Main Greenhouse Gas Emissions Research Articles

The carbon footprint of ambulatory gastrointestinal endoscopy.

Endoscopy is considered the third highest generator of waste within healthcare. This is of public importance as approximately 18 million endoscopy procedures are performed yearly in the USA and 2 million in France. However, a precise measure of the carbon footprint of gastrointestinal endoscopy (GIE) is lacking. This retrospective study for 2021 was conducted in an ambulatory GIE center in France where 8524 procedures were performed on 6070 patients. The annual carbon footprint of GIE was calculated using "Bilan Carbone" of the French Environment and Energy Management Agency. This multi-criteria method accounts for direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy consumption (gas and electricity), medical gases, medical and non-medical equipment, consumables, freight, travel, and waste. GHG emissions in 2021 were estimated to be 241.4 tonnes CO2 equivalent (CO2e) at the center, giving a carbon footprint for one GIE procedure of 28.4 kg CO2e. The main GHG emission, 45 % of total emissions, was from travel by patients and center staff to and from the center. Other emission sources, in rank order, were medical and non-medical equipment (32 %), energy consumption (12 %), consumables (7 %), waste (3 %), freight (0.4 %), and medical gases (0.005 %). This is the first multi-criteria analysis assessing the carbon footprint of GIE. It highlights that travel, medical equipment, and energy are major sources of impact, with waste being a minor contributor. This study provides an opportunity to raise awareness among gastroenterologists of the carbon footprint of GIE procedures.

Navigating urban tourism planning in a late-pandemic world: The Copenhagen case

This work explores the ways in which COVID-19 has affected the discourse on public tourism planning in Copenhagen and how policies meet the challenges of the climate crisis. Inspired by the concept of ‘governmobility’, we explore changes in discourse on how urban tourism policies aim to ease and control access, mobility, and circulation. The implementation of the DMO Wonderful Copenhagen's ‘localhood’ strategy has tried to cope with issues of over-tourism by engaging locals who also have access to the attractions and experiences offered to tourists. Meanwhile, the planned growth in international tourism, despite the COVID-19 lockdowns, has not been dismantled but rather reaffirmed. This includes plans for major extensions of Copenhagen Airport. Development corporations in tourism and urban development thus try to reconcile sustainable development with economic growth, which is apparent in the 2022 ‘Comeback Copenhagen’ and ‘Planet Copenhagen’ strategies. Copenhagen aims to become the most sustainable tourist destination, without taking into consideration that the main greenhouse gas emissions come from the ways tourists travel to and from the destination.

New Types and Dosages for the Manufacture of Low-Energy Cements from Raw Materials and Industrial Waste under the Principles of the Circular Economy and Low-Carbon Economy.

The cement manufacturing industry is one of the main greenhouse gas emission producers and also consumes a large quantity of raw materials. It is essential to reduce these emissions in order to comply with the Paris Agreement and the principles of the circular economy. The objective of this research was to develop different types of cement clinker blends using industrial waste and innovative design to produce low-energy cement. Several types of waste have been studied as alternative raw materials. Their main characteristics have been analyzed via X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Attenuated total reflectance Fourier trans-form infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), thermal analysis (TG-DTG-DSC) and scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis (SEM-EDS). The results obtained from the experimental work carried out in this research focused on the study of crude blends for low-energy cement created from industrial waste. The effect of the addition of different industrial waste types, as a substitution for raw materials, in the production of low-energy cement with high dicalcium silicate content has been investigated. Thus, the dosage design has been performed using modified Bogue equations and quality indexes (LSF, AM, and SM). The calculations of both the modified Bogue equations and quality indexes necessitate knowledge of the weight percentages of CaO, SiO2, Al2O3, and Fe2O3, determined via XRF. In this theoretical design of the different blends, it has been established that a dicalcium silicate ratio of 60-65 wt % and an LSF of 78-83% as the limit are values common to all of them. The calculation basis for the crude blends has been based on calcined materials. Therefore, the chemical composition was established, following this premise. Thus, it was possible to develop cement clinker blends with compositions of 50 wt % and 100 wt % using industrial wastes. This research has shown that the clinkerization process is one of the main options for the valorization of waste and its consideration for inclusion as a raw material within the circularity of the cement industry's production process. Thus, waste is used as a raw material for the production of a more useful substance, taking into account the fundamental principles of the circular economy.

