Industrial Ecological Systems Research Articles

The Role of Innovation and Technology in Industrial Ecology Systems for the Sustainable Development of Emerging Regions

The excessive growth of industrialization and the enormous movement of economic and physical goods and resources by industrialized countries have created a social imbalance in the poorest regions and a tremendous impact on their environment and on the exhaustion of their natural resources. This situation converges into a dilemma that raises the question: “how to insert technology into the innovation chains to remedy, recycle, reuse and/or redesign industrial processes?” This study proposes a framework for harmoniously articulating the three large sub-systems (the economic, the social, and the environmental) of the natural ecosystem through a systemic model of industrial ecology supported by innovation systems and enabling technologies, capable of maintaining a synergy among all the constituents of the three subsystems, with the intention to arrive at a sustainable holistic development of the regions, mainly for developing countries.

Application of Emergy Theory in Industrial Ecosystem Analysis

Emergy analysis provides a new way of thinking about the uniform evaluation of natural resource, human society and economy, and leads to some new analysis methods for industrial ecology system. Some existing related theories are summarized and analyzed. On the basis of them, this paper proposes some methods where emergy theory can be applied to analysis of industrial ecology system.

Adaptability assessment of industrial ecological system of mining cities in Northeast China

Adaptation is a wise choice for industrial ecosystem to face up the inevitable environment changes.It also provides a new paradigm for the study of interaction mechanisms and processes of coupled industrial ecosystem.There are a lot of mining cities in Northeast China,which approach their middle-age or old-age of resources exploitation.Faced with their disappearing superior status in resources problems,the subject on how to adjust the industrial ecosystem to the possible changes in the future,has become urgent in revitalizing the old industrial base of Northeast China.Based on a detailed discussion about the conception of industrial ecosystem adaptation of mining cities,the essay establishes an industrial adaptability assessment index system and model of mining cities from the aspects of adaptation factors of vulnerability,sensitivity,stability and resilience.According to the model,the industrial ecosystem adaptability,including regional differentiation,types and influencing factors of mining cities is evaluated.From a view of different resource types,the average score of industrial ecosystem adaptation shows a trend of metallurgical citiesmulti-resources citiescoal citiespetroleum cities.From a view of regional differences,it shows a trend of LiaoningJilinHeilongjiang;from a view of development stages,it has a trend of old-agedmiddle-agedjuvenile-aged;from a view of mining city size,it shows a trend of mega-citiesbig citiesmedium-sized cities.Then a cluster analysis method is applied to categorize the industrial ecosystems into four types: high adaptability and harmonious development between industry and ecology,high adaptable capacity and environmental development first,low adaptability and harmonious development between industry and ecology,low adaptable capacity and environmental development first.

Limits of Design for Recycling and “Sustainability”: A Review

Metals and materials play a pivotal role in society as their properties impart unique functionality to engineered structures and consumer products. Metals are theoretically infinitely recyclable; however, the functionality and design of consumer product complicate recycling due to their ever more complex structures producing un-liberated low grade and complex recyclates. Metallurgical smelting ingenuity, good technology and intelligent use of thermodynamics and transfer processes gets metallurgists and recyclers a far way down the path of creating high recycling rates from a large range of primary concentrates and recyclates. However, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics teaches us the practical limits of recycling in terms of entropy creation, which is determined by the complexity of the recyclates and hence to the economics of processing/technology and metal/energy recovery. The usual simple accounting type tools do not rise to the challenge. Therefore, a key issue for the creation of “sustainable systems” and hence the minimization of waste (or in other words achieve high recycling rates) is the creation of optimal industrial ecological systems with optimally linked Best Available Techniques (BAT). This must maximize the recovery of materials from ores and recyclates within the boundaries of consumer behaviour, product design/functionality, thermodynamics, legislation, technology and economics. Examples will show how recyclate quality/grade predicted by recycling models affects entropy creation, while also reviewing various published methodologies. This paper shows that simulation models are a prerequisite to designing “sustainable” systems as these can predict recyclate grade/quality/losses/toxicity of streams, the link to entropy and economics and the realization of company ideals and mission statements in this regard. In other words, to dematerialize society requires detail input by engineers, their predictive tools and economic based design approaches to engineer a sustainable future.

