Large Emission Reductions Research Articles

Environmental impact assessment of China's primary aluminum based on life cycle assessment

Abstract Assessing and accounting for material consumption and environmental impact are necessary to measure environmental externalities of the aluminum industry and to construct an ecological civilization. In this research, life cycle assessment (LCA) theory was used to assess the environmental impact of primary aluminum based on the lime soda Bayer process and different power generation modes, and the sources and distributions of the four selected impact categories were analyzed. The results show that, (1) Negative environmental impact of aluminum industry generally occurs from alumina extraction, carbon anode fabrication and electrolysis, particularly electrolysis and alumina extraction. Primary energy demand (PED), water use (WU), global warming potential (GWP) and freshwater eutrophication potential (FEP) are main environmental impact categories. (2) The environmental load with thermal power is higher than that with hydropower, e.g., for the former, the greenhouse gas emission coefficient of 21800 kg CO2 eq/t (Al) will be generated, while for the latter, 4910 kg CO2 eq/t (Al) will be generated. (3) Both power mode methods reflect the energy structure, whereas direct emissions reflect the technical level, indicating the potential for large energy savings and emission reductions, and some policies, related to clean power, energy efficiency and technological progress, should be made for emission reduction.

Life Cycle Assessment of Straw Solid Particle Molding Fuel Manufacturing Process

Taking a 500,000 t/a straw briquette fuel plant in Baoding area of Hebei Province as an example, this paper establishes a life cycle energy consumption and environmental emission analysis model of straw solid fuel. Based on this model, the energy saving and greenhouse gas emission reduction potential of straw solid particles as typical briquette fuels are quantitatively analyzed. Secondly, the life cycle energy consumption and environmental emissions are analyzed. Finally, from the point of view of energy consumption and environmental emissions, the potential value of environmental impact is calculated by standardization and sensitivity analysis is carried out. The results show that the energy consumption of straw granulation stage (compression molding stage) accounts for the largest proportion in the solid particle manufacturing life cycle, reaching 32.30%. Compared with fossil fuels, solid particles have a large emission reduction advantage, which provides basic data for the utilization of straw solid granular forming fuel.

Environmental Assessment of an Urban Vertical Hydroponic Farming System in Sweden

With an expanding population and changing dynamics in global food markets, it is important to find solutions for more resilient food production methods closer to urban environments. Recently, vertical farming systems have emerged as a potential solution for urban farming. However, although there is an increasing body of literature reviewing the potential of urban and vertical farming systems, only a limited number of studies have reviewed the sustainability of these systems. The aim of this article was to understand the environmental impacts of vertical hydroponic farming in urban environments applied to a case study vertical hydroponic farm in Stockholm, Sweden. This was carried out by evaluating environmental performance using a life cycle perspective to assess the environmental impacts and comparing to potential scenarios for improvement options. The results suggest that important aspects for the vertical hydroponic system include the growing medium, pots, electricity demand, the transportation of raw materials and product deliveries. By replacing plastic pots with paper pots, large reductions in GHG emissions, acidification impacts, and abiotic resource depletion are possible. Replacing conventional gardening soil as the growing medium with coir also leads to large environmental impact reductions. However, in order to further reduce the impacts from the system, more resource-efficient steps will be needed to improve impacts from electricity demand, and there is potential to develop more symbiotic exchanges to employ urban wastes and by-products.

Decarbonizing Space and Water Heating in Temperate Climates: The Case for Electrification

In order to meet ambitious carbon reduction goals, direct combustion of fossil fuels in homes will need to largely cease. The largest portion of this reduction will likely come from energy efficiency, but efficiency alone will not be sufficient. In this paper we look specifically at California and build the case for why energy efficiency with electrification of heating is the most likely path to achieve the large carbon emission reduction needed from this sector. We examine alternative decarbonization strategies, such as solar thermal, biogas, synthetic natural gas and electrification and show why electrification is the most promising path. We evaluate these options across the dimensions of scale, cost, and suitability. We find that, while electrification has the potential to serve all heating loads, the other low-carbon options may serve only 2–70% of loads. We also expect that electrification could reduce emissions from this sector at a cost 25–90+% less than other options.

