Hydropower is a flexible form of electricity generation providing both baseload and balancing pow... more Hydropower is a flexible form of electricity generation providing both baseload and balancing power to accommodate intermittent renewables in the energy mix. However, hydropower also generates various externalities. This study investigates individuals’ preferences for policies aiming to reduce short-term regulations (i.e., hydropeaking in regulated rivers) while accounting for associated externalities with a discrete choice experiment. This is the first valuation study focusing on hydropeaking that considers both negative and positive externalities. The results imply that most individuals prefer stronger restrictions on short-term regulations to mitigate local environmental impacts. Individuals especially value improvements in recreational use, fish stocks, and the ecological state. On the other hand, potential increases in CO2 emissions are linked with a clear disutility. The estimated benefits obtained from an improved state of the river environment due to such restrictions probab...
Meat processing industries generate a great amount of wastewater. Because of the remote locations... more Meat processing industries generate a great amount of wastewater. Because of the remote locations of companies in Northern Finland, they face the problem of low efficiency of traditional biological wastewater purification and the need for a decentralized energy supply system. Membrane separation processes integrated in wastewater purification technology could provide an eco-friendly, and economical solution for the small and medium sized meat processing enterprises (SME’s). The main aim of our research project was to find technology for the treatment of food industry wastewater, which is suitable for producing recyclable process water, and on the other hand, could provide an economical pre-concentration stage before anaerobic digestion (AD).
The supplementary information file consists of five sections. The first section reviews the resul... more The supplementary information file consists of five sections. The first section reviews the results of the method developed to get the dynamic emission factors based on the primary energy consumed for electricity production. The second section reports the values of the Figure 8 from the article, including the standard deviation for each of the 18 indicators of the ReCiPe characterisation method. The third section details the results of the dynamic model for all 18 indicators, including the raw data for the period 2011 to 2016, the seasonal variation, and the daily environmental load profiles. The fourth section summarizes the statistical spread of the results for all eighteen indicators. Finally, the fifth section summarizes the differences between the chosen perspective ('H') and the two other perspectives ('E' and 'I') with the dynamic model and is compared with the differences given with the characterisation method ReCiPe.
The need to reduce CO2 emissions makes companies find new sustainable solutions for energy produc... more The need to reduce CO2 emissions makes companies find new sustainable solutions for energy production. Diverse multiple sourcing energy production value chains became an important strategical development used at a regional level in Finland. This article presents a social sustainability state data visualization framework that allows us to communicate key social aspects to stakeholders and local communities. Core social aspects are defined through the assessment of multiple sourced electricity supply chains available within one region. This framework was tested on a case study covering regional electricity production supply chains in the Oulu sub-region, Finland. The evaluation of social indicators and their impacts presented along regional electricity production supply chains was performed via the conversion of collected data into visual objects. A cumulative social impact assessment of a local energy supply chain revealed that social sustainability impacts have the tendency to accum...
Further to Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, the... more Further to Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, the share of biofuels in transport should rise to a minimum of 10% in Member States by 2020. In Finland, the goal is set at 20%, and it is estimated that this can be produced entirely in domestic factories, as long as the projects already underway will be successful and additional industrial-scale biofuel plants would be built. The paper reviews the state of projects underway in Finland, and outlines current research activity in promoting waste and by-product — based biofuels.
: Critical materials share the same insufficiencies in their life cycles; low recycling rates and... more : Critical materials share the same insufficiencies in their life cycles; low recycling rates and a high degree of dissipative losses. The limitations for the secondary use of critical materials are their minor concentrations in final products, their dissipative applications, and the fact that they are irreversibly mixed with other material flows in current recycling practices. This is exacerbated with ineffective collection, losses in pre-treatment, recycling and disposal. There is also need to challenge the view that materials in the anthroposphere are intrinsically recoverable. The paper argues that the reduction of dissipation of critical materials should have much higher priority. This calls for more efficient recycling strategies for both waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and thin-film photovoltaics, and also for revising the priorities in recycling strategies. In addition, sustainable energy strategies should consider the limitations of critical materials, such...
