ALBERT

Description: Summary This article presents an algorithm to aid practitioners in determining the most appropriate method to estimate carbon dioxide emissions from an electricity load. Applications include sustainability assessments of products, processes, energy efficiency improvements, changes in generation infrastructure, and changes in electricity demand. Currently, there is no consensus on appropriate methods for calculating greenhouse gas emissions resulting from specific electricity loads. Previous research revealed significant differences in emissions when different methods were used, a situation that could result in divergent sustainability or policy recommendations. In this article, we illustrate the distribution of emissions estimates based on method characteristics such as region size, temporal resolution, average or marginal approaches, and time scales. Informed by these findings, a decision support algorithm is presented that uses a load's key features and an analyst's research question to provide recommendations on appropriate method types. We defined four different cases to demonstrate the utility of the algorithm and to illustrate the variability of methods used in previous studies. Prior research often employed simplifying assumptions, which, in some cases, can result in electricity being allocated to the incorrect generating resources and improper calculation of emissions. This algorithm could reduce inappropriate allocation, variability in assumptions, and increase appropriateness of electricity emissions estimates.

Description: Summary Scrutiny of food packaging environmental impacts has led to a variety of sustainability directives, but has largely focused on the direct impacts of materials. A growing awareness of the impacts of food waste warrants a recalibration of packaging environmental assessment to include the indirect effects due to influences on food waste. In this study, we model 13 food products and their typical packaging formats through a consistent life cycle assessment framework in order to demonstrate the effect of food waste on overall system greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and cumulative energy demand (CED). Starting with food waste rate estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we calculate the effect on GHG emissions and CED of a hypothetical 10% decrease in food waste rate. This defines a limit for increases in packaging impacts from innovative packaging solutions that will still lead to net system environmental benefits. The ratio of food production to packaging production environmental impact provides a guide to predicting food waste effects on system performance. Based on a survey of the food LCA literature, this ratio for GHG emissions ranges from 0.06 (wine example) to 780 (beef example). High ratios with foods such as cereals, dairy, seafood, and meats suggest greater opportunity for net impact reductions through packaging‐based food waste reduction innovations. While this study is not intended to provide definitive LCAs for the product/package systems modeled, it does illustrate both the importance of considering food waste when comparing packaging alternatives, and the potential for using packaging to reduce overall system impacts by reducing food waste.

Description: Intermontane basins are often the result of regionally variable uplift in tectonic settings. Wedge-top basins, a type of intermontane basin, form along thrust faults within a fold and thrust belt, and provide an ideal environment to study the regional fluvial and surface response to local variations in rock uplift. This study simulates the formation and evolution of an intermontane basin using a landscape evolution model. The modelling results demonstrate that large trunk streams maintain connectivity during basin formation for two reasons: (1) their stream power is enhanced by the capture of smaller streams, enabling them to incise through the uplifting downstream region, and (2) they acquire increased sediment yield to completely infill the upstream accommodation space rather than forming an endorhic basin. During active deformation of the fold-and-thrust belt, both channel slope and erosion rates are reduced upstream of the intermontane basin and these changes propagate as a wave of low erosion into the uplands. For a uniform background uplift rate in a landscape previously at steady state, this reduced rate of erosion results in a net surface uplift upstream of the basin. Following the eventual breach of the basin's bounding structural barrier, a wave of high erosion propagates through the basin and increases the channel slope. This onset of increased erosion can be delayed by up to several million years relative to the onset of downstream uplift. Observed paleoerosion rates in paired wedge-top and foreland basin sequences, and present-day stream profiles in the Argentine Precordillera support our modelling results. Our results may be extrapolated to other foreland systems, and are potentially identifed using low-temperature thermochronometers in addition to paleoerosion rates. © 2018 The Authors. Basin Research © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and International Association of Sedimentologists