Micrometeorological Methods for Measuring Methane Emission Reduction at Beef Cattle Feedlots: Evaluation of 3-Nitrooxypropanol Feed Additive.

It is highly desirable to test agricultural emission mitigation strategies in a whole-farm environment to ensure that all aspects of management and production operations are included. However, the large spatial scale of commercial operations makes the dual measurements of control and treatment(s) difficult. We evaluated the application of two micrometeorological methods, a novel concentration ratio method and an inverse dispersion method, where both were used to measure methane (CH) emission reductions in cattle fed the compound 3-nitrooxypropanol compared with cattle fed just the basal diet. In total, there were 1344 cattle used that were located in six pens (∼222 animals per pen). Three adjacent pens to the east and three to the west were designated as the treatment and control blocks, respectively. Underlying the emission reduction method was the assumption of site symmetry between the treatment and control pen blocks in the feedlot. There was, on average, a large CH emission reduction of ∼70% (±18%) due to the additive as found by both micrometeorological methods. Both methods also show a change in the diel distribution (peak emissions after initial morning feeding) and seasonal pattern (a decrease in emission reduction of 7.5 and 26.1% over 90 d). The simplicity of the developed concentration ratio method is expected to have applications for evaluating other mitigation strategies at large commercial scales (e.g., the application of manure additives to pens to reduce odors and ammonia emissions).

The impacts of China's provincial energy policies on major air pollutants: A spatial econometric analysis

The production and consumption of energy is the predominant source of air pollution worldwide. Thus, governmental energy control policies may lead to large reductions in air pollutant emissions. Energy policies can be broadly categorized into two types based on their policy goals. First are emission reduction policies, identified as throttling measures, which aim to reduce emissions from the source; second are renewable energy policies, which are dedicated to the development and promotion of renewable energy. This paper employs a spatial econometric method to empirically test the effects of these two types of energy policies on China's emissions of major air pollutants, namely PM10, PM2.5, and SO2, using panel data from 27 provinces and four direct-controlled municipalities over the period from 2003 to 2016. The results offer evidence that provincial emission reduction policies have positive impacts on reduction of PM10, whereas provincial renewable energy policies have positive impacts on the reduction of SO2 and PM2.5. The results also show that energy policies in one province can influence emissions of pollutants in neighbouring provinces due to policy spillover effects. Several policy implications are made based on the research findings.

Multi-regional power generation expansion planning with air pollutants emission constraints

Air pollution has become a severe problem in the world. The power sector accounts for a large percentage of air pollutants emissions and has large emission reduction potential due to its centralized emissions. In order to find a cost-effective development pathway for the power sector to realize emission reduction, a multi-regional power generation expansion planning model is proposed in this paper and China is used for a case study. The model integrates air pollutants emission constraints, multi-regional interconnected power system and hourly power scheduling. Detailed regional characteristics and Ultra-High-Voltage (UHV) power transmission lines among regions in China are included whilst the power scheduling process is incorporated on an hourly basis. The scenario analysis shows that existing actions including the planned long-distance UHV power transmission lines and the corresponding coal plants groups in resource-rich regions would significantly help to reduce emissions in load-centered regions and realize the national emission reduction target. However, building coal plants groups in resource-rich regions for power exports turns out to be pollution transfer and cause their emissions to exceed local environmental carrying capacity. Regional power generation expansion planning incorporating regional environmental carrying capacity constraints presents a solution to this problem of unbalanced regional emission reduction. The result shows that substituting 68.4 GW of planned coal plants with renewable energy power plants in resource-rich regions for power exports could control the emissions in all regions to lower than local environmental carrying capacity.

