A future bamboo-structure residential building prototype in China: Life cycle assessment of energy use and carbon emission

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (10) ◽  
pp. 2638-2646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongwei Yu ◽  
Hongwei Tan ◽  
Yingjun Ruan
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Jonasson ◽  
Itai Danielski ◽  
Michelle Svensson ◽  
Morgan Fröling

A life cycle assessment (LCA) of a low energy / passive house in northern Sweden, including building materials and energy use is reported. The case study building is semi detached house for two families situated in Östersund (lat. 63°N), Sweden. Each apartment having a floor space of 160 m2 divided on two floors. The building was constructed during 2010 with a design meeting the requirements for Swedish passive houses as defined by the Forum for energy efficiency buildings (FEBY) and the Swedish center for zero energy houses (SCNH). When it comes to more sustainable buildings, energy use in the build environment has been in focus for some time. The life cycle assessment in this study reveals that the building materials can contribute significantly to environmental burdens of a residential building in northern Sweden. Energy efficiency, efficient use of good building materials and issues of appropriate design need to be discussed in the same context to move toward a more sustainable built environment. For energy efficient buildings in a energy system with renewably based energy carriers, building materials might give rise to a significant or even dominating part of the life cycle impact of a building. This give rise to considerations regarding choices of building materials as well as design of buildings to minimize such impact; while not forgetting social aspects impacted by building design.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1030-1032 ◽  
pp. 679-682
Author(s):  
Watcharaporn Tantipanatip ◽  
Suwit Jitpukdee ◽  
Prayong Keeratiurai ◽  
Khwanta Tantikamton ◽  
Nathawut Thanee

Life cycle assessment (LCA) of Pacific white shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) was conducted in Trang province, southern Thailand during January, 2011 to December, 2012 to investigate the rate of carbon massflow in shrimp farming. Total 106 shrimp farm owners were interviewed and questionnaired. Carbon content, carbon fixation and carbon emission were also analyzed. The results revealed that the rate of carbon massflow from shrimp feed (C-input) was 0.015±0.031, carbon fixation in shrimp was 0.014±0.031, the carbon emission from shrimp was 0.001±0.000 and energy usage was 22.676±16.891 kg.C/kg shrimp/day. The environmental impacts were mainly caused by energy use, farm-level effluents and transportation. It can be concluded that Pacific white shrimp farming system was an important part of environmental problems.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yin Zhang ◽  
Xuejing Zheng ◽  
Huan Zhang ◽  
Gaofeng Chen ◽  
Xia Wang

Author(s):  
Elias Marvinney ◽  
Alissa Kendall

Abstract Purpose California’s Central Valley produces more than 75% of global commercial almond supply, making the life cycle performance of almond production in California of global interest. This article describes the life cycle assessment of California almond production using a Scalable, Process-based, Agronomically Responsive Cropping System Life Cycle Assessment (SPARCS-LCA) model that includes crop responses to orchard management and modeling of California’s water supply and biomass energy infrastructure. Methods A spatially and temporally resolved LCA model was developed to reflect the regional climate, resource, and agronomic conditions across California’s Central Valley by hydrologic subregion (San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento Valley, and Tulare Lake regions). The model couples a LCA framework with region-specific data, including water supply infrastructure and economics, crop productivity response models, and dynamic co-product markets, to characterize the environmental performance of California almonds. Previous LCAs of California almond found that irrigation and management of co-products were most influential in determining life cycle CO2eq emissions and energy intensity of California almond production, and both have experienced extensive changes since previous studies due to drought and changing regulatory conditions, making them a focus of sensitivity and scenario analysis. Results and discussion Results using economic allocation show that 1 kg of hulled, brown-skin almond kernel at post-harvest facility gate causes 1.92 kg CO2eq (GWP100), 50.9 MJ energy use, and 4820 L freshwater use, with regional ranges of 2.0–2.69 kg CO2eq, 42.7–59.4 MJ, and 4540–5150 L, respectively. With a substitution approach for co-product allocation, 1 kg almond kernel results in 1.23 kg CO2eq, 18.05 MJ energy use, and 4804 L freshwater use, with regional ranges of 0.51–1.95 kg CO2eq, 3.68–36.5 MJ, and 4521–5140 L, respectively. Almond freshwater use is comparable with other nut crops in California and globally. Results showed significant variability across subregions. While the San Joaquin Valley performed best in most impact categories, the Tulare Lake region produced the lowest eutrophication impacts. Conclusion While CO2eq and energy intensity of almond production increased over previous estimates, so too did credits to the system for displacement of dairy feed. These changes result from a more comprehensive model scope and improved assumptions, as well as drought-related increases in groundwater depth and associated energy demand, and decreased utilization of biomass residues for energy recovery due to closure of bioenergy plants in California. The variation among different impact categories between subregions and over time highlight the need for spatially and temporally resolved agricultural LCA.


