Abstract:Two methods of natural ecosystem assessment—emergy analysis (EMA) and life cycle assessment (LCA)—are reviewed in this paper. Their advantages, disadvantages, and application areas are summarized, and the similarities and differences between these two evaluation methods are analyzed respectively. Their research progress is also sorted out. The study finds that EMA and LCA share common attributes in evaluation processes and research fields, but they focus on different aspects of macrocosms and microcosms. The a… Show more
“…Models and computational tools at different sizes of operations have been developed and used thanks to recent breakthroughs in biofuels research. A few examples are LCA models, crop simulations, process design simulations, large-scale crop models, and mathematical optimization tools [96]. Each of these reports adds new information to the conversation about biofuels' long-term viability.…”
Alternative fuels reduce the carbon footprint of internal combustion engines. Biofuels are the most important alternative fuels. Manufacturing processes for biofuels have made it possible to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from well to wheel. There are a number of popular alternative fuels for use in internal combustion (IC) engines, including biodiesel, bioethanol, and bio methanol. Biodiesel and petroleum diesel fuel blends in compression ignition (CI) engines have received a lot of attention. Biofuel is any liquid fuel derived from "biomass," such as plants and animal waste. Biofuels replace gasoline and diesel. Biofuels are promising because the carbon dioxide (CO2) they emit is recycled through the environment. Biofuel plants collect CO2 from the air and release it when burned. In principle, biofuels can be a "carbon neutral" or "carbon negative" means to power automobiles, trucks, and planes. Biofuels can reduce CO2 emissions without requiring many infrastructural changes. They can be used in existing cars and mass-produced from biomass like chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Future biofuels may be moved using current pipelines. Making carbon-neutral biofuels is difficult. Fermentation, processing energy, transportation, and even plant nutrients can produce CO2 and other greenhouse gases before biofuels are consumed. Biomass agriculture can have climate consequences if it replaces CO2-storing woods. How biofuels are generated and used affects their potential as a climate solution.
“…Models and computational tools at different sizes of operations have been developed and used thanks to recent breakthroughs in biofuels research. A few examples are LCA models, crop simulations, process design simulations, large-scale crop models, and mathematical optimization tools [96]. Each of these reports adds new information to the conversation about biofuels' long-term viability.…”
Alternative fuels reduce the carbon footprint of internal combustion engines. Biofuels are the most important alternative fuels. Manufacturing processes for biofuels have made it possible to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from well to wheel. There are a number of popular alternative fuels for use in internal combustion (IC) engines, including biodiesel, bioethanol, and bio methanol. Biodiesel and petroleum diesel fuel blends in compression ignition (CI) engines have received a lot of attention. Biofuel is any liquid fuel derived from "biomass," such as plants and animal waste. Biofuels replace gasoline and diesel. Biofuels are promising because the carbon dioxide (CO2) they emit is recycled through the environment. Biofuel plants collect CO2 from the air and release it when burned. In principle, biofuels can be a "carbon neutral" or "carbon negative" means to power automobiles, trucks, and planes. Biofuels can reduce CO2 emissions without requiring many infrastructural changes. They can be used in existing cars and mass-produced from biomass like chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Future biofuels may be moved using current pipelines. Making carbon-neutral biofuels is difficult. Fermentation, processing energy, transportation, and even plant nutrients can produce CO2 and other greenhouse gases before biofuels are consumed. Biomass agriculture can have climate consequences if it replaces CO2-storing woods. How biofuels are generated and used affects their potential as a climate solution.
“…More importantly, because of the inherent "external (or input/output (I/O)-oriented)" and donor-side perspective [140], emergy lacks the insight to investigate a full spectrum of the internal performance (e.g., energy interaction among components) or emission [141]. For maximizing power, empower tends to exhibit large unsteady fluctuations, but Odum [36,43] argues that system performance is predictable only by identifying external source availability.…”
Sustainable buildings tend to maximize power and information rather than efficiency. The multidimensional concepts and tools provided by systems ecology and thermodynamics aid the understanding of building performance and sustainability as part of the global and complex thermodynamic phenomena in living systems—energy is not concentrated, but it flows, increasing the flow rate of useful energy. From such an extended macroscopic perspective, this paper addresses holistic eco-systemic criteria of building performance evaluation, focusing on emergy (spelled with an "m") and information—the two critical indices of extensive and intensive analysis. Emergy aggregates the utmost and upstream energetic impacts, whereas information evaluates the structural pattern of the energy-flow distribution. These indices are theoretically correlated under the principles of ecological energy transformation and are often practically compatible. To clarify the definitions and appropriate scientific contexts of the new indices for environmental building studies, we review information theory, ecological theorems, and a few pioneering studies. Emergy and information have a great potential for advanced environmental building analysis, but building-scale implementation of emergy, information, and system principles remains a scientific challenge. The findings call for further research into the improvement of building-specific emergy/information data and reliable evidence of the analogy between building and open living systems.
“…For this reason, these approaches are usually integrated, such as Arbault et al [56] who used EF, LCA, and emergy; Sheng et al [57] used the concepts of exergy and EF in emergy analysis, and Meng et al [58] used exergy and LCA, based on EME methodology. A more detailed analysis of the potential use of LCA and emergy can be found in Rugani and Benetto [39] and Wang et al [59]. McDougall et al [60] and Yang et al [61] used indicators obtained through EME and the ecological footprint in agriculture systems with an urban impact.…”
Section: Integration Of Eme With the Ecological Footprint Life Cycle Assessment Exergy And Gismentioning
The objective of this paper is to present a review of current research on the valuation of ecosystem services, using emergy evaluation methodology (EME). A bibliometric analysis and a systematic review were carried out between 2000 and 2020, using all of Web of Science database subfields that collected 187 papers, selected through the keywords “emergy” and “ecosystem services”. In the second part of the research, we carried out a new search on Web of Science of the 187 initial articles produced, with the words “valuation” and “economic”, in order to analyze those directly related to the evaluation of ecosystem services. The results showed that the EME method is an effective tool to evaluate ecosystem services, since it relates economic and ecological aspects in the evaluations. The research also indicated that the use of isolated methods does not appear to be the most appropriate solution, and that emergy used in combination with other methodologies can be used to obtain more accurate and comprehensive results to evaluate natural resources.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.