The Industrial Green Game Implications for Environmental Design and Management (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Metrics, Systems, and Technological Choices
Metrics, Systems, and Technological Choices
Pages 48-72
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From page 48... ...
To help support an environmentally sustainable industrial ecology, national governments need to change fundamentally their systems of national accounts, analyze and improve critical metabolic processes, and explore emerging technological paradigms and their implications for sustainable development. Such tasks need to be undertaken in partnership with industry and with the support and consent of the public at large.
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From page 49... ...
There are several interlocking rationales for advocating a broader government role in industrial ecology. From an ecological perspective, one must acknowledge that there are obvious limits to applying ecological and biological analogies to socially contrived systems such as industry or governments.
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From page 50... ...
The public and private sectors must work together to transform the intellectual and political ecology underlying our systems of materials and energy transformation at multiple scales. Much of the research and application of industrial ecology has been focused on the level of the firm or the internal processes of the firm.
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From page 51... ...
The application of traditional macroeconomic indicators will not guarantee environmentally benign or sustainable development because the conventional measures of national economic performance (such as gross domestic product [GDP]
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From page 52... ...
The final phase has been termed ecodevelopment, or sustainable development, and clearly represents the measurement approach required to support a sustainable industrial ecology at multiple scales (Figure 2D)
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From page 53... ...
. In general, we need accounting systems that allow us to track our progress toward a more sustainable economy with a shift away from nonrenewable inputs, increased recycling of waste streams, and the use of renewable resources at sustainable levels.
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From page 54... ...
54 DAVID REJESKI 100 Nonrenewables 68% Percent 50 Renewables 32% 1900 1950 mid-1980's $8.2 (Billions 1972 Dollars) $21.8 800 Weight (Million metric tons)
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From page 55... ...
NOTE: For all 55 countries except West Germany, 1970 = 100. For West Germany, 1960 = 100.
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From page 56... ...
F E 100 C p S g 50 1960 1970 1980 1990 Year FIGURE 5 Select industrial structural changes in the United States (1970=100)
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From page 57... ...
This analysis obviously forces one to take a close look at the limitations of the spark-ignition heat engine as a prime mover in the transportation sector. Both the thermal and mechanical efficiencies of the internal combustion engine can be increased through improving combustion, reducing friction, and
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From page 58... ...
Environmental Protection Agency, DAVID REJESKI 1989. Figure supplied courtesy of David Bassett, U.S.
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From page 59... ...
In the electricity sector, the amount of waste heat from the mechanical conversion of steam to electricity is almost 20 quads more than the primary energy consumption of Japan. The options here to improve efficiencies include shifts to electrochemical conversion (fuel cells)
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From page 60... ...
Fossil fuels 60 17% All items to scale Energy R&D $2829.8 Conservation 6% Renewables Nuclear Supply side R&D 65% 11% Renewables $178 Energy R&D spending, 1948–1990 All solar $108 Solar PV's Wind buildings $60 $21 Hydro Solar $1 $2 Thermal$29 Other Demand side R&D Solar Biomass $21 $21.4 Geothermal $27.2 Electricity $52.1 Utilities Buildings $4.7 $47.4 Transportation Industrial $118.2 $97.5 Coal Nuclear/Fusion $804.3 $1769 FIGURE 7 Federal applied energy research and development appropriations, 1992 ($ millions)
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From page 61... ...
The sludge output is around 5 billion dry tons per year (1988 figure) and the energy inputs for the pumping and treatment of water and wastewater amount to 1 to 2 percent of all electricity consumed in the United States (Truong, 1993)
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From page 62... ...
tax deferrals-working 62 int in oil and gas properties tax deferrals-working int synthetic fuel sub 72m regulation 215m in oil and gas properties 15m uranium enrichment alt fuel production credit 550m 670m LIHEAP, 262m excess % of depletion Price-Anderson regulation 207m 380m Acta 3000m 15m LIHEAP 563m expensing of expl and dev costs excess % of depletion 380m % over cost 265m regulators 92m depletion 579m 872m 1705m 3550m $8437m Coal Oil Natural Gas Nuclear total federal subsidy for primary sources and end uses of Transportation Industrial Utilities energy, not including transportation ? 1731m LIHEAP 137m highway costs not borne by externalities not borne by drivers in construction, drivers (health costs from maintanance, police, and free pollution, reduction of power marketing/ parking 3000-180000m C02, security costs, REA/Energy accidents, noise costs)
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From page 63... ...
Department of Energy, 1992; World Resources Institute, 1987, 1992. Figure supplied courtesy of David Bassett, U.S.
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From page 64... ...
MGD = million gallons per day. SOURCE: Troung, 1993
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From page 65... ...
Interestingly, other countries in which the military imperative played a far less important role in shaping the technological landscape are also beginning the search for new paradigms and technologies. The Netherlands recently began a large, multiagency program to define and develop technologies critical to sustainable development (Vergragt and Jansen, 1992)
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From page 66... ...
simply reached the limits of environmental responsibility, economic efficiency, and political acceptance, and questions are being raised concerning their potential successors. Of particular interest are what some have termed technoeconomic paradigms -- pervasive changes in the technological infrastructure that affect multiple sectors of the economy and the development and application of other technologies (Freeman, 1992)
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From page 67... ...
Governments need to explore the outer envelopes of these emerging and new trajectories, because the "lock in" of technologies, and their associated social and financial infrastructures, may occur very early and lead toward unsustainable development paths. This must be done when the social change potential is high and before significant human, capital, and intellectual resources have been committed by the public or private sector (Figure 11)
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From page 68... ...
The ability to manufacture at a molecular, or eventually an atomic, scale could radically reduce industrial throughputs of energy and materials, generation of wastes, and design times for products, fundamentally altering the system of flows and structural and organizational dynamics on which industry's ecology is presently built. The microscale mechanics scenario could interact in interesting ways with the existing information and communications technoeconomic paradigm, accelerating the development of extremely small-scale intelligent assembly systems and smart sensors that could have large intra- and intersectoral impacts.
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From page 69... ...
, organizer of the 1992 Earth Summit recently commented that for all the good things that our political leaders are saying these days about sustain able development, the economic, fiscal, and sectoral policies of government by and large continue to provide incentives and subsidies for environmentally un sound behavior. Ultimately, a sustainable future will require us to move from political rhetoric to fundamental changes in the way we measure humanity's progress, use our limited natural resources, and evaluate our technological choices.
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From page 70... ...
Though the concept of metabolism focuses our attention on highly complex systems essential to life, it does not address the social, ethnic, linguistic, and class differences underlying our cultures and human values. As a metaphor it is essentially descriptive with little culturally relevant normative power (Ness, 1994)
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From page 71... ...
1991. Critical Technology Lists: A Comparison of Published Lists and Legislative Proposals.
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From page 72... ...
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. World Resources Institute (WRI)
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