No abstract

No abstract

This paper analyzes the Cuban model of sustainable development and explains the causes that made Cuba the only country that meets the conditions of sustainability according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF). The Human Development Index has three main components: quality of life (health indicator measured as life expectancy at birth), knowledge (education indicator measured as adult literacy) and the standard of life (economic indicator measured by the Gross Domestic Income). This paper analyses the aspects of the educational and health system of Cuba and also of its energy policies that explain the excellent scores of the Human Development Index. Cuba shows a Human Development Index of 0.8 with an Ecological Footprint of 1.8 gha. This is achieved with a Gross Domestic Income lower than other countries with similar Human Development Index. The Ecological Footprint of Cuba is mainly determined by the CO 2 and the agricultural land footprint. The paper shows how the economic transition, after the economic crisis of the early 1990s, was realized without significantly increasing the Ecological Footprint.Readers should send their comments on this article to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.

Thermoelectric generation is an alternative to recover some of the wasted energy trough an exhaust of the internal combustion engines. This paper assesses the performance of a thermoelectric generator with 20 modules by implementing a waffle heat exchanger. Experimental results showed a variable range of power recovery from 57.87 W to 71.13 W for B10, B5, and Diesel. The highest energy conversion efficiency of the aforementioned thermoelectric device was of 3% with the highest load and the fastest rotational speed. Also, the recovery process reduced gaseous emissions such as CO, CO2, NO, NOX, and HC. Additionally, the smoke opacity per kWh is reduced at significant levels of operations such as 2.42% when using diesel, 2.65% when using B5 and 3% when using B10. However, when using biodiesel blends, NOx emissions were increased. Overall the biodiesel resulted in a higher power recovery performance versus the diesel.

Hotels are among the most energy intensive tourism facilities. To monitor and control the monthly and yearly energy consumption in hotels, different indicators have been proposed. These indicators, developed on yearly or annual basis, do not permit rapid detection and mitigation of malpractices and overconsumptions in hotel facilities. Moreover, these indicators do not consider the influence of physical parameters such as outdoor temperature, or, when they do, rather complex coefficients are used, precluding implementation in hotel facilities. This study discusses the use of Energy Performance Indicators to assess and control the electricity consumption in hotels. To this end a new indicator considering the outdoor temperature is introduced. Based on this indicator daily control graphs are developed, allowing a more rapid detection of overconsumptions and malpractices towards a higher electricity efficiency. One advantage of this approach is that no investments are required to implement it. The tools were implemented in two Cuban hotels of different characteristics, where reductions of the electricity consumption in 2014 compared to 2013 of 10 and 11%, were achieved.

The involvement of universities is crucial to identify how Cleaner Production strategies are formed in practice so that companies integrate sustainability into their strategies. This paper discusses the experience of establishing and operating the Cleaner Production Center at the University of Cienfuegos. From 2008 to 2011, the University of Cienfuegos, the Free University of Brussels (Belgium) and the University of Leuven (Belgium) implemented a project, financially supported by the Flemish Interuniversity Council (Belgium) allowing establishing a Cleaner Production Center at the University of Cienfuegos. This first project was followed by a second University of Cienfuegos-University of Leuven one. So far, the collaboration allowed to establish a master program on Cleaner Production that constitutes a bridge between the university and the production and service sector, allowing to promote and implement cleaner production strategies. 34 master students graduated during two graduations and a third one is ongoing. Among the most important results of the master thesis were the yearly reduction of the emission of 60 000 t/a of carbon dioxide equivalent and of the electricity consumption by 400 MWh/a at a cement plant. Research activities on Cleaner Production were upgraded through the collaboration resulting in several publications in peerreviewed journals with impact factor. This type of North-South cooperation aided establishing and developing the center, by transferring expertise and experience and by providing part of the necessary funding which is difficult to raise by developing economies. This case study offers an interesting practice example about developing academic (training, research) values on Cleaner Production.

Sugar from sugarcane represents 65-70% of the world production of sugar and its production is mainly located in developing countries. The production process requires high amounts of steam and electricity at the different stages, and generates important quantities of residues. A major residue of the sugar production is filter cake (in Cuba: Cachaza), the residue from cane juice filtration. Filter cake causes significant pollution, and in several sugar factories it is considered a waste, posing problems of management and final disposal. This paper reviews recycling and recovery opportunities of filter cake (and bagasse) and experimentally studies the use of filter cake as fuel at the sugar factory. Filter cake may e.g. be used as a fertilizer/soil improver directly applied on the fields or after composting. During its decomposition, it generates, however, an acid leachate and emits significant amounts of greenhouse gases. Moreover, the experimental part of the paper shows that blends of filter cake with bagasse can be combusted in industrial boilers in sugar factories, and that loose, non-vitrified ashes with a similar appearance as bagasse ash are obtained. This results in lower volumes and masses of residues to be transported, so that transportation costs are reduced. Moreover, it gives a new economic value to the filter cake, and reduces its environmental impact. When all filter cake would be combusted blended with bagasse, about 25% more ash would be obtained than for bagasse and the trace element composition would comply with the regulatory limits for use as fertilizer/soil improver.

The outcome of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies is strongly influenced by the selection of the functional unit, which must be defined in such a way that, when products are compared, the amounts compared have identical utilities. LCA studies of cements mostly use mass based functional units (MFU). However, since different cements have a different composition and binding capacity, they result in different compressive strength and durability in their applications, so that MFUs are inadequate. Therefore, this study introduces as functional unit the Cement Functional Performance (CFP): mass of cement needed to obtain 1 MPa of compressive strength during one year of durability (kg/(MPa•year)). To evaluate the effect of the CFP, the environmental performance of three cements is compared. Results show that adding 5% of zeolite to cement results in a similar strength and 1.78 times higher durability of the produced concrete, which is explained by the reduction of chloride diffusion. Moreover, adding 19% of zeolite to cement increases its durability 2.75 times, but reduces compressive strength by 29%. As a result, cement with 5 and 19% of zeolite added has respectively 54 and 36% of the environmental impacts of Portland cement.