Diffusion of indigenous fire management and carbon-credit programs: Opportunities and challenges for “scaling-up” to temperate ecosystems

Savanna burning programs across northern Australia generate millions of dollars per year for Indigenous communities through carbon and other greenhouse gas (GHG) markets. In catalyzing Indigenous knowledge and workforce to mitigate destructive wildfires, these programs are considered a success story on a range of social, ecological and economic measures. Scaling-up to temperate ecosystems requires a focus on applying the architecture and governance of these programs, and accounting for fundamental differences in context. We examine the opportunities and challenges in applying the architecture of savanna burning to an Indigenous Fire Management (IFM) program in central British Columbia, Canada (the Chilcotin). The Chilcotin project involves Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in First Nations, and we draw from eight key elements of the Australian savanna burning model to identify a project area that includes Aboriginal title and reserve lands. The area encompasses Interior Douglas Fir (IDF) and Sub-Boreal Pine—Spruce (SBPS) biogeoclimatic zones, or dry forest and grassland ecosystems where low intensity fires are applied by community members to remove forest fuels, with the goal of mitigating wildfires and associated GHG emissions. The multi-decadal intervals between contemporary fires in the Chilcotin region make it challenging to accurately document historical fire location, scale and intensity, and thus to establish an emissions baseline. If this issue can be resolved, the British Columbia Forest Carbon Offset Protocol version 2 (FCOPv2) offers promise for developing verified carbon credits for three reasons: first, carbon (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), and methane (CH4), the three main GHG emissions from Indigenous fire management, are included in the protocol; second, credits under FCOPv2 are eligible for either compliance or voluntary markets, offering diversification; and third, a range of activities are eligible under the standard, including fire management and timber harvesting, which offers flexibility in terms of management practices. The Chilcotin project is likely to generate substantial co-benefits related to cultural, health and wellbeing, and livelihood values among First Nations participants. The Australian experience suggests that getting governance right, and building community ownership through “bottom-up” governance, is critical to the success of these programs. From the Australian model, community-based planning, like the Healthy Country Planning approach, can be a positive step to take, engaging community in goal setting for the program to guide and take ownership of its direction.

Sustainable production and consumption in remote working conditions due to COVID-19 lockdown in Italy: An environmental and user acceptance investigation.

In response to the disruptive changes brought upon our society by the COVID-19 pandemic, most work activities and service providers had to resort to remote working. This is credited to reduce emissions for transportation, however the role of forced confinement within dwellings, especially if not designed for hosting working stations, deserves to be properly evaluated in terms of both user acceptance and long-term environmental impact. In this work, a dedicated survey campaign is used for investigating the potential pros and cons of remote working. In more detail, logistic regression and generalized linear models are used for capturing the effect of several independent variables on user acceptance of remote working. At a later stage, the main greenhouse gas emissions produced by each participant before and during remote working are assessed. According to the obtained results, the greater the distance between their home and workplace, the higher the acceptance score declared by the survey participants about remote working. Additionally, higher incomes and better-quality lifestyles with larger devotion to leisure activities also provide higher acceptance. Finally, the existence of a comfortable room to be used for work activities plays a crucial role on the declared acceptance. From an environmental point of view, remote working is always sustainable in case of long commuting distances (above 10km) are avoided on a daily routine. In conclusion, a sensible use of remote working could reduce the environmental impact of any organization employing desk-workers as well as improve their work satisfaction and lifestyle.

