Powder and Bulk Engineering

PBE0620

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36 / June 2020 powderbulk.com ful of the impacts decisions have on other environmental burdens to avoid undesired side effects," says lead author Sabbie Miller, assistant professor in the school's Department of Civil and Environ- mental Engineering. Pollution exposure from 3D printing one of new institute's research initiatives Chemical Insights, an institute of Underwriters Laboratories, offi- cially launched in early March with the stated goal of "delivering sci- entific insight that policymakers, healthcare providers, business lead- ers, and consumers can depend on to make informed environmental health decisions." Led by Dr. Marilyn Black, vice president and senior technical advisor for Underwriters Laborato- ries, Chemical Insights will use its human exposure laboratory, tech- nical staff, and university-based partners to research a variety of diverse pollutant-exposure-re- lated topics including: 3D printing and additive manufacturing techniques; global air pollution; chemical exposures from con- sumer products; e-cigarettes and vaping; and flame retardants and furniture flammability. The institute will conduct inde- pendent research and analysis on the human health impact in these areas and release the results. According to the institute, the research supports the development of standards and best practices for the safer commercialization of evolving technology. Underwriters Laboratories is a nonprofit organization that works to advance public safety through the discovery and application of scientific knowledge. For more infor- mation, go to chemicalinsights.org. and local air pollution, which may matter a lot for policymakers." Cement production is responsi- ble for about half of the total climate (32 percent) and health (18 per- cent) damages of making concrete, according to researchers. That's followed by aggregate production, which is responsible for 4 percent of climate damages and 34 percent of health damages. Mixing concrete, or batching, contributes little to climate damages but represents 11 percent of health damages. To reduce these impacts, the authors evaluated eight GHG reduction strategies and presented the options in ways policymakers can consider for feasibility. Methods that can be readily implemented to reduce climate damages include: • Cleaner-combusting kiln fuel • Increasing use of limestone filler or other low-impact mineral additions to partially replace cement • Amine scrubbing and calcium looping, which are forms of carbon capture storage. These could reduce climate damage costs more than 50 percent and 65 percent, respectively. They aren't yet readily imple- mentable but may become so in the future. Cleaner-combusting kiln fuel shows the greatest co-benefit, with a 14 percent reduction in health damages — four times as large as any other mitigation strategy for air quality benefits. The authors note that additional strategies and policies that reduce particulate matter emissions may reduce air pollution impacts more directly. "As the cement and concrete industries make large efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is critical that they remain mind- strategies to reduce the sector's global greenhouse gas (GHG) emis- sions could, under some scenarios, increase local air pollution and related health damages, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. For the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, scien- tists quantified the costs of climate change impacts and of death and ill- ness from air pollution. They found that concrete production causes about $335 billion per year in dam- ages, a large fraction of the industry value. The scientists also compared several GHG-reduction strategies to determine which are most likely to lower both global emissions and local air pollution related to con- crete production. They found that a variety of available methods could, together, reduce climate and health damage costs by 44 percent. Among the most effective strate- gies include using cleaner-burning kiln fuel, more renewable energy, and replacing a portion of the cement used in production with lower-carbon alternative materials. While carbon capture and stor- age technologies could reduce GHG emissions from concrete production by up to 28 percent, the study found that this could actually increase human health impacts from air pollutants unless the technology itself is powered by clean energy. The technology also isn't currently widely implementable. "Air pollution and climate change problems are really inter- twined when we talk about solutions," said co-author Frances Moore, an assistant professor with the UC Davis Department of Envi- ronmental Science and Policy. "This paper takes these two problems and their joint nature seriously. It shows how different solutions have differ- ent effects for global climate change

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