• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.9 no.5 s.36
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• pp.517-523
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• 2006

The sustainable development is a key issue in the whole field of economy, culture and society, which can be accomplished by the improvement of environment. Recently, life cycle assessment(LCA) has been applied to reduce environmental impacts preliminarily by evaluating the environmental performance of a product through its life cycle. In this study, life cycle assessment was performed to analyze quantitatively the environmental impact on the interior panel of electric motor unit(EMU). As a result, the interior panel with aluminum showed the most global warming(GW), while that with phenol and plastic showed high fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity(FAET) and marine water aquatic ecotoxicity(MAET), respectively. Global warming was occurred mainly due to the emission of $CO_2$ by energy consumption. FAET and MAET were caused by the pollutants released from acid-washing and paints coating process. Therefore, an environmental-friendly EMU can be designed considering the environmental impacts of interior panel.

• Clean Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2022

Electrochemical carbon dioxide (CO₂) reduction technology, one of the promising solutions for climate change, can convert CO₂, a representative greenhouse gas (GHG), into valuable base chemicals using electric energy. In particular, carbon monoxide (CO), among various candidate products, is attracting much attention from both academia and industry because of its high Faraday efficiency, promising economic feasibility, and relatively large market size. Although numerous previous studies have recently analyzed the GHG reduction potential of this technology, the assumptions made and inventory data used are neither consistent nor transparent. In this study, a comparative life cycle assessment was carried out to analyze the potential for reducing GHG emissions in the electrochemical CO production process in a more transparent way. By defining three different system boundaries, the global warming impact was compared with that of a fossil fuel-based CO production process. The results confirmed that the emission factor of electric energy supplied to CO₂-electrolyzers should be much lower than that of the current national power generation sector in order to mitigate GHG emissions by replacing conventional CO production with electrochemical CO production. Also, it is important to disclose transparently inventory data of the conventional CO production process for a more reliable analysis of GHG reduction potential.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.156-165
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• 2017

This study quantitatively assessed the environmental impacts of fuel cell (FC) systems by performing life cycle assessment (LCA) and analyzed their energy efficiencies based on energy return on investment (EROI) and electrical energy stored on investment (ESOI). Molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) system and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system were selected as the fuel cell systems. Five different paths to produce hydrogen ($H_2$) as fuel such as natural gas steam reforming (NGSR), centralized naptha SR (NSR(C)), NSR station (NSR(S)), liquified petroleum gas SR (LPGSR), water electrolysis (WE) were each applied to the FCs. The environmental impacts and the energy efficiencies of the FCs were compared with rechargeable batteries such as $LiFePO_4$ (LFP) and Nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH). The LCA results show that MCFC_NSR(C) and PEMFC_NSR(C) have the lowest global warming potential (GWP) with 6.23E-02 kg $CO_2$ eq./MJ electricity and 6.84E-02 kg $CO_2$ eq./MJ electricity, respectively. For the impact category of abiotic resource depletion potential (ADP), MCFC_NGSR(S) and PEMFC_NGSR(S) show the lowest impacts of 7.42E-01 g Sb eq./MJ electricity and 7.19E-01 g Sb eq./MJ electricity, respectively. And, the energy efficiencies of the FCs are higher than those of the rechargeable batteries except for the case of hydrogen produced by WE.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.931-937
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• 2012

In this study, we assessed environmental impacts of compound humidifiers using environmental life cycle assessment and presented the ways to improvements in energy consumption of them. We found eco-design parameters and $CO_2$-eq emissions in each stage of raw material acquisition, manufacturing, transportation, use and disuse in life cycle of the compound humidifiers. The highest $CO_2$ emission is found to be in the stage of use among all stages of life cycle, which is mainly due to power consumption in thermal heating of heating coil for sterilization during humidification. The power consumption and $CO_2$ emission in the stage of use can be reduced to 1/4 and 1/3 at the highest estimate through improvement of sterilization method, respectively. We suggested the replacement of conventional thermal heating coil by ultra violet light-emitting diodes (UV-LED) for sterilization and then presented the experimental results on the sterilization effects of UV-LEDs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.149-150
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• 2011

Recently, Goverment's Energy-saving policy in Korea as 'Green Growth' is very remarkable effort. By intensive poliicies, the private is encouraged to participate in policy. Especially, it is very important in the field of architecture and we have to work for construction of law system. However, these efforts of the government buildings for energy efficiency in use stage is as mandatory system that may occur in the construction phase and the enviromental impact of greenhouse gas reductions is not affected. For this reason, Assess the amount of the energy consumption and CO₂ emissioont of Government Buildings in 2010 ordered by PPS(Public Procurement Service) in the construction phase and suggest to recognize the need for legal restrictions.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.35-43
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• 2014