Experimental results of electric vehicles effects on low voltage grids

Today, the second largest source of greenhouse gases production is due to transportation. A quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions which are generated in the European Union (EU) is due to transportation. One of the main greenhouse gas emissions is CO2 gas and about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions, which is CO2, are produced through light vehicles such as pickups and cars. On the other hand, due to increased utilization of electric vehicles, the power grid structure needs to be developed and improved. Because of the vehicles effect on the low voltage network, distribution service operators (DSOs) will prepare the failed for the mentioned effects. In this paper, the impact of charging electric vehicles on low voltage networks structure and technology of electric vehicles have been investigated. A novel upper and lower based voltage controller is introduced as distributed agent-based model to control the voltage stability in test smart grid. In the proposed method, based on rule defining for distributed agent, the electric vehicle (EV) charging will cooperate with smart grid and its charging time will be moved from peak time to other times. By this action of agents, the smart grid load and the stability of voltage can be managed beside the economic benefits consideration. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed method and the effect of electric vehicles, this method has been implemented on a low voltage network of a restricted district of Budapest based on DIGSILENT. According to obtained results, it could be considered that the maximum transformer loading with EV is about 41% and 36.6% without EV. Furthermore, transformer loading is about 14.761% for common arrival simulations to 10.072% without EVs. So, the proposed model can be effective in low voltage grids of transmission by preventing the pollution. The aforementioned district is characterized by predominantly low to medium density residential dwellings, where private off-street parking is available to facilitate the charging of electric cars from a conventional single-phase household power outlet.

Inventory of main greenhouse gas emissions from energy sector in Palestine.

This paper analyzes the building process of the main greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (CO2, CH4 and N2O) inventory from the energy sector in Palestine. The paper includes determination tools, i.e., emission factors, to estimate the amounts of national GHG emissions from sub-sectors of energy including energy industries, manufacturing industries and construction, transport and other sectors (households, agriculture and commerce and public services). The results show that the total amount of national GHG emissions from the energy sector in 2016 was 4131 thousand metric tons of CO2-equivalent (TtCO2e), which represented 0.011% of the total global GHG emissions. The average value of GHG emissions per capita from the energy sector was 0.86 tCO2e in Palestine, and its gross domestic product was estimated at 3212$/ton of CO2e. The estimated amounts of CO2, CH4 and N2O emission from the energy sector were 4022, 49 and 60 TtCO2e, respectively. The transport and household sub-sectors dominated the national GHG emissions from the entire energy sector by 58 and 32%, respectively. In general, fuels including diesel, gasoline, wood and charcoal and liquefied petroleum gas made most of the total amount of the national GHG emissions from the energy sector at 50, 18, 18 and 12%, respectively. Finally, the mitigation actions included in the first nationally determined contribution of Palestine and recommendations to help lower the national GHG emissions from the Palestinian energy sector are provided.

Investigation of GHG emission sources and reducing GHG emissions in a municipal wastewater treatment plant

AbstractGlobal warming and the greenhouse effect are two of the most important environmental problems. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions are the main greenhouse gas emissions in wastewater treatment plants. In this study, the greenhouse gas emission sources in a wastewater treatment plant were determined. Direct (from fossil fuel combustion, methane emissions, and process emissions of the other greenhouse gases) and indirect emissions (primarily from electricity use) in the plant were monitored. The optimum influent characteristics and operating conditions have been defined by using Monte Carlo simulation to minimize the emissions. The results revealed that the highest direct greenhouse gas emission was observed in August with the value of 23.328 kg CO2‐eq d–1 and the lowest emission was 7.56 kg CO2‐eq d–1 measured in January. The aeration tank is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Indirect emission has occurred because of the anaerobic digester but the biogas has been cogenerated in the plant, so it has been ignored for the calculation. According to the simulation study, if the plant is operated under optimum operating conditions, it can emit the lowest amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The optimum removal values required for the minimum greenhouse gas emissions are 79% for chemical oxygen demand, 75% for biochemical oxygen demand, and 82% for total suspended solid. The optimum operating conditions for the aeration tank, which is the major source of emission, are 5.33 h of hydraulic retention time, 0.215 d of solid retention time, and 0.999 for food/microorganisms. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Livestock and climate change: impact of livestock on climate and mitigation strategies.

According to the United Nations (UN, 2017), the world population increased by approximately 1 billion inhabitants during the last 12 years, reaching nearly 7.6 billion in 2017. Although this growth is slower than 10 years ago (1.24% vs. 1.10% per year), with an average increase of 83 million people annually, global population will reach about 8.6 billion in 2030 and 9.8 billion in 2050. Population growth, urbanization, and income rise in developing countries are the main driver of the increased demand for livestock products (UN, 2017). The livestock sector requires a significant amount of natural resources and is responsible for about 14.5% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (7.1 Gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents for the year 2005; Gerber et al., 2013). Mitigation strategies aimed at reducing emissions of this sector are needed to limit the environmental burden from food production while ensuring a sufficient supply of food for a growing world population. The objectives of this manuscript are to 1) discuss the main greenhouse gas emissions sources from the livestock sector and 2) summarize the best mitigation strategies.