The objective of our research was to scan the horizon of social sustainability issues in the bioe... more The objective of our research was to scan the horizon of social sustainability issues in the bioenergy sector. Using horizon scanning, we aimed at creating a tool for biofuel production policy makers in order to provide them with a strategic instrument for anticipating future developments. Horizon-scanning allows the identification of challenges, trends, opportunities and constraints related to different sectors (Sutherland, 2009). We have further developed this method into a more generic approach to foresee the critical social sustainability issues on the horizon of bioenergy industry. Our research resulted in the Bioenergy Social Sustainability Tree, and identified three global tendencies in in terms of social sustainably and policy development in bioenergy. We reviewed more than 50 social sustainability indicators suggested by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, 2014), and narrowed it down to 12 critical indicators, with six potential threats and six opportunities to bioenergy ...
The share of bio-waste is about 20-30% of all the wastes generated in Finnish households. The maj... more The share of bio-waste is about 20-30% of all the wastes generated in Finnish households. The majority of this is food waste originating from the preparation of food. About one third of wasted food is edible but it has either passed its best before date or it just has not been eaten. On average, Finns generate about 50kg/person food waste annually. Hence, every year, about 90 000 tonnes of the produced, prepared, transported and stored food is thrown away. This constitutes to a tremendous loss of resources. When improperly disposed, bio-waste also negatively impacts the climate, water and land resources and biodiversity. In order to reduce the negative impacts of food waste disposal, European and Finnish national legislation and strategies aim at banning the landfill disposal of bio-waste. In order to get the most benefit from bio-waste the suggestion to be presented by this paper is cascade use of biomass. This means that bio-waste is primarily used for energy generation and second...
In this paper, the prevalent bio-waste management system in Finland is presented, highlighting th... more In this paper, the prevalent bio-waste management system in Finland is presented, highlighting the example of the city of Oulu in Northern Finland. Separate collection of bio-waste in Finland has started about 20 years ago. Very different national and regional policies are applied to bio-waste management. Because Finland is a rather large country with sparse population, long transportation distances and quite challenging conditions, there is no single bio-waste management strategy that would be suitable for the entire country. The best solution depends on the number of the citizens to be served, population density, infrastructure and climate. The prevalent bio-waste treatment currently is composting, however, bio-waste is increasingly been seen as a source of energy, in both large-scale or small-scale facilities.
... A comparison between plastics and gasoline based on their crude oil equivalent reveals that t... more ... A comparison between plastics and gasoline based on their crude oil equivalent reveals that the average per-capita plastics consumption in Western Europe equals approximately 32 liters of gasoline. In the United States, an ...
Hydropower is a flexible form of electricity generation providing both baseload and balancing pow... more Hydropower is a flexible form of electricity generation providing both baseload and balancing power to accommodate intermittent renewables in the energy mix. However, hydropower also generates various externalities. This study investigates individuals’ preferences for policies aiming to reduce short-term regulations (i.e., hydropeaking in regulated rivers) while accounting for associated externalities with a discrete choice experiment. This is the first valuation study focusing on hydropeaking that considers both negative and positive externalities. The results imply that most individuals prefer stronger restrictions on short-term regulations to mitigate local environmental impacts. Individuals especially value improvements in recreational use, fish stocks, and the ecological state. On the other hand, potential increases in CO2 emissions are linked with a clear disutility. The estimated benefits obtained from an improved state of the river environment due to such restrictions probab...
Meat processing industries generate a great amount of wastewater. Because of the remote locations... more Meat processing industries generate a great amount of wastewater. Because of the remote locations of companies in Northern Finland, they face the problem of low efficiency of traditional biological wastewater purification and the need for a decentralized energy supply system. Membrane separation processes integrated in wastewater purification technology could provide an eco-friendly, and economical solution for the small and medium sized meat processing enterprises (SME’s). The main aim of our research project was to find technology for the treatment of food industry wastewater, which is suitable for producing recyclable process water, and on the other hand, could provide an economical pre-concentration stage before anaerobic digestion (AD).
The supplementary information file consists of five sections. The first section reviews the resul... more The supplementary information file consists of five sections. The first section reviews the results of the method developed to get the dynamic emission factors based on the primary energy consumed for electricity production. The second section reports the values of the Figure 8 from the article, including the standard deviation for each of the 18 indicators of the ReCiPe characterisation method. The third section details the results of the dynamic model for all 18 indicators, including the raw data for the period 2011 to 2016, the seasonal variation, and the daily environmental load profiles. The fourth section summarizes the statistical spread of the results for all eighteen indicators. Finally, the fifth section summarizes the differences between the chosen perspective ('H') and the two other perspectives ('E' and 'I') with the dynamic model and is compared with the differences given with the characterisation method ReCiPe.
