HR: 10:50h
AN: B51F-03 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Material Flows and Carbon Cycles
AU: * Worrell, E
EM: EWorrell@lbl.gov
AF: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Bldg. 90R4000 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720 United States
AB: The industrial sector emits almost 43 percent of the global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to produce materials and products. Furthermore, energy is used to move materials and products and process the waste. Hence, a large amount of energy is consumed and CO2 is emitted to sustain our materials system. Until recently, studies investigating mitigation options focused on changes in the energy system. For industrial processes most studies evaluate how the current materials system can be maintained producing fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Three elements of a strategy to improve the long-term materials productivity are the reduction of dissipative uses of non-biodegradable materials, secondly, the re-design of products to use less material or design for re-use or recycling, and thirdly, develop more efficient technologies for material conversion and recycling. This will reduce or eliminate the need to extract virgin materials from the environment, and reduce CO2 emissions from the energy-intensive production processes. To assess measures to reduce materials consumption, fossil fuels consumption and CO2 emissions, detailed understanding of the material system is needed. The lifecycle of materials has to be investigated including all branches of industry with all the inputs and outputs. We start with a discussion of materials and the carbon cycle focusing on the contribution of materials to anthropogenic carbon flows. We discuss CO2 emissions from energy use in materials extraction and production, fossil (e.g. plastics) and biomass carbon (e.g. lumber, paper) used as feedstock of materials, and mineral sources (e.g. cement). We discuss opportunities to reduce CO2 emissions by improving the efficiency with which society uses materials through product design, material substitution, product reuse and material recycling.
DE: 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE (New category)
DE: 6399 General or miscellaneous
DE: 9350 North America
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting