Consequences of long-term infrastructure decisions—the case of self-healing roads and their CO₂ emissions

Abstract

What could be the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions if the conventional way of maintaining roads is changed?Emissions of greenhouse gases must be reduced if global warming is to be avoided, and urgent political and technological decisions should be taken. However, there is a lock-in in built infrastructures that is limiting the rate at which emissions can be reduced. Self-healing asphalt is a new type of technology that will reduce the need for fossil fuels over the lifetime of a road pavement, at the same time as prolonging the road lifespan. In this study we have assessed the benefits of using self-healing asphalt as an alternative material for road pavements employing a hybrid input-output-assisted Life-Cycle Assessment, as only by determining the plausible scenarios of future emissions will policy makers identify pathways that might achieve climate change mitigation goals. We have concluded that selfhealing roads could prevent a considerable amount of emissions and costs over the global road network: 16% lower emissions and 32% lower costs compared to a conventional road over the lifecycle.

Desalination and sustainability: a triple bottom line study of Australia

“…Hybrid LCAs are used for carbon footprint studies of products, companies or sectors by extending IO tables with physical environmental satellites (Liu et al 2012, Norwood and Kammen 2012, Rodríguez-Alloza et al 2019, Heihsel et al 2019b. Numerous sustainability studies expand the focus on further economic and social indicators, the so-called TBL (Elkington 1998, Foran et al 2005, Onat et al 2014, Malik et al 2016, Hadjikakou et al 2019.…”

Including maintenance in life cycle assessment of road and rail infrastructure—a literature review

“…A joint analysis period was then chosen to correspond to the longest service life (e.g. Chen Noda et al 2016;Huang et al 2018;Rodríguez-Alloza et al 2019;Cadenazzi et al 2019Cadenazzi et al , 2020Landi et al 2020), the shortest service life (Stripple et al 2016;Cantisani et al 2018), or a common denominator between the service lives (Liu et al 2020). Others used an analysis period in which each alternative is rehabilitated at least once (Puccini et al 2019) or that includes a complete life cycle of all alternatives (Batouli et al 2017).…”

“…Papers that considered the end-of-life of alternatives also accounted for reconstruction of the alternative with the shortest service life (e.g. Noda et al 2016;Stripple et al 2016;Simões et al 2017;Al-Ayish et al 2018;Rodríguez-Alloza et al 2019;Cadenazzi et al 2019Cadenazzi et al , 2020Rempelos et al 2020).…”

Minireview on Self-Healing Polymers: Versatility, Application, and Prospects

“…This material can repair damage (through a hybrid input-output system) caused by natural disasters or road accidents. They concluded that self-healable roads may decrease emissions by 16 percent and decrease costs by 32 percent compared with a conventional road over the service life [85].…”