Class Syllabus

WEEK 1  Introduction  to Industrial Ecology | Power Point Presentation | Word Doc

Brief introduction to the need for sustainable development; the differences and similarities between the ecology of biological systems and industrial ecology. Why “industrial activities” include both industry and users of industrial products/services. The three types of ecology systems and why humanity cannot be in System I. Growth of usage of various materials during the second half of the 20^th century. How the “golden billion” consume 75% of the global material production (one third of this by the US); and the other 5 billion people, the remainder 25%. Respective responsibilities of developed and developing nations.

A physical understanding of the fragility of the Earth’s atmosphere. Atoms, molecules, molecular weights and mass/residence time of various elements/compounds in various reservoirs of the Earth and its atmosphere (e.g. H₂O in oceans, N₂, O₂, NOx, SO_2, etc. in the atmosphere).

The Grand Cycles

Introduction to the grand geochemical cycles of carbon, sulfur, nitrogen and phosphorus. The marvelous apportioning of duties by nature between animals (consumers of organic carbon/oxygen and producers of carbon dioxide) and plants (consumers of carbon dioxide and producers of organic carbon/oxygen). The ideal of IE (“wastes” of one industry to be the feedstock of another, adapted in nature over billions of years.

The low temperature oxidation of organic carbon and hydrogen reactions of decomposition/respiration produce CO₂ and energy;  photosynthesis uses solar energy to produce organic matter. Pre-industrial carbon annual transport of about 100 billion tons of carbon from the bio-available reservoir of CO₂ in the atmosphere to the life form reservoir (60 billion tons to land vegetation, 40 billion to phytoplankton on the oceans). Starting in the 1860’s and going into full swing in the 1940s, humans have generated a total of about 300 billion tons of carbon.

Sharpen up your IE skills: A False/True quiz for you to check your physical science/environment knowledge

Readings: Class Notes (Introduction to Industrial Ecology)

WEEK 2 The Grand Cycles (cont.) | Power Point Presentation | Word Doc

The Carbon Cycle

Mobilization of elements from bio-unavailable to the nutrient reservoir .Assimilation of elements from nutrient reservoir to plant or animal life. Transport of nutrients from life form to nutrient reservoir by decomposition (organic matter)or, e.g., by mineralization  (nitrogen and other compounds).  Net primary productivity of estuaries, forests, and densely planted land (0.8 kg carbon /m² per year), grassland  (0.2), and desert scrub (0.04). Bio-unavailable reservoirs for carbon: Carbonates (e g MgCO₃, CaCO₃) and reduced organic carbon (“kerogen”).  Bio-available carbon: As CO₂ in the atmosphere and as bicarbonate ions (HCO ₃ ^-) in water.

Estimated carbon in four solid/liquid reservoirs: Lithosphere:1.4E+08 billion tons; soil, peat, litter (detritus):1750 billion tons; plants: 830 billion tons; biota: 3 billion tons.

Human effects on the Carbon Cycle

Carbon dioxide generation by humans presently, by combustion of oil, coal, gas, cement manufacture, and gas flaring. Present annual generation of 6.5 billion tons of C (23.8 billion tons of CO₂), i.e. 6.5% of pre-industrial total cycling of carbon. Despite global warming signals and the Kyoto conference, carbon use increased by 0.4 billion tons since 1995. Also, urbanization and deforestation have decreased vegetated land by about 17% .However, because of increased biomass productivity (most likely due to higher CO₂ content in air, nature is absorbing about 50% of the human-origin CO₂. This still leaves an addition of 3.5 billion tons of C per year in the air reservoir and corresponds to an increase of CO₂  concentration by about 1.6 ppm/year. Brief discussion of severe environmental consequences.

The Sulfur Cycle

The Earth resources of sulfur (sedimentary and oceanic rocks, seawater ). Primary forms and mobilization. Six million tons of sulfur in atmosphere (in comparison to about 600 billion tons of carbon dioxide). Primary forms: Elemental sulfur, calcium sulfate, and SO₂ from smelting of metal sulfides. Biogeochemical mobilization in soils (60 -70 million tons/y); emissions from volcanoes: (20-30 million t/y). Anthropogenic effects on sulfur cycle (total: 150 million tons /y) as emissions to the atmosphere (93 million), increased rate of dust emission (10), fertilization (29) and wastewater emissions (13).  One-half of the anthropogenic sulfur  is generated as SO₂ from fossil fuel combustion (power plants, transportation) and metal production.