The evaluation of the use of renewable energy resources

There have been many discussions in Lithuania about a strategy for reducing the impact of climate change. Members of the international community agree that reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere is necessary to avoid dangerous climate change. The main greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is mainly produced by combustion of fossil fuels, which are currently used: natural gas, coal, oil, peat, etc. Fossil fuels are still the main source of energy. The amount of energy produced and consumption from renewable energy sources (RES) is increasing both in Lithuania and in Europe. According to the Directive (2009/28/EU) Lithuania has a legally binding target in the year 2020. The share of renewable energy would account for at least 23% of the total final energy consumption of the country. The share of renewable energy would account for at least 10% of the final energy consumption in the transport sector. Lithuania achieved its target and this indicator was 23.9% in 2014. According to the Eurostat data, the share of RES produced from renewable energy sources in the total energy balance is increasing annually. In 2007 this indicator was only 4.7% and it has grown 4 times in 2016. The production of electricity from renewable energy sources satisfied the country’s energy demand by 18.9% in Lithuania. This is the best index so far. Wind energy is the most popular type of green energy, which has been growing at a rate of 5 times in this period. Promotion of the use of renewable resources is provided in the Republic of Lithuania Law on Renewable Energy and the long-term development of the use of renewable resources is provided for in the National Energy Strategy. At this moment Lithuania is a fuel importing country, but in the future Lithuania should produce about 70% of electricity itself. It is forecasted that in 2020 electricity generation in the country should make up 35% of the demand, in 2030 it should be 70%, and in 2050 it should reach 100%. From renewables we should receive a large, almost 80% share of energy. And gas will be a transitional fuel by 2050. The project of strategy states that energy from renewable sources will become a major component of all sectors: electricity, heat, cooling and transport. The objective is to achieve a 30% share of renewables in the final energy consumption balance in 2020, 45% in 2030, and 80% in 2050. The renewables should produce all heat energy and the share of green energy in transport should reach 50% at the end of 2050. The article focuses on the use of the potential of renewable energy sources from agricultural raw materials and their waste. The surplus of agricultural production makes it necessary to look for opportunities to reduce environmental pollution. The aim of the article is to assess the use of potential of renewable energy sources in Lithuania. The results of the analysis showed that increasing energy production is possible not only using wind, solar, water or geothermal energy, but by processing traditional agricultural and animal products and their waste: straw, grain crops, livestock or bird’s excrement, etc. It is recommended to look at the unconventional potential of raw materials, such as sewage sludge, spirits, molasses, etc. The use of biomass has potentially revealed alternatives to biofuels that underpin the use of different generations of biofuels. The use of biofuels in the long term should contribute to the slowdown in climate change.

Modeling of a CO2-piperazine-membrane absorption system

CO2 is a main greenhouse gas emission causing global warming and other environmental issues, which is mainly emitted from the fossil fuels combustion or utilization. Membrane absorption is a novel CO2 capture method that combines the advantages of chemical absorption and membrane separation. In this paper, a comprehensive 2D symmetric model for a CO2-piperazine (PZ)-membrane absorption process was proposed. PZ solutions showed high CO2 capture performance due to high chemical reaction rate constant. Decreasing the gas flowrate and increasing the absorbent flowrate promoted the CO2 absorption efficiency. On the other hand, varying the membrane contactor properties could also affect the capture of CO2. 0.28m/s gas velocity, 0.08m/s absorbent velocity, 20% CO2 in gas mixture, and 0.94mol/L PZ were recommended as the optimum conditions after the parametric study. This numerical model is reliable for potential use in CO2-absorbent-membrane absorption systems.