The need to reduce CO2 emissions makes companies find new sustainable solutions for energy produc... more The need to reduce CO2 emissions makes companies find new sustainable solutions for energy production. Diverse multiple sourcing energy production value chains became an important strategical development used at a regional level in Finland. This article presents a social sustainability state data visualization framework that allows us to communicate key social aspects to stakeholders and local communities. Core social aspects are defined through the assessment of multiple sourced electricity supply chains available within one region. This framework was tested on a case study covering regional electricity production supply chains in the Oulu sub-region, Finland. The evaluation of social indicators and their impacts presented along regional electricity production supply chains was performed via the conversion of collected data into visual objects. A cumulative social impact assessment of a local energy supply chain revealed that social sustainability impacts have the tendency to accum...
Further to Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, the... more Further to Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, the share of biofuels in transport should rise to a minimum of 10% in Member States by 2020. In Finland, the goal is set at 20%, and it is estimated that this can be produced entirely in domestic factories, as long as the projects already underway will be successful and additional industrial-scale biofuel plants would be built. The paper reviews the state of projects underway in Finland, and outlines current research activity in promoting waste and by-product — based biofuels.
: Critical materials share the same insufficiencies in their life cycles; low recycling rates and... more : Critical materials share the same insufficiencies in their life cycles; low recycling rates and a high degree of dissipative losses. The limitations for the secondary use of critical materials are their minor concentrations in final products, their dissipative applications, and the fact that they are irreversibly mixed with other material flows in current recycling practices. This is exacerbated with ineffective collection, losses in pre-treatment, recycling and disposal. There is also need to challenge the view that materials in the anthroposphere are intrinsically recoverable. The paper argues that the reduction of dissipation of critical materials should have much higher priority. This calls for more efficient recycling strategies for both waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and thin-film photovoltaics, and also for revising the priorities in recycling strategies. In addition, sustainable energy strategies should consider the limitations of critical materials, such...
The objective of our research was to scan the horizon of social sustainability issues in the bioe... more The objective of our research was to scan the horizon of social sustainability issues in the bioenergy sector. Using horizon scanning, we aimed at creating a tool for biofuel production policy makers in order to provide them with a strategic instrument for anticipating future developments. Horizon-scanning allows the identification of challenges, trends, opportunities and constraints related to different sectors (Sutherland, 2009). We have further developed this method into a more generic approach to foresee the critical social sustainability issues on the horizon of bioenergy industry. Our research resulted in the Bioenergy Social Sustainability Tree, and identified three global tendencies in in terms of social sustainably and policy development in bioenergy. We reviewed more than 50 social sustainability indicators suggested by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, 2014), and narrowed it down to 12 critical indicators, with six potential threats and six opportunities to bioenergy ...
The share of bio-waste is about 20-30% of all the wastes generated in Finnish households. The maj... more The share of bio-waste is about 20-30% of all the wastes generated in Finnish households. The majority of this is food waste originating from the preparation of food. About one third of wasted food is edible but it has either passed its best before date or it just has not been eaten. On average, Finns generate about 50kg/person food waste annually. Hence, every year, about 90 000 tonnes of the produced, prepared, transported and stored food is thrown away. This constitutes to a tremendous loss of resources. When improperly disposed, bio-waste also negatively impacts the climate, water and land resources and biodiversity. In order to reduce the negative impacts of food waste disposal, European and Finnish national legislation and strategies aim at banning the landfill disposal of bio-waste. In order to get the most benefit from bio-waste the suggestion to be presented by this paper is cascade use of biomass. This means that bio-waste is primarily used for energy generation and second...
In this paper, the prevalent bio-waste management system in Finland is presented, highlighting th... more In this paper, the prevalent bio-waste management system in Finland is presented, highlighting the example of the city of Oulu in Northern Finland. Separate collection of bio-waste in Finland has started about 20 years ago. Very different national and regional policies are applied to bio-waste management. Because Finland is a rather large country with sparse population, long transportation distances and quite challenging conditions, there is no single bio-waste management strategy that would be suitable for the entire country. The best solution depends on the number of the citizens to be served, population density, infrastructure and climate. The prevalent bio-waste treatment currently is composting, however, bio-waste is increasingly been seen as a source of energy, in both large-scale or small-scale facilities.
... A comparison between plastics and gasoline based on their crude oil equivalent reveals that t... more ... A comparison between plastics and gasoline based on their crude oil equivalent reveals that the average per-capita plastics consumption in Western Europe equals approximately 32 liters of gasoline. In the United States, an ...
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Papers by Eva Pongrácz