The application of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodology to analyze the environmental burden of appling the digestates to corn field including different swine waste treatment systems was investigated. The first part of LCA is an inventory of parameters used to emissions released due to the system under investigation. In the following step, the Life Cycle Impact Assessment, the inventory data were analyzed and aggregated in order to finally get one index representing the each environmental burden. Each corn field applied with the aerobic and anaerobic digestates including different swine waste treatment systems was used as an example for the life cycle impact analysis. With analyzing the agricultural environmental burden, it observed that the effect of corn field applied aerobic digestate including digestion system was 7.6 times higher at eutrophication effects, but global warming potential effect was 0.9 times less than its applied anaerobic digestate.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.153-153
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• 2010

The world is moving towards a post-carbon society and needs clean and renewable energy for sustainable development. There are many methodological approaches which are helping this shift based on analyzed data about energy resources and which focus on limited types of energy including liquid fossil, solid fossil, gaseous fossil, and biomass (e.g. IPCC Guidelines, ISO 14064-1, WRI Protocol, etc.). We should also consider environmental impact (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, water use, etc.) and the economic cost of the renewable energy to make a better decision. Recently, researchers have addressed the environmental impact of new technologies which include photovoltaics, wind turbines, hydroelectric power, and biofuel. In this work, we analyze the environmental impact with a carbon emission factor to present a correlation between $CO_2$ emission and the cost of energy resources standardized by the energy output. In addition, we reviewed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as another methodology. Researchers who are studying energy systems have ignored the impacts of entire energy systems, e.g. the extraction and processing of fossil fuels. In power sector, the assessment should include extraction, processing, and transportation of fuels, building of power plants, production of electricity, and waste disposal. Therefore LCA could be more suitable tool for energy cost and environmental impact estimation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.107-112
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• 2015

Carbon emissions in construction stage is very high because lots of construction machines and materials are required to be used at a road construction stage. Many researcher carried out application of carbon emissions estimation methodology during the life cycle of road infrastructure in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the road sector. But the calculation of carbon emissions is difficult because data collection is difficult and calculation procedure is complex. In this study, a basic unit of carbon emissions in construction stage of the road infrastructure was developed in order to get the quantitative determination of carbon that occurs. Carbon emissions of the expressway and common state road was calculated by using the basic unit of carbon emissions and application plan of basic unit of carbon emissions are presented.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.64-73
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• 2013

The application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to analyze the environmental impact to different swine waste treatment systems was investigated. The first part of LCA is to organize an inventory of parameters and emissions released due to the system under investigation. In the following step of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment, the inventory data were analyzed and aggregated in order to finally get one index representing the total environmental burden. For the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) the Eco-indicator 95 method has been chosen because this is well documented and regularly applied impact method. Two different swine waste treatment systems such as aerobic and anaerobic digestion systems were chosen as an example for the life cycle impact analysis. For establishing the parameters to be assessed the agricultural environmental effects to above swine waste treatment systems, it has been observed that there was high at T-P emission in anaerobic digestion system and $CO_2$ emission in aerobic digestion system. For Eco-indicator values per environmental effect for swine waste treatment systems related to one tonne of swine waste, it was shown that there was a negative index for global warm potential and soil acidification in aerobic digestion system, but relatively high positive index for eutrophication in anaerobic digestion system.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.2921-2927
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• 2011

Modal Shift from road to rail has been adapted in several countries as one of effective ways of reducing $CO_2$ emissions caused by transport. Generally, effect analysis of $CO_2$ reduction toward modal shift is calculated mainly from use stage and less consideration from other stages of life cycle, even though, in some case of modal shift needs that new line construction or new vehicle manufacturing. In this study, modal shift effect analysis is performed with considering construction, manufacturing vehicle and use stage. As a result we can get total $CO_2$ reduction effect using life cycle thinking and check the necessity of including other life cycle stage not only considering use stage. In conclusion, there is no $CO_2$ reduction effect if the reduction amount of $CO_2$ in use stage is not bigger than allocated annual amount of $CO_2$ in construction and manufacturing vehicle stage. According to this fact, analysing $CO_2$ reduction effect of Modal Shift should be considered not only the use stage.