An Integrated Assessment of the Environmental and Economic Impact of Offshore Oil Platform Electrification

Electrification of offshore oil and gas installations on the Norwegian continental shelf is one of several options to decrease the CO2 emitted from these installations. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding how the increased electricity consumption will influence the CO2 emissions in the power market, both in the short-run and in the long-run. This paper aims to address the issue and investigate the feasibility of the electrification of a large offshore area in the North Sea in comparison to standard concepts to supply energy offshore. A novel integrated model was developed for the purpose that includes and combines a process model of the offshore power generation units and a model of the European power system. The integration of the two models allows to simultaneously simulate the behavior of the offshore energy conversion systems and the effect of electrification on the onshore power system. The outcomes of the analysis show that the environmental performance of electrification is strongly affected by the selected approach to quantify the CO2 emissions associated with power from shore. Taking standard methods to supply offshore energy as basis for comparison, the marginal effect of electrification would result in increased CO2 emissions (+40%), while the average effect would entail large reductions in CO2 emissions (−48% to −90%), the extent of which depends on the geographical scope selected. An analysis on the economics of electrification indicates that its economic viability would be challenging and would not be favoured by a strong European commitment towards environmental policies since the expected increase of power price will outbalance the gains for the reduced emission costs.

Emission influences on air pollutant concentrations in New York State: I. ozone

Abstract Relationships between regional air pollutant emissions and ambient concentration trends in New York State are studied. Large (∼50–85%) reductions in anthropogenic emissions occurred in the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada between 1995 and 2015. Spatially and temporally aggregated ambient concentrations of O3 precursors declined steadily along with emission reductions: multi-site mean annual nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and toluene concentrations tracked state and regional emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx, NO + NO2), CO, and volatile organic compounds (VOC), respectively (r2 = 0.97, 0.88, and 0.73), showing linear responses of average O3 precursor concentrations to both state and regional emission reductions. O3 exhibited complex spatial and temporal variations, indicating that O3 was influenced not only by the steady decline of regional emissions but also by subregional emission changes, chemical and physical processes, and day-specific variations in emissions and weather. The statewide multi-site mean annual 4th-highest daily 8-h O3 peak declined at the rate of 0.86 ± 0.14 ppbv y−1 (1.1% y−1). Influences on peak daily 8-h O3 were studied using a long-term data record from a research site at Pinnacle State Park (PSP), located near Addison, New York. A generalized additive model (GAM) was applied to separate the influences of local and regional emission changes, weather, and other factors. GAM results indicate that the reduction of summer O3 peak values and the overall trends in O3 at PSP were due to changes in ambient pollutant levels, rather than to trends in temperature or other meteorological factors. Whereas PSP summer O3 was NOx-sensitive, O3 was often VOC-sensitive during winter and spring days. The frequency of VOC-sensitive days decreased between 2001 – 2005 and 2012–2016, consistent with an expectation of increasing NOx sensitivity as ambient NOx concentrations decline.

The impact of environmental protection tax on sectoral and spatial distribution of air pollution emissions in China

Environmental problems, associated with climate change and air pollution, have become increasingly serious for China in recent years, which have aroused great domestic and international concerns. To mitigate these problems with great efforts, the Chinese government has implemented the Environmental Protection Tax Law in the whole country since the beginning of 2018. Although the new tax law is perceived as an aggressive policy that tends to establish a taxation system for promoting air pollution control, evaluations of its effectiveness are insufficient and urgently needed for China. Using a multiregion multisector Computable General Equilibrium model, we, for the first time, quantify the impacts of this ‘pollution tax’ policy on modulating air pollutants emissions. Our analysis shows that current tax policy is generally able to reduce many short-lived air pollutants emissions (e.g. SO2, NOX, TSP, PM10, PM2.5, CO, VOCs, OC, NH3 and BC), but the significant effects only happen in regions with large economic scale (i.e. Guangdong, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces) and in sectors with high emission intensity (i.e. the electric power and nonmetal manufacturing sectors). However, at the national level, the overall effect of the current policy on air pollution mitigation is relatively small, less than 2% compared to a business-as-usual scenario. Large emission reduction potentials exist if the tax increases. Therefore, a more ambitious tax policy is urgently needed in order to achieve China’s air pollution mitigation target of 2020. We also find that in China for implementing any pollution tax policies, the rate of decline in CO2 emissions is much larger than those of short-lived pollutants, which indicates a huge co-benefit on global climate change mitigation.