Research on the Stability of Eco-Industry Chains

Eco-industrial chains construct economic activities into the resource-product-renewable feedback processes based on ecology laws, improve resource utilization, reduce emissions, and improve the quality of economic activities and environmental benefits. Trust and the good cooperation relationships between the enterprises from eco-industrial chains are the prerequisite and basis for running ecological industry systems. A trust mechanism between enterprises, an incentive and punishment system, and a legal system and industrial policies should be established to promote industrial ecology. Government should play a good role of guidance and coordination. There is a smooth linkage between the upstream and downstream of the industrial ecology chain so that “upstream supplies and downstream receives”, the stability of the industrial ecology system can be achieved.

Embedding Science in Politics: “Complex Utilization” and Industrial Ecology as Models of Natural Resource Use

Throughout the short history of industrial ecology, issues of implementation have been heavily emphasized. Less attention has been given to the ways in which the technical models of industrial ecology interact with social processes. Yet the practitioners of industrial ecology frequently encounter challenges pertaining to contextualization when embedding a general model in different local contexts. In addition, there are reasons to believe that the models of industrial ecological systems become politically meaningful only when they are carefully contextualized and linked to localized needs. In this article, we aim at a better understanding of the political embedding of industrial ecology. In order to demonstrate some general mechanisms of embedding, we first conduct a frame analysis of complex utilization—a scientific policy instrument analogous to industrial ecology, developed in the Kola Peninsula, Russia. We identify five frames in which complex utilization has been promoted between 1935 and 2005. These frames are then compared to six frames identified in the industrial symbiosis in Kalundborg, Denmark. We find that effective political embedding relies on frames that function both on a general level and in specific contexts. General frames, such as efficiency, economy, and environment, need to be aligned with localized perceptions of particular issues. What is more, sensitivity to purely context‐specific frames is necessary for effective political embedding. Finally, the political processes of framing also shape the scientific‐technical models that are being promoted.

An industrial ecology project in practice: exploring the boundaries of decision-making levels in regional industrial systems

Industrial ecology is a label under which many linkages between production and consumption processes are grouped. This article is based on a social science approach, ranging from organisational learning to the analysis of industrial districts, in reflection to the techno-economic approach of the developments in the industrial ecology projects ‘INES 1994–1997 and INES Mainport 1999–2002’ in the Rotterdam harbour and industry complex. In relation to the growing attention for regional types of industrial ecology, the article aims to provide a useful social science analytical framework for investigating regional industrial ecology, and to develop a prescriptive approach that can stimulate such industrial ecology. Regional industrial ecological systems meet with static and dynamic issues as a result of specific system boundaries of their decision-making levels. The analytical framework provides insight into these issues through a focus on three phases of (regional) industrial ecology, the production of collective goods, and governance mechanisms. We find that the INES Mainport project is still in the first phase of industrial ecology. To go beyond this phase, the Rotterdam harbour and industry region faces the limits of system boundaries of the decision-making levels within the regional management.

What can we learn from local substance flow analyses? The review of cadmium flows in Swedish municipalities

Local authorities are important actors in the transition towards sustainable development. They can play important roles for the promotion of industrial ecology systems oriented management of resources and pollutants on the local and regional level. In this context, the method of substance flow analysis (SFA) has been argued to be supportive to municipal environmental management, although, performing an SFA is often time consuming and demands a great deal of work. It may be a task hard to fulfil on a regular basis for many local authorities. A crucial issue is, then, to what extent it is possible to learn from other SFA studies? Aiming to contribute to this understanding, this paper analyses comparative results of SFA case studies of the cadmium metabolism in three structurally different municipalities in Sweden. The analyses illustrate that in addition to specific knowledge gained from a single case study, there is also general knowledge that may constitute important information for environmental decision-making in other local authorities.

Thermodynamic optimization of the life cycle of plastics by exergy analysis

Decision-makers should strive for an efficient employment of resources for the whole industrial ecological system. The metabolization of resources should be optimized in thermodynamic terms. This contribution presents an effort to use exergy analysis as a quantitative tool in the thermodynamic optimization of the life cycle of plastics. Quantitative results on overall exergetic efficiencies of different industrial metabolic options are presented. Therefore, different waste treatment options of plastics will be considered, taking into account interacting industrial activities, such as virgin plastics production and heat and electricity production starting from natural resources. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