The Nitrogen Cycle

Over 99% of the Earth’s nitrogen resources (about 3900 trillion tons) are in the atmosphere (78% N₂, 21% O_{2 ,} <1%A, etc.). Stable (N₂) and reactive nitrogen species (NH₃, NH₄+, organic N, NO, NO2, HNO₃, NO₂- and NO₃-  ions). Pre-industrial cycle and human impact. Biofixation of nitrogen by terrestrial plants/animals (90-130 million tons of nitrogen per year), by marine systems (estimates vary up to 200 million tons), and lightning (3-5 million tons). Human effects: Fertilizers (80 million tons), agriculture (40 million), and fossil-fuel combustion (20 million). Consequences of nitrogen  mobilization (in air: acidification and photochemical smog; doubling the flux of nitrogen in riverine flow has led to increased productivity in plant life in estuaries and coastal areas that lead to “eutrophication”, i.e. waters rich in nutrients but deficient in oxygen to sustain many ecosystems.

The Phosphorus Cycle

Earth resources of phosphorus. Bio-available forms. Pre-industrial cycle and anthtopogenic sources. Production of phosphate (P₂O₅) and use in agriculture and industry. Phosphorus emissions and environmental impacts.

Sharpen up your IE skills: Use of LOTUS or EXCEL can be used to calculate masses of air and of CO₂  in atmosphere, effect of  annual increase  of mass of carbon in atmosphere on CO₂ concentration, etc.

Readings: Class notes (The Grand Cycles); Ayres, Schlesinger and Socolow. Human Impacts on the C and N cycle (in Industrial Ecology and Global Change, pp.121-155; J.N. Galloway, Anthropogenic mobilization of sulfur and nitrogen, Ann. Rev. Energy Environ 1996. 21:261-92;  J.M. Melillo, Tropical deforestation and the global carbon budget, Ann. Rev. Energy Environ 1996. 21:2693-310.

WEEK 3  Environmental performance indices; measures and metrics; ranking of risks; Environmental Load Units (ELU) | Power Point Presentation | Word Doc

The master environmental equation”:  Global environmental impacts  =

= Sum of all nations (population*$GDP/capita*environmental impact/$GDP) 

The “population” term can be reduced by public awareness or government action (China). The GDP/capita term represents the material standard of living . The third term is the subject of this course. Gross Domestic Product includes all products and services paid for in currency. It does not include environmental costs of a particular activity. Application of master equation to various nations. The last two terms of the “master equation” (Week 2) are examples of environmental metrics. Discussion of several other measures (usually expressed as ratios of two parameters) that link environmental quality to industrial activity. Ranking of adverse environmental impacts of various contaminants from the points of a) resource conservation, b) water contamination, and c) air contamination (Environmental Load Units).

Sharpen your IE skills: Using a spreadsheet program and published ELU values to compute environmental impact of a product. Exercise 1: Using 1990 population,GDP, and carbon emission data for five nations use the estimated annual rates of change (1990-2025) to calculate relative standings with regard to master equation, in 2000 and 2025.

Readings: Class notes (Environmewntal performance indices); National Material Metrics for Industrial Ecology, Wernick and Ausubel, Resources Policy 21(3):189-98, 1995.; Ayres, 1996, Statistical measures of uncertainty, Ecological Economics, 16:239-255. (IE and Global Change, Socolow et al, ed.)

 
WEEK 4:   The Pratt & Whitney Green Engine program Power Point Presentation
(Guest Lecturer, Mr. Robert Tierney of Pratt & W, a division of United Technologies Corp and a world leader in the design and manufacture of aircraft engines, gas turbines and space propulsion systems). The Green Engine Program of P&W is structured as a matrix organization that draws on people from the Design, Technology and Operations components of P&W as well as from supplier and customer organizations.
 In the attached PowerPoint presentation, Mr. Tierney  illustrates the application of the industrial ecology methodology, such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA; to be discussed in detail on Weeks 5 and 6 of this course) by a multi-billion dollar manufacturer or air plane and other engines. He starts by discussing the progress made since 1970 in decreasing lead and carbon dioxide emissions and, also, the regression in some areas, like increased amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and of solid wastes to landfills. landfilled. He presents a simple expression of the environmental master equation and discusses the forces that are driving "green" manufacturing: Environmental regulation, customer demands, and savings resulting by paying more attention to the environment.
One of the interesting findings of LCA at P&W was that the environmental impacts of the use of engines were estimated to be about 55 times greater  than those of the entire manufacturing process. Of special interest in this presentation was the merging by P&W of concerns for Environment Health, and Safety (EHS) because what is good for one was also good for the others.
There are several elements in the "green" engine design of P&W, ranging from material and energy efficiency to ability to refurbish or recycle a used part. LCA at P&W is an integral part of the annual "planning and evaluation" process. New products under design are compared and must be better than reference "baseline LCAs" . Materials used in the manufacture or use/maintenance of engines (Mr. Tierney mentioned that there can be as many as 10,000 parts in an engine) have been categorized to "prohibited" (e.g. arsenic and cadmium), "restricted" (e.g. hexavalent chromium, lead and compounds) and "to be reduced" (e.g., acetone, ammonia).
A Hazardous Materials Index is used to measure the integration of the effects of all parts in an engine. This Index will drive technological development at Pratt &Whitney.
In the class discussion after this presentation, students were impressed by the fact that industrial ecology is applied to this extent in a highly sophisticated industry (all of them had depended at one time or another on the quality of an airplane engine); also by the fact that P&W was a division of United Technologies, a corporation that had also introduced the use of environmental "metrics" (Week 3).

