Sustainability Assessment of Renewables-Based Products

Methods and Case Studies

Jo Dewulf, Steven De Meester, Rodrigo A. F. Alvarenga, Jo Dewulf, Steven De Meester, Rodrigo A. F. Alvarenga

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781118933947
• eBook ISBN: 9781118933923
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Chemistry
• Index: Chemistry

Over the past decade, renewables-based technology and sustainability assessment methods have grown tremendously. Renewable energy and products have a significant role in the market today, and the same time sustainability assessment methods have advanced, with a growing standardization of environmental sustainability metrics and consideration of social issues as part of the assessment.

Sustainability Assessment of Renewables-Based Products: Methods and Case Studies is an extensive update and sequel to the 2006 title Renewables-Based Technology: Sustainability Assessment. It discusses the impressive evolution and role renewables have taken in our modern society, highlighting the importance of sustainability principles in the design phase of renewable-based technologies, and presenting a wide range of sustainability assessment methods suitable for renewables-based technologies, together with case studies to demonstrate their applications.

This book is a valuable resource for academics, businesses and policy makers who are active in contributing to more sustainable production and consumption.

For more information on the Wiley Series in Renewable Resources, visit www.wiley.com/go/rrs

Topics covered include:

• The growing role of renewables in our society
• Sustainability in the design phase of products and processes
• Principles of sustainability assessment
• Land use analysis
• Water use analysis
• Material and energy flow analysis
• Exergy and cumulative exergy analysisCarbon and environmental footprint methods
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), social Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing (LCC)
• Case studies: renewable energy, bio-based chemicals and bio-based materials.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Series Preface
• Preface
• 1 The Growing Role of Biomass for Future Resource Supply—Prospects and Pitfalls
• 2 The Growing Role of Photovoltaic Solar, Wind and Geothermal Energy as Renewables for Electricity Generation
• 3 Assessment of Sustainability within Holistic Process Design
• 4 A Mass Balance Approach to Link Sustainable Renewable Resources in Chemical Synthesis with Market Demand
• 5 Early R&D Stage Sustainability Assessment
• 6 Assessing the Sustainability of Land Use
• 7 Water Use Analysis
• 8 Material Intensity of Food Production and Consumption
• 9 Material and Energy Flow Analysis
• 10 Exergy and Cumulative Exergy Use Analysis
• 11 Carbon and Environmental Footprint Methods for Renewables-based Products and Transition Pathways to 2050
• 12 Tracking Supply and Demand of Biocapacity through Ecological Footprint Accounting
• 13 Life Cycle Assessment and Sustainability
• 14 Life Cycle Costing
• 15 Social Life Cycle Assessment
• 16 Life Cycle Assessment of Solar Technologies
• 17 Assessing the Sustainability of Geothermal Utilization
• 18 Biofuels from Terrestrial Biomass
• 19 Algae as Promising Biofeedstock; Searching for Sustainable Production Processes and Market Applications
• 20 Life Cycle Assessment of Biobased and Fossil-Based Succinic Acid
• 21 Biobased Poly Vinylchloride (PVC)
• 22 Evaluation of Wood Cascading
• 23 Time-Dependent Life-Cycle Assessment of Bio-Based Packaging Materials
• 24 Conclusions
• Index
• End User License Agreement