Product model integrated with carbon footprint for low-carbon design

Greenhouse gas emission has become a recent global concern for green manufacturing. As the production is one of the main greenhouse gas emission sources, more and more researches have recently begun to pay attention to product low-carbon design. However, the traditional product modeling is easy to produce an obstacle for low-carbon design and lack of an effective integrated modeling approach to support knowledge reuse in product low-carbon design. This paper is devoted to presenting product model integrated with carbon footprint. After the carbon footprint meta-model is proposed, the product model integrated with carbon footprint for low-carbon design is proposed. And the corresponding modeling principles for product model are also discussed in detail. The product model of a magneto-rheological fluid absorber integrated with carbon footprint is used to demonstrate the proposed methodology.

A Qualitative Study of Green Building Indexes Rating of Lightweight Foam Concrete

Green building index is considered as the rating tool for evaluating the siting, design and performance of buildings and infrastructures based on worldwide acceptable six main criteria’s It was invented after the Kyoto protocol, Japan, on 11 th of December 1997 and the adoption in Marrakesh in 2001 by the United Nations and her subcommittee. It was developed in the built environment industry by the Government support of each country to combat the issue of green house gas emission. Carbon dioxide is acclaimed as one of the main greenhouse gas emission which is mainly through the activities of human race in the world resulting into global warming hence the effort to make the environment lighter enough to inhabit. Construction industry was assessed through studies to be contributing 5% of the world total carbon dioxide emitted through cement production. It was also claimed that a tonne of concrete produces carbon dioxide in the range of 0.05 to 0.13 tonnes. Foam concrete being a new innovative green technology material for sustainable building and civil construction needs to fulfill the criteria’s of this rating tools for it to be considered as sustainable materials. This paper study the assessment of this lightweight concrete material in view of green building index criteria’s and the result are hereby analyze and concluded that foam concrete can be effectively used as sustainable material for building and civil engineering construction.

Energy efficiency and environmental impact of biogas utilization in landfills

This study investigates the utilization of landfill biogas as a fuel for electrical power generation. Landfills can be regarded as conversion biogas plants to electricity, not only covering internal consumptions of the facility but contributing in the power grid as well. A landfill gas plant consists of a recovery and a production system. The recovery of landfill gas is an area of vital interest since it combines both alternative energy production and reduction of environmental impact through reduction of methane and carbon dioxide, two of the main greenhouse gases emissions. This study follows two main objectives. First, to determine whether active extraction of landfill gas in the examined municipal solid waste sites would produce adequate electric power for utilisation and grid connection and second, to estimate the reduction of sequential greenhouse gases emissions. However, in order to optimize the designing of a plant fed by biogas, it is necessary to quantify biogas production over several years. The investigation results of energy efficiency and environmental impact of biogas utilization in landfills are considering satisfactory enough both in electric energy production and in contribution to greenhouse gases mitigation.

Assessment of nitrogen fertilization for the CO2 balance during the production of poplar and rye

Abstract This study was designed to consider all nitrogen fertilizer-related effects on crop production and emission of greenhouse gases on loamy sandy soils in Germany over a period of nine years (1999–2007). In order to set up a CO 2 balance for the production of energy crops, different nitrogen pathways were investigated, such as direct N 2 O emissions from the soil and indirect emissions related to NO 3 leaching and fertilizer production. Fluxes of N 2 O were measured in an experimental field using closed chambers. Poplar ( Populus maximowiczii × P. nigra ) and rye ( Secale cereale L.) as one perennial and one annual crop were fertilized at rates of 0 kg N ha −1 yr −1 , 75 kg N ha −1 yr −1 and 150 kg N ha −1 yr −1 . The mean N 2 O emissions from the soil ranged between 0.5 kg N ha −1 yr −1 and 2.5 kg N ha −1 yr −1 depending on fertilization rate, crop variety and year. The CO 2 fixed in the biomass of energy crops is reduced by up to 16% if direct N 2 O emissions from soil and indirect N 2 O emissions from NO 3 leaching and fertilizer production are included. Taking into account the main greenhouse gas emissions, which derive from the production and the use of N fertilizer, the growth of poplar and rye may replace the global warming potential of fossil fuels by up to 17.7 t CO 2 ha −1 yr −1 and 12.1 t CO 2 ha −1 yr −1 , respectively.