USEFUL NUMBERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND MEANINGFUL COMPARISONS

Transcription

1 USEFUL NUMBERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND MEANINGFUL COMPARISONS Benoit Cushman-Roisin Bruna Tanaka Cremonini Dartmouth College 2017

2 Copyright 2017 by Benoit Cushman-Roisin and Bruna Tanaka Cremonini

3 Contents Preface 1. Materials Metals Plastics and rubber Paper and cardboard Chemicals Shaping of materials Miscellaneous materials 10 Sources Water Hydrological cycle Energy for water Water consumption Wastewater 16 Sources Energy Units Solar energy Energy generation Solid fuels Liquid fuels Gaseous fuels Compost Animal manure Other biological matter Photovoltaic cells Wind turbines Energy conversion Electricity generation Internal combustion engine Electric motor / Alternator Fuel cells Biomass to ethanol Oil crops to biodiesel Efficiency factors Energy storage Batteries Hydrogen Pumped hydro Compressed air Energy transport Electrical transmission 31

4 Pipelines & oil tankers Energy consumption Transportation Buildings Food 33 Sources Pollutants and Greenhouse Gases Air pollutants Greenhouse gases Carbon footprints Per person Transportation fuels Heating fuels Electricity generation Materials Buildings Food Carbon sequestration & offsets Trees and other biomass Underground injection 46 Sources Transportation Land transport Transport of people Transport of freight Rail transport Air transport Passenger air travel Air freight Water transport On seawater On inland water Pipelines 51 Sources Buildings Sizes Materials R values Embedded energy Heating and air conditioning Heating Ventilation Air conditioning & refrigeration Electricity consumption Water consumption 54

5 6.6. Hospitality: Hotels & Restaurants Education: Schools, Colleges & Universities Retail: Stores & Warehouses Service: Banks & Office Buildings Demolition 54 Sources Electronics & Computers Microchips Printed circuit boards Computers Manufacturing Usage Recycling Personal electronics 58 Sources Information & Internet Information storage Internet usage 61 Sources Humans & Their Needs Population Shelter Clothing Food Energy 64 Sources Risks Lifetime risks Annual risks as odds Activities of equal risks One in a million risks Risk of cancer 70 Sources Waste & Recycling Municipal solid waste Packaging Recycling Composting 75 Sources Industries Aviation industry Agriculture, livestock and food industry 77

6 12.3. Automotive industry Building and construction Chemical industry Consumer goods Tobacco Furniture Personal and household Beverages Energy industry Service industry Travel, tourism and hospitality Logistics and transportation Retail Telecommunications Media and entertainment Television industry Music industry Healthcare Healthcare facilities Pharmaceuticals & biotech Oil and gas industry Onshore extraction Offshore extraction Paper and forest industry Textile industry 106 Sources Making the Numbers Speak Distances Volumes Energy and carbon emissions Trees 117 Sources 118 Index 119

7 Preface We frequently hear and read statements like these: By installing low flow showerheads, my school will save 1,250 gallons of water each year, or this clean source of electricity will power 275,000 homes, or it takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday Edition of the Big City Times. Don t you sometimes wish that you, too, could run the numbers and make similar statements about your environmental aspirations and accomplishments, or about the impacts of others? All it takes are a few numbers that permit to translate paper usage into trees cut, electrical consumption into homes, recycling into energy, and energy savings into an equivalent number of miles not driven. But where are those numbers? Many of these numbers exist but are scattered across scientific publications and internet postings, some more reliable than others. It takes time to find the numbers, good numbers. At Dartmouth, the first author noted that his students spent a fair amount of time looking for these numbers in the pursuit of their assignments and projects, only to rediscover pretty much the same numbers course after course. So, to save time to his students, he began to compile a list of numbers, which he plainly titled Useful Numbers and posted on one of his course web sites. This list kept growing as years passed, and soon it grew to such a size that visitors to the web site started asking questions: Where did you find this number? Do you have numbers about that? And it dawned on him that there was a definite need in the environmental community for an accessible and organized compilation of useful numbers. The idea of gathering and organizing a relatively comprehensive set of numbers into a small handbook became a natural outgrowth. And so, by popular demand, here is the handbook that you have been looking for. It was prepared with diligence, from vetted information buried in refereed scientific publications as well as reliable web sites. Effort has also been made to organize the disparate and often disconnected topics into some logical order. There is no right organization for this type of material, of course, and someone else would certainly have organized the topics differently. We the authors only hope that most users will find the present organization sufficiently practical. This, obviously, is not a book that will ever be read from cover to cover, unless one wishes to use it for sleep therapy. It is a handbook where the user begins with the index pages in the back. Sources are cited and gathered at the end of each chapter, to keep them close to the numbers that they provided. This little handbook should serve as a handy reference for researchers and students to find quickly the number they seek, and for teachers and journalists to find means to illustrate their lectures and articles. Perhaps it can become the little book on the corner of your desk that, at the reach of the arm, puts meaning in your number.