentally relevant substances in the remainder of the ash is kept low. In this manner, wood ash from the process industry or district heating systems might be transformed from waste to raw material for agricultural use.

The sustainable process index (SPI): evaluating processes according to environmental compatibility

Abstract Process industry needs a strategic measure that takes environmental considerations into account as a base for decisions on future projects. Emission standards alone are not sufficient for this purpose. They are based on our knowledge of the environmental risk of substances which is fragmentary and inconclusive. On top of that emission standards are susceptible to changes in societal risk assessment. Both factors are chaning rapidly undermining the usefulness of these standards for strategic planning. The SPI is based on an operationalized form of the principle of sustainability. It uses only process data known at an early stage of planning and data of natural concentrations of substances (not on their presumable impact which is usually not known). The core of the SPI evaluation is the calculation of the area needed to embed a process completely into the biosphere. Low SPI values indicate processes that are competitive under sustainable conditions and that are environmentally compatible in the long-term view.

Process optimization for efficient biomediated PHA production from animal-based waste streams.

Conventional polymers are made of crude oil components through chemical polymerization. The aim of the project ANIMPOL is to produce biopolymers by converting lipids into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) in a novel process scheme to reduce dependence on crude oil and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. PHA constitutes a group of biobased and biodegradable polyesters that may substitute fossil-based polymers in a wide range of applications. Waste streams from slaughtering cattle are used as substrate material. Lipids from rendering are used in this process scheme for biodiesel production. Slaughtering waste streams may also be hydrolyzed to achieve higher lipid yield. Biodiesel then is separated into a high- and low-quality fraction. High-quality biodiesel meets requirements for sale as fuel and low quality is used for PHA production as carbon source. Selected offal material is used for acid hydrolysis and serves as a source of organic nitrogen as well as carbon source for PHA-free biomass with high production rate in fermentation process. Nitrogen is a limiting factor to control PHA production during the fermentation process. It is available for bacterial growth from hydrolyzed waste streams as well as added separately as NH4OH solution. Selected microbial strains are used to produce PHA from this substrate. The focus of the paper is about an overview of the whole process with the main focus on hydrolysis, to look for the possibility of using offal hydrolysis as an organic nitrogen substitute. The process design is optimized by minimizing waste streams and energy losses through cleaner production. Ecological evaluation of the process design will be done through footprint calculation according to Sustainable Process Index methodology.

What can we learn from ecological valuation of processes with the sustainable process index (SPI) — the case study of energy production systems

The Sustainable Process Index is an ecological evaluation system specially developed for the requirements of process engineering. It allows reliable as well as convenient and quick valuation of processes on the base of data available to a process engineer even in the early stages of planning. The paper will discuss the application of this index in practical examples of interest to many process engineers. Energy systems are of great importance for almost any process, as they cause a considerable part of investment, as well as operating costs. From the ecological point of view, they may be even more influential as they cause direct emissions (e.g. SO2, NOx) as well as contributions to global ecological problems, most prominently global warming. The right decision about energy systems within a process therefore is of considerable importance for any process engineer. A comparison of different energy systems with the SPI will reveal the most important ecological features of energy systems using different conversion technologies as well as different raw materials and energy sources. The various pressures exerted by these systems on the environment will be discussed. However, the most important information derived from a valuation with the SPI is the relative size of these pressures. This bases the decision about the right energy system on an equal footing for all technological contenders. It allows also the setting of engineering and optimisation priorities.

Planning for Local and Regional Energy Strategies with the Ecological Footprint

Ecological footprinting is widely accepted as a tool for environmental education and public awareness raising. However, it is often argued that ecological footprints do not allow shaping of policies and programmes. Therefore, several methodological improvements have been made, for instance, in the energy sector, or similar approaches have been introduced which claim that ecological footprinting has been developed as a tool for decision-making. The aim of this paper is to identify the role of ecological footprinting in bottom-up decision-making for energy supplies on the local and regional level analysing a regional case study. From this analysis, it results that apart from awareness raising and public involvement in the starting phase of such a process, ecological footprints can be used as a tool for appraising environmental impacts of existing energy systems and for a pre-assessment of environmental impacts of visions and strategies in the energy sector in an early stage of the planning process.

