Sustainability Ethics Notes

• What is sustainability in engineering terms? Conservative quantities: energy, water, raw materials balances.¹⁾²⁾ Land? Food?
• How Long is Indefinitely? ΔS→0
  • Ethics: Service Life and False Assumptions
    • Some Conservative Assumptions
  • Ethics: Life Cycle Analysis
    • Energy Consumption ≤ X W/person
    • Fresh Water Consumption ≤ X l/person/yr
    • Raw Materials Consumption ≤ X kg/person/yr
      • Often Limited by Energy and Water used to Produce Materials
    • Labor?
• Energy Balance
  • Fossil fuels are finite and not sustainable as an energy source by definition.
  • Energy conservation: not just a good idea, it's the Law!
    • A Note on Nuclear Energy
    • Notes on Geothermal and Tidal Energy
    • A Note on Hydrogen
      • Hydrogen is only a carbon-neutral energy storage medium.
    • A Note on Carbon: Reducing S_atm
      • Carbon-based sustainable energy sources and storage media reduce S_atm.
      • Ethanol is good; cellulose is better.
  • Efficiency, Enthalpy, and Energy Density
• Water Balance
• Raw Materials Balance
• Cash Flow Model Repurposed
  • Is the 'interest rate' positive or negative?
• Civil Engineering Examples
  • Wastewater Treatment
  • Transportation

References

• Land, Energy and Water: The Constraints Governing Ideal U.S. Population Size by David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel from the Department of Entomology and Division of Nutritional Sciences, respectively, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
• The Connection: Water and Energy Security
• Coupling Wind with Water a Potentially Lower Cost Solution in Water Sustainability