Industrial Ecology

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Industrial Ecology

• Wednesday, April 19

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Industrial Ecology

• Industrial ecology involves designing industrial
  infrastructure as if they were a series of
  interlocking man-made ecosystems interfacing with
  natural global ecosystem. Industrial ecology
  takes the pattern of the natural environment as a
  model for solving environmental problems,
  creating a new paradigm for the industrial system
  as a process
• Tibbs (1993)

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Industrial Ecology

• Industrial Ecology is the means by which humanity
  can deliberately and rationally approach and
  maintain a desirable carrying capacity, given
  continued economic, cultural and technological
  evolution. The concept requires that an
  industrial system be viewed not in isolation from
  its surrounding systems, but in concert with
  them.
• Allenby Gradel
  1993

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Spaceship Earth as an Ecosystem

• A closed system except for solar energy
• A given natural capital stock of matter embodied
  in biotic and abiotic materials
• With a fixed stock it supports a fantastic number
  and variety of life forms in a complex dynamic
  equilibrium

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Ecosystem Principles

• Ecosystem members include producers, consumers,
  and recyclers closed loop systems
• Population growth of members is limited by
  carrying capacity of the ecosystem
• Symbiosis between members
• Close proximity of members
• Decentralized decision-making among members (no
  central planner)
• Renewable energy input to system (i.e.solar)
• No wastes all by-products are inputs
• Self-sustaining (sustainable growth)
• Resilience

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Industrial/economic systems
Transform energy and matter to meet human needs,
but.
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Comparing ecosystems and industrial/economic
systems

• Members include producers, consumers, and
  recyclers closed loop systems
• Population growth of members is limited by
  carrying capacity of the ecosystem
• Symbiosis between members
• Close proximity of members
• Decentralized decision-making among members (no
  central planner)
• Renewable energy input to system (i.e.solar)
• No wastes all by-products are inputs
• Self-sustaining (sustainable growth)
• Resilience

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Industrial/economic systems
Transform energy and matter to meet human needs,
but.

• Open loop systems
• Growth with limited attention to the carrying
  capacity of local and global ecosystems
• Adversarial/exploitative relationship with biotic
  and abiotic environment
• Dependence on non-renewable resources
• Wastes are generated (not recycled,
  non-recyclable, toxic, harmful)

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Industrial Ecology

• Designing industrial systems using ecosystem
  analogy
• Minimizing matter and energy use
  (Dematerialization)

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Key Concepts in Industrial Ecology

• Systems analysis
• Material and energy flows and transformations
• Analogies to natural systems (creation of
  industrial ecosystems)
• Dematerialization of industrial output
• Closed loop systems
• Balancing industrial input and output to natural
  ecosystem capacity
• Multidisciplinary approach

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Models, Tools Techniques
Industrial Metabolism

• The study of how matter and energy are
  transformed by economic activity into
  intermediate and final goods
• Industry-level analysis
• Goal is to understand and improve metabolic
  pathways
• Reducing number of steps
• Reducing material and energy intensity
• Biological transformation (low intensity,
  dispersed, renewable energy) vs. mechanical
  transformation (high intensity fossil fuel based)

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Models, Tools Techniques
Environmental Accounting

• Full cost accounting (including external costs)
• Firm-level analysis
• Accounting for wastes and resource use
• Life cycle costing
• Environmental performance metrics and
  eco-efficiency indicators

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Models, Tools Techniques
Life Cycle Assessment

• Analyzing resource and waste flows over the
  entire life cycle of a product or process
• Product-level analysis
• Life cycle inventory
• Life cycle impact analysis
• Improvement analysis

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Models, Tools Techniques
Materials Flow Analysis

• Environmental accounting of critical material
  flows on a global/regional scale to determine
  potential problems
• Tracking mass flows, elemental transformation,
  embodiment in durable products, dissipation,
  disposal, and environmental component into which
  dissipated/disposed
• To identify opportunities where materials can be
  recycled, not dissipated and where material use
  can be reduced in the economy.

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Example Lead MFA
World Extraction, Use, and Disposal of Lead,
1990 (in thousand tons)
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Models, Tools Techniques
Design for the Environment

• Design for dematerialization
• Design for efficiency (energy/materials)
• Design for material variety reduction
• Design for disassembly/separation
• Design for less toxic inputs
• Design for recycling/use by others
• Design for eco-compatible waste streams
• Design for non-dissipative waste stream
• Waste stream standardization
• But all these while meeting product performance
  requirements

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Eco-Industrial Parks

• Application of ecosystem principles to the design
  of industrial parks and communities
• Industrial symbiosis (one industrys wastes are
  raw materials for others)
• Closed loops
• Geographical clustering that improves each
  others viability

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Example Kalundborg, Denmark
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Annual achievements from Kalundborg

• Reduction in resource consumption
• Oil 19,000 tons
• Coal 30,000 tons
• Water 1,200,000 m3
• Reduction in emissions
• CO2 130,000 tons
• SO2 25,000 tons
• Reuse of wastes
• Fly ash 135,000 tons
• Sulfur 2,800 tons
• Gypsum 80,000 tons
• N2 from bio-sludge 800 tons
• P from bio-sludge 400 tons

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Film

• On Kalundbourg, 231.