A study on the optimal path of methane emissions reductions in a municipal solid waste landfill treatment based on the IPCC-SD model

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the methane emission reduction technology and reduction potentials from MSW. Based on calculate the methane emissions at multiple scales to analyse the dynamic change in the spatial distribution from 2001 to 2015, and this study simulates the trends of methane emissions in Chinese Cities from 2015 to 2050 by coupling the IPCC method with the SD model. The results indicate that the methane emissions in each region had been growing steadily from 2001 to 2015. After the adoption of methane emission reduction technology, the methane emissions have decreasing trend, and the peak value will show up mainly from 2026 to 2029. The methane emissions of each province under different single and comprehensive technical scenarios less are 0–60 Gg and 110–150 Gg than that in the standard scenario. The CO scenario has the largest emission reduction in single emission reduction technology scenario, and can reach 600.11 Gg in 2050; The F stages FER scenario has the largest emission reduction in comprehensive emission reduction technology scenario, and can reach 2020.9 Gg in 2050. However, Comprehensive consideration the emission reduction potential and emission reduction cost, the SER at BE technology can be regarded as the optimal emission reduction technology. The technology scenario for emission reduction and data collected in this study can help reduce methane emission from MSW landfill, which supports decision-making regarding the cyclic utilization of MSW and mitigation the impact of waste on climate change.

Recovery of acidified Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, lakes: a multi-decade synthesis and update

The Sudbury region of northeastern Ontario, Canada, provides one of the world’s best examples of the resilience of aquatic ecosystems after reductions in atmospheric contaminant deposition. Thousands of lakes around the Sudbury metal smelters were badly damaged by acid deposition. Lakes closest to the smelters were also contaminated by metal particulates. However, large reductions in atmospheric SO2and metal emissions starting in the early 1970s have led to widespread chemical improvements in these lakes, and recovery has been observed for various aquatic biota. Studies of Sudbury-area lakes are advancing our understanding of chemical and biological lake recovery; however, recovery is a complicated process and much remains to be learned. Biological recovery has often been slow to follow chemical recovery, and it has become apparent that the recovery of lakes from acidification is closely linked to interactions with other large-scale environmental stressors like climate change and Ca declines. Thus, in our multiple-stressor world, recovery may not bring individual lakes back to their exact former state. However, with time, substantial natural biological recovery toward typical lake communities can be reasonably expected for most but not necessarily all biota. For organisms with limited dispersal ability, particularly fish, human assistance may be necessary to re-establish typical communities. In lakes where food webs have been severely altered, re-establishment of typical diverse fish communities may in fact be an important element aiding the recovery of other important components of aquatic ecosystems including zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrates. In the lakes closest to the smelters, where historically watersheds as well as lakes were severely damaged, the recovery of aquatic systems will be closely linked to ongoing terrestrial recovery and rehabilitation, particularly through the benefits of increased inputs of terrestrially derived organic matter. The dramatic lake recovery observed in the Sudbury area points to a brighter future for these lakes. However, continued monitoring will be needed to determine future changes and help guide the management and protection of Sudbury-area lakes in this multiple-stressor age.

Greenhouse Gas Emission Analysis of Biomass Moving-bed Pyrolytic Polygeneration Systems based on Aspen Plus and Hybrid LCA in China

Under the existing scenario of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction technologies, it is difficult to make the global temperature rise within 2°C in 2100. Thus, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology, as one of primary negative carbon emission methods, is urgent to deploy. In order to correctly recognize the development potential of bio-energy, the biomass pyrolytic polygeneration system, as the second novel bio-energy technology, should be carefully investigated in terms of GHG emission intensity and GHG emission reduction firstly. In this study, the material and energy flow in the process was carefully studied, and its environmental benefits was further researched. Based on the biomass pyrolysis mechanism and components pyrolysis property, the model of biomass pyrolytic polygeneration system was built on the Aspen Plus simulator, which is used to make an analysis of the life cycle greenhouse gas emission reduction. Results indicated that the agriculture process as the largest contributor to total GHG emissions with 86.03% of the total plant GHG emissions. In the entire pyrolysis temperature range, the intensity of GHG emissions from moving bed pyrolytic polygeneration system is from 4.15 to 6.12 g CO2-eq/MJ. Compared with other pyrolysis products, bio-char has a greater impact on the GHG emission reduction benefits of pyrolytic system. For the same system capacity, the system has the largest emissions reduction at a reaction temperature of 250°C, where also the bio-char yields is largest. If all of the bio-char returns to the field, the system can lead to negative carbon emission, which is 22 times larger than the system GHG emission when pyrolysis temperature is 250°C.