Book review on The Geopolitics of Energy

Book details Favennec, JP The Geopolitics of Energy Paris: Editions Technip; 2011 312 pages, ISBN 978-2-7108-0970-8 Energy permeates all aspects of the economy. Prices and availability of energy in its different forms are major factors that structure the economy as well as the way of life of societies. Therefore, energy is an important issue of geopolitics, creating dependencies and conflicts between nations and increasingly becoming a topic in the international political arena. In his book, The Geopolitics of Energy, Jean-Pierre Favennec provides a comprehensive overview of the different strategic aspects of energy, energy markets and the development of energy issues in light of geopolitics. The book explains the ascent of energy as an ever more important political and strategic factor from a historical point of market development as well as the development and motivation of key actors in the field of energy, from governments to national and international companies as well as supra-national players such as OPEC. Besides these general insights into the role and function of major stakeholders in the global energy system, the book offers a detailed view on the political dimension of energy in different global regions. Jean-Pierre Favennec’s book captivates the reader with its richness in profound knowledge about the strategic role of energy in today’s global political system. It also provides a treasure of interesting data about energy, the energy markets, the energy supply security and the flow of energy in the global economy. In particular, the book provides a very detailed view of the energy systems within global regions with regard to the stakeholders, their mutual dependency, their role and political weight as well as the challenges and chances that these regions face in the future. It is this part of the book that provides

Regional Optimizer (RegiOpt) – Sustainable energy technology network solutions for regions

Abstract Developing energy strategies for the future is an important strategic task for regions and municipalities. Renewable based technologies and decentralized energy supply based on regional resources have the potential to locally and regionally increase added value, provide new jobs, decrease the dependency on limited fossil resources as well as on external energy providers and may have a positive impact on ecological stability. Regional Optimizer (RegiOpt) software tool is based on the concept of Process Network Synthesis (PNS) (Friedler et. al, 1995 and Halasz et. al, 2005) and of the Sustainable Process Index (SPI) (Kotscheck et. al., 1996 and Sandholzer et. al., 2005). Both methodologies are combined in RegiOpt to enable the user to create economically optimal sustainable energy technology networks and at the same time evaluate them with respect to environmental sustainability. Inputs to the software are (renewable) resources (e.g. amount of crops available for energetic use, biowaste, waste heat, etc.) and regional energy demand profiles. Both resource provision and energy demand can be provided in time dependent form. On top of that the user may supply contextual information like costs and prices of particular resources and services. Result of the calculation with RegiOpt is the economically optimized technology network that fulfils the energy needs defined by the user and renders the highest regional added value. RegiOpt also provides the ecological footprint according to the SPI methodology. The user is able to calculate different scenarios based on different input data. RegiOpt software tool will be provided in two versions. Web based “Conceptual Planner” as a simple analysis for regional stakeholders and an “Advanced Designer” for a more detailed technology network scenario generation meant for expert use.

LCA of PHA Production – Identifying the Ecological Potential of Bio-plastic

The issue of environmental performance of bio-plastics has attracted a large number of researchers over the last two decades. This is a natural result of the fact that bio-plastics have an intrinsic economic disadvantage compared to fossil-based polymers due to higher raw material costs, production processes still in relatively early stages of technical development, and smaller production units, giving fossil competitors the advantage of the economy of scale. Market introduction of bio-polymers therefore requires advantages in other fields to compensate for this, and as long as fossil resources are still available at reasonable prices, ecological performance is a logical argument for bio-polymers in general. A thorough review of the numerous publications that evaluate the ecological performance of bio-polymers from the PHA family, often in comparison to fossil competitors, is out of the scope of this paper. Already, there is a number of meta-studies about LCA publications on PHA production, which will form the backbone of arguments in this paper regarding the discourse about ecological performance of PHA. More than just giving an overview on all these publications, the intent of this contribution is to provide the reader with background information on how to find a pathway through the controversial results of such studies. In addition, the paper will analyse the most important aspects of the PHA life cycle.