WEEK 5: LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS Word Doc

The practical objective of  LCA  is to ensure that the impacts of alternative processes, products, and other activities on the environment  are examined thoroughly and quantified as much as possible. There are now LCA societies in several countries. Also there is a Journal of Life Cycle Assessment published in Germany and U.S. that is the official organ of the Japan, India, and Korea LCA societies (www.scientificjournals.com).

ISO 14000: The International Standards Organization (ISO) has been setting international standards for product quality (ISO 9000 series) and other areas of commercial activity amongst nations. The ISO 14000 series  intends to set environmental standards for  products and services traded internationally. In contrast to the ISO 9000 standards which are mandatory at this time, the new ISO 14000 standards are at this time recommendations by ISO to the international industry but several forward looking companies, like Pratt & Whitney that presented a lecture in this course, have started to incorporate them in their operations and business plans. Also, buyers of products are looking very closely at the ISO specifications and use some of them in their requests from bids. E.g., we heard in this course about Canadian manufacturer Bombardier specifying that certain hazardous materials must not be used in the production of engines for their aircraft.

Sharpen your IE skills: Examples of applications of LCA. Homework assignment

WEEK 6 The Eco-indicators 99 Word Doc
The most prominent methodology for Life Cycle Assessment at present is Eco-indicators 99 (Eco-99) developed by Goedkoop (Goedkop 1995) and Pre Consultants in the Netherlands (www.pre.nl). The basic principle behind  Eco-99 is that since designers cannot consult an environmental expert in every case, they need a reliable tool to measure the environmental consequences of their design decisions. Eco-99 can be used to calculate standard indicator scores for frequently used materials and processes.
Eco-99 considers three principal categories of environmental impacts: Human health, Ecosystems quality, and Resources. There are several criteria within each category. A difficulty arises when the impacts of these three categories are to be added.  The difficulties of assigning weighting factors wil be discussed.
Units and dimensions of Eco-indicators
The standard Eco-indicator values are dimensionless.  In the E-I system, the  unit of measurement is called the Eco-indicator point, Pt, and is divided into 1000 millipoints (mPt). Having a unit of measurement allows us compare the environmental impacts of different materials, products and processes. The kilopoint (=1000 points) was derived by dividing the computed total environmental load in Europe by the number of inhabitants. So if you have a friend in France she imposes a load of one kilopoint (kPt) on the planet each year, and so do you, give or take a few hundred Pts.
Description of the standard Eco-indicators 99
Standard Eco-indicator 99 values are available for:
· Materials: The indicators are expressed per kilogram of material (1 U.S. lb=453 g).
· Production processes (treatment and processing of various materials): Expressed per physical unit that is appropriate to the particular process (e.g., square meters of rolled sheet or kilo of extruded plastic).
· Transport processes: Expressed mostly  per ton-km (q metric ton-1000 kg)
· Energy generation processes. Units are given for electricity and heat.
· Recycling or disposal processes. These are per kilo of material, subdivided into types of material and waste processing methods. In the recent past, the only concern about used materials and products was where to dispose them so they could not be seen or smelled. There was little consideration as to their properties, value or effects on the environment.  Even today, well meaning people who truly want to protect the environment can be passionate about  what should be done with what they consider to be a generic material, called wastes.  Industrial ecologists, such as the Ei-99 developers and faculty in this school,  are trying to shed some scientific light  on this difficult subject. Wastes, and in particular what is called municipal solid wastes (MSW),  consist of all phases and practically all materials that exist on this planet.  Taking such materials and burying them in a common “grave”, as is presently done for most MSW in the U.S., is an insult to the Earth and also to human intelligence.
 Steps to follow in using the Eco-indicators system for LCA
· Establish the purpose of the Eco-indicator calculation.
· Define where life cycle begins and ends.
· Express materials, energy and processes quantitatively
· Fill in the Eco-indicator form
· Draw conclusions from the information on the form.
An example is given of the use of Eco-indicators 99 in measuring the nevironmental impacts of the manufacture and use of a coffee machine.
 