Can Biofuels Help Provide Clean Propulsion for Shipping, Now and in the Future?

E4tech conducted an important study (in 2018) for the Dutch Biofuels Platform and the Port of Rotterdam, as part of the development of a roadmap for decarbonising shipping in the Netherlands. In particular, biofuels can provide large reductions in GHG and non-GHG emissions, with a range of solutions for decarbonisation in the short and longer term. They offer greater decarbonisation potential compared to fossil alternatives aimed at tackling air quality emissions (e.g. LNG). The biofuels analysed were hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO – including from waste oils and fats), Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), straight vegetable oil (SVO), ethanol (both conventional and advanced production processes), bio-methanol, bio-LNG, Fischer-Tropsch diesel (FT-diesel) and Upgraded Pyrolysis Oil (UPO). The study determined the most attractive biofuel options based on criteria such as GHG reduction potential, readiness of production, cost and compatibility with the current vessel fleet in each shipping sub-sector: deep-sea, short-sea and inland shipping. It also provided recommendation on coordinated interventions from the range of actors in shipping industry that can support the uptake of biofuels, overcoming a range of technical, economic and operational barriers to their use.

The Role of Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (Ccs) in Emission Mitigation

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is an important option in the portfolio of emission mitigation technologies in scenarios that lead to deep reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions consistent with limiting increases in global average surface air temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (2C). Industrial CCS applications are more challenging to analyze than CCS in the power sector -- mainly due to the vast heterogeneity in industrial and fuel processes. Our study focuses on the cement industry and provides the estimated costs associated with several CCS options: coal-fired post-combustion capture (PCC), natural gas-fired PCC, and Cryogenic Carbon Capture (CCC). We explore regional cost estimates with variations in costs of capital and fuels to provide a basis for regional and global projections of industrial CCS deployment. We offer a methodology for incorporating the CCS cost information into energy-economic and integrated assessment models. Our methodology can be applied to other applications of CCS in the industrial sector. We illustrate our method by introducing the industrial CCS options into the MIT EPPA model, a global energy-economic model that provides a basis for the analysis of long-term energy deployment, and we discuss different scenarios for industrial CCS deployment in different parts of the world. We tested in the EPPA model the potential for industrial CCS under the assumptions that CCS is the only mitigation option for deep GHG emission reduction in industry and that negative emission options are not available for other sectors of the economy. Overall, industrial CCS enables the continued use of energy-intensive goods with large reductions in global and sectoral emissions. We find that in scenarios with stringent climate policy, CCS in the industry sector is a key mitigation option, and our approach provides a path to projecting the deployment of industrial CCS across industries and regions.

How nonlinear control can enhance the automobile efficiency and reduce harmful emissions: China case study

China transport energy consumption grows greatly along with dramatically escalated carbon dioxide emissions. Saving energy in transportation is requested for both reducing energy pressure intensity and decreasing relevant emissions. Large scale energy conservation and emission reduction are Chinese automotive industrys’ fundamental objectives. This paper addresses a nonlinear hybrid fuzzy based proportional integral derivative (PID) control methodology to reduce the automobile fuel over-consumption and gases over-emission. After introducing the mathematical model of the automobile Pierburg mechatronic actuator of nonlinear character with parameter uncertainties, its angular displacement is controlled via the proposed PID-fuzzy logic control (FLC) approach. The outputs of the PID controller are the entries of the series-connected FLC. The hybrid topology merges the simplicity and robustness advantages of both the classical PID and the FLC methods respectively. The feedback controller, based on FLC technique, is designed to desirably maintain the angular displacement towards their desired reference values with possible least steady state errors. The proper steady state error elimination will lead to considerable gas emission reduction together with improved energy efficiency. Through Matlab/Simulink tools, the numerical simulations significantly illustrate that the hybrid PID-FLC technique can contribute efficiently in ameliorating the system dynamic behavior in presence of parameter uncertainties. The overall system behavioral analysis enhancement and the proposed controller robustness are experimentally validated.