Author(s):  
H. Harter ◽  
B. Willenborg ◽  
W. Lang ◽  
T. H. Kolbe

Abstract. Reducing the demand for non-renewable resources and the resulting environmental impact is an objective of sustainable development, to which buildings contribute significantly. In order to realize the goal of reaching a climate-neutral building stock, it must first be analyzed and evaluated in order to develop optimization strategies. The life cycle based consideration and assessment of buildings plays a key role in this process. Approaches and tools already exist for this purpose, but they mainly take the operational energy demand of buildings and not a life cycle based approach into account, especially when assessing technical building services (TBS). Therefore, this paper presents and applies a methodical approach for the life cycle based assessment of the TBS of large residential building stocks, based on semantic 3D city models (CityGML). The methodical approach developed for this purpose describes the procedure for calculating the operational energy demand (already validated) and the heating load of the building, the dimensioning of the TBS components and the calculation of the life cycle assessment. The application of the methodology is illustrated in a case study with over 115,000 residential buildings from Munich, Germany. The study shows that the methodology calculates reliable results and that a significant reduction of the life cycle based energy demand can be achieved by refurbishment measures/scenarios. Nevertheless, the goal of achieving a climate-neutral building stock is a challenge from a life cycle perspective.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Nkem Ede ◽  
◽  
Samuel Olusegun Adebayo ◽  
Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ugwu ◽  
ChidoziePraiseGod Emenike

Author(s):  
Manish Sakhlecha ◽  
Samir Bajpai ◽  
Rajesh Kumar Singh

Buildings consume major amount of energy as well as natural resources leading to negative environmental impacts like resource depletion and pollution. The current task for the construction sector is to develop an evaluation tool for rating of buildings based on their environmental impacts. There are various assessment tools and models developed by different agencies in different countries to evaluate building's effect on environment. Although these tools have been successfully used and implemented in the respective regions of their origin, the problems of application occur, especially during regional adaptation in other countries due to peculiarities associated with the specific geographic location, climatic conditions, construction methods and materials. India is a rapidly growing economy with exponential increase in housing sector. Impact assessment model for a residential building has been developed based on life cycle assessment (LCA) framework. The life cycle impact assessment score was obtained for a sample house considering fifteen combinations of materials paired with 100% thermal electricity and 70%-30% thermal-solar combination, applying normalization and weighting to the LCA results. The LCA score of portland slag cement with burnt clay red brick and 70%-30% thermal-solar combination (PSC+TS+RB) was found to have the best score and ordinary Portland cement with flyash brick and 100% thermal power (OPC+T+FAB) had the worst score, showing the scope for further improvement in LCA model to include positive scores for substitution of natural resources with industrial waste otherwise polluting the environment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Dong ◽  
Tongyu Qin ◽  
Siyuan Zhou ◽  
Lu Huang ◽  
Rui Bo ◽  
...  

Many stadiums will be built in China in the next few decades due to increasing public interest in physical exercise and the incentive policies issued by the government under its National Fitness Program. This paper investigates the energy saving and carbon reduction performance of timber stadiums in China in comparison with stadiums constructed using conventional building materials, based on both life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) and life cycle carbon assessment (LCCA). The authors select five representative cities in five climate zones in China as the simulation environment, simulate energy use in the operation phase of stadiums constructed from reinforced concrete (RC) and timber, and compare the RC and timber stadiums in terms of their life cycle energy consumption and carbon emissions. The LCEA results reveal that the energy saving potential afforded by timber stadiums is 11.05%, 12.14%, 8.15%, 4.61% and 4.62% lower than those of RC buildings in “severely cold,” “cold,” “hot summer, cold winter,” “hot summer, warm winter,” and “temperate” regions, respectively. The LCCA results demonstrate that the carbon emissions of timber stadiums are 15.85%, 15.86%, 18.88%, 19.22% and 22.47% lower than those of RC buildings for the regions above, respectively. This demonstrates that in China, timber stadiums have better energy conservation and carbon reduction potential than RC stadiums, based on life cycle assessment. Thus, policy makers are advised to encourage the promotion of timber stadiums in China to achieve the goal of sustainable energy development for public buildings.


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiqian Zhang ◽  
Shen Tan ◽  
Yizhong Lei ◽  
Shoubing Wang

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