English

Human causes of global environmental change are invariably linked to inconsistencies in the relationship between industrial activities and ecological systems (industrial ecology). The choice of fuel materials used in the energy industry is directly responsible for increases in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, resulting in the current trend of global warming.  The dependency of the agricultural industry on chemicals to sustain productivity in marginal landscapes has led to a global-scale contamination of the environment with toxic pesticides and with nutrient fertilizers that are changing the course of biogeochemical cycles.  One of the strategies proposed to mitigate climate change is to lower dependency on fossil fuels by substituting renewable biomass. This strategy has several co-benefits for human health and the environment because it supports investments in agricultural biotechnology while reducing the adverse health impacts of combustion byproducts of fossil fuels.  The strategy has limited likelihood for success if “run-away” climate change modifies the ecosystem sufficiently to impact agricultural productivity.  The development and global implementation of biotechnological approaches can contribute urgently needed solutions to problems associated with inefficiencies in the industrial ecology of agricultural and energy resources. The necessary biotechnological protocols are available, but scale-up techniques are limiting, particularly with respect to the cultivation and processing of alternative non-recalcitrant raw materials in stressful environments.   Key words:  Biotechnology, industrial ecology, energy, agriculture, biofuels, climate change, desertification, genetic engineering.

A game theory based approach for emergy analysis of industrial ecosystem under uncertainty

A well-designed and operated industrial ecological system should be able to utilize effectively the generated wastes from one member as the feed to another member. Nevertheless, due to heavy interactions among the member entities, particularly with various uncertainties, the coordinative material and energy reuse is a very complex task. In this paper, the issues of optimal operation of an industrial ecosystem under uncertainty are addressed. A game theory based approach is then introduced to derive an economically and environmentally optimal status of an industrial ecosystem. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated by tackling a case study problem, where the Nash Equilibrium for the profit payoff and sustainability payoff of the member entities is identified. The possible conflicts of the profit and sustainability objectives of the member entities in the ecosystem are resolved.

Beyond the Food Web Connections to a Deeper Industrial Ecology

SummaryIndustrial ecology is a school of thought based, in part, upon a simple analogy between industrial systems and ecological systems in terms of their material and energy flows. This article argues for a more sophisticated connection between these diverse systems based on the fact that they are all complex self‐organizing systems, operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium. As such, industrial and ecological systems have in common certain constraints and dynamic properties that move beyond the central metaphor of industrial ecology and could align these systems under a more comprehensive analytical framework. If incorporated at a fundamental level, the complex systems framework could add depth and sophistication to the field of industrial ecology.

Industrial Ecology of the Paper Industry

Industrial ecology (IE) is a biological concept applied to industrial structures. The basic concepts of IE include regional, intra-firm and product-based waste recycling systems as well as the principle of upward and downward cascading. In best current examples of regional systems, several parties are in an industrial waste re-use symbiosis. Paper industry has learned to arrange the recovery and re-use of its products on distant markets, even up to a level where indications of exceeding optimal recovery and re-use rates already exist through deteriorated fibre and product quality. Such occurrences will take place in certain legislative-economic situations. Paper industry has many cascade levels, each with their internal recovery and recycling, as well as many intra-firm, regional, and life cycle ecology structures. As an example of prospects for individual cascading routes, sludges may continue to be incinerated, but the route to landfills will be closed. The main obstacles of legislative drive toward better IE systems are in many cases existing laws and political considerations rather than economic or technical aspects. The study and practice of engineering human technology systems and related elements of natural systems should develop in such a way that they provide quality of life by actively managing the dynamics of relevant systems to reduce the risk and scale of undesirable behavior and outcomes. For the paper industry, earth systems engineering offers several development routes. One of them is the further recognition of and research on the fact that the products of the industry are returned back to the carbon cycle of the natural environment. Opportunities for modifying current earth systems may also be available for the industry, e.g. genetically modified plants for raw materials or organisms for making good quality pulp out of current raw materials. It is to be recognized that earth systems engineering may become a very controversial area, and that very diverse political pressures may determine its future usefulness to the paper industry.