Allocation of carbon emission quotas in Chinese provinces based on equality and efficiency principles

The allocation of carbon emission quotas is crucial to the establishment of carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) in response to China's 2030 emission reduction target. Thus, based on equality and efficiency principles, we apply a methodology combining DEA models with entropy method to analyze China's carbon quota allocation from both provincial and regional perspectives. We integrate three indicators (total population, accumulated historical carbon emissions and emission efficiency) to construct a comprehensive indicator and use the integrated weighting approach to simulate the allocation of carbon emission quotas among China's 30 provinces. Different from previous studies, we use the non-radial directional distance function based on Kuosmanen technology to calculate emission efficiency. Also, we introduce an environmental Gini coefficient to evaluate the equality level of allocation results. Our main findings are as follows: (1) In 2030, provinces with large shares of carbon emission quotas are mainly located in China's southern region (e.g. Guangdong), while most northern provinces have small shares of carbon emission quotas (e.g. Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia). (2) Due to low emission efficiency, the emission quota shares of Hebei, Xinjiang, Shandong and Inner Mongolia decrease significantly during 2015–2030, indicating that these provinces will face greater pressure to reduce carbon emissions in the future. (3) The environmental Gini coefficient is 0.3177, which proves the equality of allocation results. (4) From the regional perspective, due to the low emission efficiency and large historical emissions, the carbon quota shares of the Middle Yellow River and Northern coastal regions decrease significantly during 2015–2030. This indicates that the two regions will need to purchase emission quotas from other regions in the future. Based on the results above, provinces and regions which undertake large emission reduction obligations need to further improve emission efficiency such that the 2030 emission reduction target can be realized.

Impact of London's low emission zone on air quality and children's respiratory health: a sequential annual cross-sectional study

SummaryBackgroundLow emission zones (LEZ) are an increasingly common, but unevaluated, intervention aimed at improving urban air quality and public health. We investigated the impact of London's LEZ on air quality and children's respiratory health.MethodsWe did a sequential annual cross-sectional study of 2164 children aged 8–9 years attending primary schools between 2009–10 and 2013–14 in central London, UK, following the introduction of London's LEZ in February, 2008. We examined the association between modelled pollutant exposures of nitrogen oxides (including nitrogen dioxide [NO2]) and particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2·5 μm (PM2·5) and less than 10 μm (PM10) and lung function: postbronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1, primary outcome), forced vital capacity (FVC), and respiratory or allergic symptoms. We assigned annual exposures by each child's home and school address, as well as spatially resolved estimates for the 3 h (0600–0900 h), 24 h, and 7 days before each child's assessment, to isolate long-term from short-term effects.FindingsThe percentage of children living at addresses exceeding the EU limit value for annual NO2 (40 μg/m3) fell from 99% (444/450) in 2009 to 34% (150/441) in 2013. Over this period, we identified a reduction in NO2 at both roadside (median −1·35 μg/m3 per year; 95% CI −2·09 to −0·61; p=0·0004) and background locations (−0·97; −1·56 to −0·38; p=0·0013), but not for PM10. The effect on PM2·5 was equivocal. We found no association between postbronchodilator FEV1 and annual residential pollutant attributions. By contrast, FVC was inversely correlated with annual NO2 (−0·0023 L/μg per m3; −0·0044 to −0·0002; p=0·033) and PM10 (−0·0090 L/μg per m3; −0·0175 to −0·0005; p=0·038).InterpretationWithin London's LEZ, a smaller lung volume in children was associated with higher annual air pollutant exposures. We found no evidence of a reduction in the proportion of children with small lungs over this period, despite small improvements in air quality in highly polluted urban areas during the implementation of London's LEZ. Interventions that deliver larger reductions in emissions might yield improvements in children's health.FundingNational Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's and St Thomas' National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust and King's College London, NHS Hackney, Lee Him donation, and Felicity Wilde Charitable Trust.

