IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-0-230-55442-9_8.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Engineering Sustainability: Thermodynamics, Energy Systems and the Environment

In: Towards an Environment Research Agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey P. Hammond

Abstract

Summary Thermodynamic concepts have been utilized by practitioners in a variety of disciplines with interests in environmental sustainability, including ecology, economics and engineering. Widespread concern about resource depletion and environmental degradation are common to them all. It has been argued that these consequences of human development are reflected in thermodynamic ideas and methods of analysis; they are said to mirror energy transformations within society. The concept of ‘exergy’, which follows from the second law of thermodynamics, is viewed as providing the basis of a tool for resource and/or emissions accounting. It is also seen as indicating natural limits on the attainment of sustainability. The more traditional use of the exergy method is illustrated by a number of cases drawn from the United Kingdom energy sector: electricity generation, combined heat and power schemes, and energy productivity in industry. This indicates the scope for increasing energy efficiency, and the extent of exergetic ‘improvement potential’, in each of these areas. Poor thermodynamic performance is principally the result of exergy losses in combustion and heat transfer processes. However, the application of such thermodynamic ideas outside the sphere of engineering is not without its critics. The link between the efficiency of resource utilization, pollutant emissions and ‘exergy consumption’ is real, but not direct. Methods of energy and exergy analysis are therefore employed to critically evaluate thermodynamic concepts as measures of sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey P. Hammond, 2004. "Engineering Sustainability: Thermodynamics, Energy Systems and the Environment," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Adrian Winnett (ed.), Towards an Environment Research Agenda, chapter 8, pages 175-210, Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-55442-9_8
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230554429_8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hakawati, Rawan & Smyth, Beatrice M. & McCullough, Geoffrey & De Rosa, Fabio & Rooney, David, 2017. "What is the most energy efficient route for biogas utilization: Heat, electricity or transport?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 1076-1087.
    2. Hammond, Geoffrey P., 2009. "Industrial energy analysis, thermodynamics and sustainability," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(7-8), pages 675-700, July.
    3. Chen, Shaoqing & Chen, Bin, 2014. "Energy efficiency and sustainability of complex biogas systems: A 3-level emergetic evaluation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 151-163.
    4. Teijo Palander & Hanna Haavikko & Emma Kortelainen & Kalle Kärhä, 2020. "Comparison of Energy Efficiency Indicators of Road Transportation for Modeling Environmental Sustainability in “Green” Circular Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-22, March.
    5. McKenna, R. & Bertsch, V. & Mainzer, K. & Fichtner, W., 2018. "Combining local preferences with multi-criteria decision analysis and linear optimization to develop feasible energy concepts in small communities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 268(3), pages 1092-1110.
    6. Ediger, Volkan S. & Hosgor, Enes & Surmeli, A. Nesen & Tatlidil, Huseyin, 2007. "Fossil fuel sustainability index: An application of resource management," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2969-2977, May.
    7. Marc A. Rosen, 2012. "Engineering Sustainability: A Technical Approach to Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(9), pages 1-23, September.
    8. Allen, S.R. & Hammond, G.P., 2010. "Thermodynamic and carbon analyses of micro-generators for UK households," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2223-2234.
    9. Dincer, Ibrahim & Zamfirescu, Calin, 2012. "Potential options to greenize energy systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 5-15.
    10. John Bryant, 2008. "Thermodynamics and the Economic Process," Working Papers ten62008, Economic Consultancy, Vocat International.
    11. Lucia, Umberto, 2013. "Entropy and exergy in irreversible renewable energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 559-564.
    12. Gasparatos, Alexandros & El-Haram, Mohamed & Horner, Malcolm, 2009. "Assessing the sustainability of the UK society using thermodynamic concepts: Part 1," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 1074-1081, June.
    13. Rajabi Hamedani, Sara & Villarini, Mauro & Marcantonio, Vera & di Matteo, Umberto & Monarca, Danilo & Colantoni, Andrea, 2023. "Comparative energy and environmental analysis of different small-scale biomass-fueled CCHP systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PD).
    14. Hammond, Geoffrey P. & Owen, Rachel E. & Rathbone, Richard R., 2020. "Indicative energy technology assessment of hydrogen processing from biogenic municipal waste," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    15. El-Shafie, Mostafa & Kambara, Shinji & Hayakawa, Yukio & Hussien, A.A., 2021. "Integration between energy and exergy analyses to assess the performance of furnace regenerative and ammonia decomposition systems," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 232-243.
    16. Geoffrey P. Hammond, 2006. "‘People, planet and prosperity’: The determinants of humanity's environmental footprint," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(1), pages 27-36, February.
    17. Geoffrey P Hammond & Hayley R Howard & Andrew Tuck, 2012. "Risk assessment of UK biofuel developments within the rapidly evolving energy and transport sectors," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 226(5), pages 526-548, October.
    18. Lucia, Umberto, 2014. "Overview on fuel cells," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 164-169.
    19. Dyer, Caroline H. & Hammond, Geoffrey P. & Jones, Craig I. & McKenna, Russell C., 2008. "Enabling technologies for industrial energy demand management," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 4434-4443, December.
    20. Marc A. Rosen, 2013. "Engineering and Sustainability: Attitudes and Actions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, January.
    21. Carolino, Cristina Guedes & Medeiros Ferreira, João Paulo, 2013. "First and second law analyses to an energetic valorization process of biogas," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 58-64.
    22. Gasparatos, Alexandros & El-Haram, Mohamed & Horner, Malcolm, 2009. "A longitudinal analysis of the UK transport sector, 1970-2010," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 623-632, February.
    23. John Bryant, 2007. "A Thermodynamic Theory of Economics," Working Papers tefprv2007, Economic Consultancy, Vocat International.
    24. Nuno Quental & Júlia Lourenço & Fernando da Silva, 2011. "Sustainability: characteristics and scientific roots," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 257-276, April.
    25. Müller, Matthias Otto & Stämpfli, Adrian & Dold, Ursula & Hammer, Thomas, 2011. "Energy autarky: A conceptual framework for sustainable regional development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 5800-5810, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-55442-9_8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.