Industrial ecology of the paper industry

Industrial ecology (IE) is a biological concept applied to industrial structures. The basic concepts of IE include regional, intra-firm and product-based waste recycling systems as well as the principle of upward and downward cascading. In best current examples of regional systems, several parties are in an industrial waste re-use symbiosis. Paper industry has learned to arrange the recovery and re-use of its products on distant markets, even up to a level where indications of exceeding optimal recovery and re-use rates already exist through deteriorated fibre and product quality. Such occurrences will take place in certain legislative-economic situations. Paper industry has many cascade levels, each with their internal recovery and recycling, as well as many intra-firm, regional, and life cycle ecology structures. As an example of prospects for individual cascading routes, sludges may continue to be incinerated, but the route to landfills will be closed. The main obstacles of legislative drive toward better IE systems are in many cases existing laws and political considerations rather than economic or technical aspects. The study and practice of engineering human technology systems and related elements of natural systems should develop in such a way that they provide quality of life by actively managing the dynamics of relevant systems to reduce the risk and scale of undesirable behavior and outcomes. For the paper industry, earth systems engineering offers several development routes. One of them is the further recognition of and research on the fact that the products of the industry are returned back to the carbon cycle of the natural environment. Opportunities for modifying current earth systems may also be available for the industry, e.g. genetically modified plants for raw materials or organisms for making good quality pulp out of current raw materials. It is to be recognized that earth systems engineering may become a very controversial area, and that very diverse political pressures may determine its future usefulness to the paper industry.

Industrial ecology and energy systems: a first step

This work is intended to contribute to the foundations for formalizing industrial ecology analyses of energy systems (systems for energy generation, transfer, or transformation) and to examine how the tools for performing these analyses can also enhance the field of industrial ecology in other applications. We discuss requirements for studying materials and energy cycling in industrial processes, with particular emphasis on energy generating systems, through explicit inclusion of entropy concepts in industrial ecology considerations. This perspective is intended to contribute to the theoretical basis for industrial ecology, to the development of tools for comparing the ecological (human and environmental health, and institutional) impacts of energy generating and other industrial processes, and to possible changes in engineering curricula with emphasis on design.

World Engineering Partnership, for Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is the major challenge that engineers face in the years ahead. Most nations are caught up in the critical interaction of their development with its effect on their environmental well‐being and that of neighboring countries. In the present paper, details are provided on the formation of the World Engineering Partnership for Sustainable Development (WEPSD). The new organization is focusing on the following five main issues: (1) Redirect engineering ethics and education for sustainability; (2) develop sustainable planning processes; (3) develop and apply technologies suitable for the capacity of a country; (4) advance industrial ecology and sustainable productive systems; and (5) develop and make use of information that will enable the user to consider the long‐term environmental consequences of each alternative. Preliminary planning to meet these goals is explained.

Industrial ecology: a philosophical introduction.

By analogy with natural ecosystems, an industrial ecology system, in addition to minimizing waste production in processes, would maximize the economical use of waste materials and of products at the ends of their lives as inputs to other processes and industries. This possibility can be made real only if a number of potential problems can be solved. These include the design of wastes along with the design of products and processes, the economics of such a system, the internalizing of the costs of waste disposal to the design and choice of processes and products, the effects of regulations intended for other purposes, and problems of responsibility and liability. The various stakeholders in making the effects of industry on the environment more benign will need to adopt some new behaviors if the possibility is to become real.

Modelling of industrial ecological systems for evaluation of health services

A macroscopic industrial ecological model has been developed to investigate the effects of changes in industrial structure on social well-being in general and health services in particular. The model is composed of various measures of industrial and employment structures, social and economic stocks, and environmental and pollution indicators as well as the health service sector. The model description is based on the system dynamics of these components. The simulation model was calibrated using available data of the past 60 years for the above setting in Japan. The simulation studies indicated that the gradual shift, in the industrial structure of Japan, from agriculture, light manufacture and heavy industry in the past to more emphasis on commercial and service industry in recent and coming years, would improve the level of living standards in Japan resulting in enhanced health service capability and lower death rate but with increasing adult disease rates and decreasing environmental capacity to absorb pollution in the year of 2000.

Round Table 2. Trends (Hardware and Software) in CAD

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the views of participants at the round table discussions on trends in computer aided design (CAD). Trends in CAD are to use CAD in education. Hardware costs are coming down, thereby making computer power available for many students. More flexible CAD systems are a necessity. Each university or group designs their own CAD packages. During the past 10 years, researchers have made great efforts to introduce CAD for the management of very large systems. However, as compared to automatic control systems of low order, in large-scale systems such as industrial systems, energy systems, transportation systems, socioeconomic systems, and ecological systems, it is very difficult to perform a global optimization. Such systems can only be tackled by methods of decomposition, which incidentally has a disadvantage as the simplification obtained must be paid for by loss of optimality.