[en] The energy performance and carbon footprint associated with the fluidized bed drying of petals of Echium amoenum Fisch. and C.A. Mey are experimentally evaluated at three temperatures (40,50,60°C) and air velocities (0.50,0.75,1.00m/s). The maximum and minimum specific energy consumption are observed to occur at 40°C and 1ms-1 (79.18MJ/kg) and 60°C and 0.5m/s (22.60MJ/kg), respectively. The greenhouse gas emission is in the range, 0.10-8.40kg CO2 eq, varying with drying conditions in the same manner as energy consumption, with natural gas-fired systems performing better than oil-fired systems. High-temperature, low-air velocity drying is thus, favourable for energy-efficient and sustainable fluidized bed drying of the petals. (Author)

[en] Nowadays an increasing attention of public and private agencies to the sustainability performance of events is observed, since it is recognized as a key issue in the context of sustainable development. Assessing the sustainability performance of events involves environmental, social and economic aspects; their impacts are complex and a quantitative assessment is often difficult. This paper presents a new quali-quantitative method developed to measure the sustainability of events, taking into account all its potential impacts. The 2014 World Orienteering Championship, held in Italy, was selected to test the proposed evaluation methodology. The total carbon footprint of the event was 165.34 tCO_2eq and the avoided emissions were estimated as being 46 tCO_2eq. The adopted quali-quantitative method resulted to be efficient in assessing the sustainability impacts and can be applied for the evaluation of similar events. - Highlights: • A quali-quantitative method to assess events' sustainability is presented. • All the methodological issues related to the method are explained. • The method is used to evaluate the sustainability of an international sports event. • The method resulted to be valid to assess the event's sustainability level. • The carbon footprint of the event has been calculated.

[en] France has been ranked first among 146 countries for the quality and availability of its electrical power by the Choiseul Institute and KMPG. This classification is made according to 3 categories: first, the quality of the energy mix, secondly quality and availability of the electrical power, and thirdly the environmental footprint. France ranks first for the second category because of its important fleet of nuclear reactors, but ranks 93 for the quality of its energy mix, its poor performance is due to its large dependence on oil as primary energy. The performance of France for the environment footprint is only in the world average for despite is low-carbon electricity production, French households release great quantities of CO₂. (A.C.)

No abstract available

[en] Recently, application of high strength steel sheets for automobiles has increased in order to meet a demand of light weighting of automobiles to reduce a carbon footprint while satisfying collision safety. The formability of steel sheets generally decreases with the increase in strength. Fracture and wrinkles tend to occur easily during forming. The springback phenomenon is also one of the issues which we should cope with, because it makes it difficult to obtain the desired shape after forming. Advanced high strength steel sheets with high formability have been developed in order to overcome these issues, and at the same time application technologies have been developed for their effective utilization. These sheets are normally used for cold forming. As a different type of forming, hot forming technique has been developed in order to produce parts with ultra high strength. In this report, technologies developed at NSSMC in this field will be introduced

[en] The French energy policy that is featured by both a strong commitment towards low-carbon energies and a reduction of the part of the nuclear power in the production of electricity is contradictory. France is with Sweden one of the industrialized countries whose carbon footprint is the lowest. The annual emission of CO₂ per inhabitant are 5.5 tonnes in France, 9.3 tonnes in Germany, 7.5 tonnes as a mean value in the European Union and 10.4 tonnes as a mean value for the developed countries. France's good figure is due to its fleet of nuclear reactors that provide the country with 75% of its electricity production and in the same time avoid the release in the atmosphere of hundreds of million tonnes of CO₂. The reduction from 75% to 50% of the contribution ratio of nuclear energy to the production of electricity, as wished by French government, will generate an increase of CO₂ releases as it is unrealistic to think that the energies that will replace nuclear energy will release no CO₂. A striking example is Germany, where the progressive exit of nuclear energy led to an increase of 2.9% of CO₂ emissions between 2011 and 2013. (A.C.)

[en] Undoubtedly, grilling is popular. Britons fire up their barbeques some 60 million times a year, consuming many thousands of tonnes of fuel. In milder climates consumption is even higher, and in the developing world, charcoal continues to be an essential cooking fuel. So it is worth comparing the carbon footprints of the two major grill types, charcoal and LPG, and that was the purpose of the study this paper documents. Charcoal and LPG grill systems were defined, and their carbon footprints were calculated for a base case and for some plausible variations to that base case. In the base case, the charcoal grilling footprint of 998 kg CO₂e is almost three times as large as that for LPG grilling, 349 kg CO₂e. The relationship is robust under all plausible sensitivities. The overwhelming factors are that as a fuel, LPG is dramatically more efficient than charcoal in its production and considerably more efficient in cooking. Secondary factors are: use of firelighters, which LPG does not need; LPG's use of a heavier, more complicated grill; and LPG's use of cylinders that charcoal does not need.

[en] A lot of controversy can be found in open literature on the carbon balance attributed to the electricity generated by nuclear power plants. Extremely scattered values are spread about varying over more than two orders of magnitude from one study to another. In this paper, we work out a realistic estimation of the CO₂ emission that ought to be allocated to nuclear energy, based on a technical analysis of the life cycle of the uranium fuel. It includes going all the way from the front-end (mining, purification, enrichment and fuel fabrication) up to the back-end (including recycling and waste conditioning) through the production part inside the reactor. In the analysis, the CO₂ emitted during both the plant construction phase and the deconstruction and dismantling phases has been evaluated and added to the amount of greenhouse gas released during operation. It is shown that the final carbon footprint of nuclear electricity is highly dependent on the country considered and its electricity generation mix. A special focus is given on France's case, whose CO₂ balance is closely linked to the nuclear share. In France, thanks to an electric power mainly generated by nuclear and hydroelectricity, the actual carbon footprint of nuclear electricity has been estimated to be as low as 1.56 g CO₂/kWh in which the different contributions are: mining: 0.77 g CO₂/kWh, front-end: 0.12 g CO₂/kWh, production: 0.41 g CO₂/kWh and back-end: 0.26 g CO₂/kWh. In France the carbon footprint of nuclear energy is 250 times lower than gas-fired power plants and 600 times lower than coal plants

[en] Reliable estimates of the carbon present in stands of oil palm, both in the palms themselves and in other biomass components of oil palm plantations, are crucial for assessing the net greenhouse gas (GHG) balance and carbon footprint of palm oil production. Carbon sequestered during the growth of the oil palm crop generally represents the largest item of the oil palm GHG budget, being second in magnitude only to land use change (LUC) or, for crops grown on peat soil, to microbial peat oxidation. In this article, alternative models available for assessing carbon stocks and carbon sequestration in oil palm plantations are examined taking into account factors such as palm age, planting density and soil type. Both linear and non-linear models are discussed and the crop and plantation components contributing to them are reviewed, as is the methodology used, which may involve destructive or non-destructive techniques, or a combination of both. Guidance is given for selecting the most appropriate model. (author)

[en] This paper discusses the carbon capture and storage project at the Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan. Carbon capture and storage is a transitional process for future, low carbon footprint, electrical generation. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions requires the reduction of carbon dioxide from coal-fired electricity. There has been a significant reduction in coal usage across Canada and this trend is expected to continue.