Week 7. The Environmental Susceptibility Index (ESI): A measure of environmental performance  | Power Point Presentation (Guest lecture by Mr. Mark Levy, Associate Director, CIESIN, Columbia University). Mr. Levy describes a major effort  by Columbia's CIESIN (Ceter for International Earth Science Information Network) and some other organizations  to quantify the relativel standing of 122 nations by measuring nearly sixty parameters describing human health, ecosystems quality, and land/water use.  (see PowerPoint presentation Week7). Class discussion as to whether technological efficiency parameters (e.g. gas/dust control systems in electric utilities) should be included in next edition of ESI.
Also, a brief presentation on Eco Parks, where different companies congregate to use each other's by-products and residues, by TA Joseph Di Dio.
Mid-term examination - Preparation of list of titles of IE term projects.
 

Week 8. MATERIAL FLOWS THROUGH THE ECONOMY AND THE ENVIRONMENT Power Point Presentation | Word Doc
Flow of specific materials through the economy, from resource extraction through processing, manufacture, consumption, and disposal. Two cases will be examined:

IE Case 3: Mass flow of cadmium in the Rhine River: 1980-1990

IE Case 4: Mercury flow in Hudson-Raritan Basin: 2001

Sharpen your IE skills:  Examples of process/product “budgets” (solvent washing process; polymer extraction-molding). Homework.

Readings: Class notes on mercury case; Ayres, Industrial Metabolism , Pp. 23-49 in Technology and Environment, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.; Stigliani and Anderberg, 1992, Industrial Metabolism at the Regional Level: The Rhine Basin, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

WEEK 9 Fossil Fuels and Energy  Word Doc | Power Point Presentation |
Unit Conversion

The dimensions and units of energy. U.S. and global consumption of energy.  Reserves and resources of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas). Concentration of metals in fuels. Categories of fuel resources. Potential for increasing utility of fuel and electrical energy (i.e., service per unit of energy). The Factor Four of Rocky Mountain Institute. Co-generation of electricity and heat/cooling. Hybrid automobile engines.

Sharpen your IE skills: Computation of energy used, and savings possible, in a common daily activity. Generation of electric energy from combustion of municipal solid wastes (MSW).

Readings: Class notes; Rogner, 1997, An assessment of world hydrocarbon resources, Annual Reviews of Energy and Environment 22:217-62;  Linden, Energy and Industrial Ecology, pp 38-59, in The Greening of Industrial Ecosystems, Allenby and Richards, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.; Lee, 1989, Advanced Fossil Fuel Systems and Beyond, pp. 114-136 in Ausubel, and Sladovich, eds., Technology and Environment, National Academy, Washington DC. Blok, Williams, Katofsky, and Hendricks, 1997, Hydrogen Production from Natural Gas, Sequestration of Recovered CO2 in Depleted Gas Wells, and Enhanced Gas Recovery, Energy, 22(2/3):161-8;

WEEK 10  Metals production Word Doc | Power Point Presentation
 Global iron and aluminum resources are abundant but copper, zinc and other essential metals are constantly decreasing. E.g.,  grade of copper ores mined has decreased by a factor of four in the 20^th century; two to three hundred tons of ore must be processed and hundreds more moved aside as ore waste to produce one ton of metal. Lower grades require more and more energy per unit of metal

Metal recycling
Diverting metals from landfills and recycling them is integral part of IE. Dispersive uses of metals, e.g. as coatings on paper and glass, additives to paint or to gasoline, etc. must be phased out. Recorded dispersion of metals to air, water and soil, shows that emissions from used or discarded products contribute more to pollution industrial processing of metals. Metal recycling is held down because of very low value assigned to mineral resources and also low fuel prices. Need for product design for “demanufacturing”. Presently, 9 million tons of metals end up annually in U.S. landfills.

Energy and other advantages of metal recycling
Aluminum from ore uses ten to twenty times more energy than from recycled metal. Copper from ore requires five to seven times more energy and steel, three and one half times less energy than steel from primary ore. Metals recycling also reduces mining and beneficiation activities that disturb ecosystems. Metal recovery from solid (slags, dross, dust) and liquid (sludges, solutions from plating and other metal finishing operations, etc.) wastes reduce impact of emissions on the environment. However, market prices for such materials do not include the “environmental” savings. A ton of new computers has a value over $200,000 but the market price of a ton of used computers ranges between $0 and $60.

