EMERGY

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EMERGY ENERGY SYSTEMS
Session 10 Short Course for ECO Interns, EPA and
Partners
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Emergy Applications

• Emergy as a decision tool
• State and Regional Evaluations

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Emergy as Decision Tool

• Evaluating alternative plans
• Evaluating damages
• Case studies

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Evaluating Alternatives
Contributionold Io Fo Contributionnew In
Fn Potential Io IoxIr
Imports
Fn
Fo
New use
Env. Resources
In
Original use to be diverted
Io
IoxIr
Io
Potential
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Evaluating Alternatives

• Tables
• Evaluate all environmental resources and services
  that will no longer be adding to local or
  regional productivity
• Attempt to evaluate societal disruption
• Keep the original system data separate from the
  proposed alternative

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Case Studies

• Ecuadorian shrimp used net benefit analysis to
  determine policy
• Thai dams used alternative evaluation to
  determine value of hydroelectricity

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Shrimp Mariculture

• Findings
• More emergy goes to developed nations in
  Ecuadors shrimp than is received in return
• Emergy benefit to shrimp farmers
• Emergy deficit for local economies and Ecuador
• Policy recommendations
• Less intensive culture
• Restore mangroves
• Promote alternative development

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State and Regional Evaluations

• Identifying important components
• Assumptions, interpolations, extrapolations

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Renewable Components

• Renewables use long term averages
• Dominant ecosystems divide region into different
  areas based on differences in rain or temperature
  or slope
• Rivers
• input minus output
• No output if draining into estuary
• Use half if boundary

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Emergy and Spatial Measurements

• Geopotential
• Use topo map to divide into sections with similar
  elevation ranges
• Shorelength
• If you know ArcView, use it to accurately measure
  area of wave or tide influence (not always the
  same)
• Evapotranspiration
• Find an ArcView map and I will help you determine
  areas of key ecosystems

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Identifying Important Components

• Economic picture
• Exports and Imports
• Key industries
• Foreign investments
• Government subsidies

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Identifying Important Components

• Environmental issues
• Usually done as a subsystem evaluation
• Can be predicted from industries and commodities
  produced
• Keep track of these as you find them (make copies
  of articles, etc.)

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Identifying Important Components

• Social and cultural data
• US census
• Social and cultural issues
• Often comes out of historical background
• Sometimes related to environmental issues

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Practise example

• Complete the EMERGY evaluation table, identify
  quantities on the systems diagram, calculate
  emergy indices, and discuss interpretations of
  results.
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• Background This is a large-scale river
  development project where a river will be
  channelized and several locks built to facilitate
  barge transportation. The original system was a
  rural agricultural system with some small amount
  of fishing and tourism. Once the lock and dam
  project is completed, the river will no longer
  flow through or flood adjacent floodplains, and
  sediments and nutrients carried by the river will
  no longer be deposited within the rivers
  floodplain, but will be carried downstream and
  out to sea. However, adjacent wetlands will
  become improved pasture, increasing flows of
  purchased emergy, the lock and dam system will
  attract additional investment and increase
  transportation efficiency, and finally,
  construction, maintenance and operation of the
  lock and dam system will increase employment.
  Using the following values, evaluate the
  development proposal.
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• The original system (the natural system) had a
  total environmental input of 2 E11 J/yr and
  purchased inputs as follows
• Goods 4 E9 J/yr
• Services 3 E4 dollars/yr
• The new system which has new economic uses has a
  lower environmental input of 1 E11 J/yr as a
  result of the lost wetland production, sediments
  and nutrients. The purchased inputs to the new
  system are as follows
• Goods 1 E10 J/yr
• Services 2 E5 dollars/yr
• Given the following data
• Transformity for environmental inputs
  1 E5 sej/J
• Transformity for goods 1 E7 sej/J
• Emergy to dollar ratio, 1985 2 E12 sej/
• Regional Investment Ratio 7/1

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• What is the investment ratio for the old system?
  ___________________________
• What is the investment ratio for the new system?
  ___________________________
• Based on the regional investment ratio, which
  system is a better match for the area?
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• Who will benefit the most from the new system and
  why?
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• Who will lose the most and why?
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• How much investment would be appropriate for this
  area?
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