Prospecting the sustainability implications of an emerging industrial symbiosis network

In order to enable industrial symbiosis (IS) as an approach for regional sustainable development, it is important that stakeholders involved in facilitating symbiotic exchanges can measure and comprehend the potential benefits and impacts. However, previous assessments have been sporadic and limited to only a few indicators, primarily focused only on existing IS examples or networks and very few have examined potential developments. This study expands the assessment of IS networks by reviewing the environmental and socio-economic implications of an emerging network on the west coast of Sweden using life cycle assessment and socio-economic assessments to illustrate the implications for the firms of the network and regional sustainability. The results suggest that the IS network has the potential to make a positive contribution to the environmental performance of the industries and the socio-economic status of the region. Of key importance is the potential to cascade the use of nutrients and avoid large eutrophication impacts to the neighboring sea in addition to the large greenhouse gas emissions reductions by avoiding and replacing conventional processes and products. The socio-economic assessment illustrated that the IS network could make a substantial contribution to the region for job creation, revenues, local skills base, research and innovation and regional identity. The results provide insights on the potential of industrial symbiosis for regional sustainable development, which may be important for decision makers, firms involved in the network and municipalities, nationally and internationally to advance local efforts with facilitating industrial symbiosis and to understand how these networks can be assessed.

Long-term trends in total inorganic nitrogen and sulfur deposition in the U.S. from 1990 to 2010.

Excess deposition (including both wet and dry deposition) of nitrogen and sulfur are detrimental to ecosystems. Recent studies have investigated the spatial patterns and temporal trends of nitrogen and sulfur wet deposition, but few studies have focused on dry deposition due to the scarcity of dry deposition measurements. Here, we use long-term model simulations from the coupled WRF-CMAQ model covering the period from 1990 to 2010 to study changes in spatial distribution as well as temporal trends in total (TDEP), wet (WDEP) and dry deposition (DDEP) of total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) and sulfur (TSO4). We first evaluate the model's performance in simulating WDEP over the U.S. by comparing the model results with observational data from the U.S. National Atmospheric Deposition Program. The coupled model generally underestimates the WDEP of both TIN (including both the oxidized nitrogen deposition-TNO3, and the reduced nitrogen deposition-NHX) and TSO4, with better performance in the eastern U.S. than the western U.S. TDEP of both TIN and TSO4 show significant decreases over the U.S., especially in the east due to the large emission reductions that occurred in that region. The decreasing trends of TIN TDEP are caused by decrease of TNO3, and the increasing trends of TIN deposition over the Great Plains and Tropical Wet Forests regions are caused by increases in NH3 emissions although it should be noted that these increasing trends are not significant. TIN WDEP shows decreasing trends throughout the U.S., except for the Marine West Coast Forest region. TIN DDEP shows significant decreasing trends in the region of Eastern Temperate Forests, Northern Forests, Mediterranean California and Marine West Coast Forest, and significant increasing trends in the region of Tropical Wet Forests, Great Plains and Southern Semi-arid Highlands. For the other three regions (North American Deserts, Temperate Sierras and Northwestern Forested Mountains), the decreasing or increasing trends were not significant. Both the WDEP and DDEP of TSOx have decreases across the U.S., with a larger decreasing trend in the DDEP than that in the WDEP. Across the U.S. during the 1990-2010 period, DDEP of TIN accounted for 58-65% of TDEP of TIN. TDEP of TIN over the U.S. was dominated by deposition of TNO3 during the first decade, which then shifts to reduced nitrogen (NHX) dominance after 2003 resulting from combination of NOx emission reductions and NH3 emission increases. The sulfur DDEP is usually higher than the sulfur WDEP until recent years, as the sulfur DDEP has a larger decreasing trend than WDEP.