Use of metal producing technologies for environmental applications
Mining and extractive metallurgy are concerned with processes that deal with thousands of tons of materials instead with the kilograms involved in the manufacture of semi-conductors and other such advanced materials. The same technologies can be applied for dealing with large-scale environmental programs, such as the processing/disposal of hundreds of millions of tons of solid waste materials generated in the U.S.

IE Case Study No. 2: Processes that can process both primary and secondary metals

The LD or Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) produces steel from blast furnace+up to 30% iron scrap. The Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steelmaking process (reduced iron oxides+100% scrap) The slag resistance electric furnace (SREF) can be used for smelting of flue dusts from Waste to Energy plants and vitrifying hazardous wastes (binding of metals in a glass matrix..The Noranda copper smelting process uses as feedstock copper concentrates+recycled copper scrap.

Sharpen your IE skills: Examples and homework re metal production.

Readings: Class notes; Wernick and Themelis 1998, Metals Recycling, Ann. Rev. Energy Env., p.  ;Themelis 2000,  Industrial ecology and metal production, Proc. Minprex International Symp, Austral. Inst. Min.Met.

WEEK 11 Management of water resources Power Point Presentation -- Two cases | Word Doc-- Case Studies | Word Doc-- Solid Waste
Explores accounts of global terrestrial area and freshwater resources. Classes of land use, measures of net primary productivity and productivity for human use. A survey of available global freshwater resources, both surface and groundwater, will also be discussed.

Guest lecturer: Prof. Upmanu Lall, Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University
Readings: Class notes;  Lightening the Tread of Population on the Land: American Examples, Waggoner, Ausubel, and Wernick, Population Development and Review 22(3):531-45, 1996; Vitousek, Ehrlich, Ehrlich, 1986. Human Appropriation of the Products of Photosynthesis, BioScience 36:368, 1973; Gleick, 1993, Pp. 3-12 in Water In Crisis: A Guide To The Worldís Freshwater Resources, Oxford University Press, New York.

WEEK 12 Material and energy recovery from solid wastes Power Point Presentation -- Water resources

Readings: Class notes: Themelis and Kim 2000, Energy recovery from NYC Solid Wastes, Journal of Waste Management and Research (in press)

WEEK 12  Useful thermodynamic concepts: Enthalpy, Entropy; and the corresponding  IE concept of Exergy

Enthalpy, H, of a material= Sensible heat in the material (Cp dT)+ chemical heat of formation of compound (e.g.  of H₂O) + heat of physical transformation (e.g. ice to water.

Gibbs free energy of formation, G, of a molecule or compound: Free energy of compound minus the sum of the free energies of reagents (e.g     H₂ + 0.5 O₂ = H ₂O )

        1st law of thermodynamics: conservation of energy

Entropy, S, of a reversible process (e.g. melting of ice to water or freezing of water to ice): The amount of heat absorbed during the process (e.g. melting of ice) divided by the absolute temperature at which the process took place (e.g. for ice melting 273K).

                                                dS=dH/T

2nd law of thermodynamics: The total entropy change in a system resulting from a any real process in the system is positive and approaches a limiting value of zero for any process that approaches reversibility. (At 0 K, the entropy of all elements and compounds is zero.)

The Gibbs free energy of an element or compound is computed from the enthalpy and entropy terms:

DG = DH -TDS

In chemical thermodynamics, the enthalpy and the entropy of elements and compounds are expressed as the differences of these quantities from a reference temperature (usually 25^oC). The thermodynamic equilibrium between reagents and products is a function of the free energy of the reaction. Every physical and chemical transformation of materials involves a change in enthalpy and entropy, therefore in free energy.

Exergy

Exergy measures the useful energy content of a substance, i.e.energy that may be used to perform work at 100% efficiency- relative to a specified thermodynamic reference state) and is applicable to energy resources such as fossil fuels and solid wastes and also to material resources, such as iron ore and benzene. Another definition given of exergy is

Readings: Class notes; Connelly and Koshland, Two aspects of consumption: using an exergy-based measure of degradation to advance the theory and implementation of industrial ecology; Resources,

WEEK 13  Presentations of IE term papers
Term papers are a very important part of this course is the term paper. Students should start selecting the subject of their paper and planning its outline from Week 2 (the instructor will circulate list of past IE term papers). The proposed title and brief outline should be discussed with instructor by the end of Week 5 and a one-page description (agreed upon by student and instructor) to be presented (5 minutes per presentation) and discussed in class after the mid-term exam of Week 7. The final paper and presentation are expected to be of professional quality, worthy of possible publication in the web page of the Earth Engineering Center of Columbia University.

NJT, March 5/01