Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2009 Symposium (2010) / Chapter Skim
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The Environmental Footprint of Infrastructure--Arpad Horvath
The Environmental Footprint of Infrastructure--Arpad Horvath
Pages 135-142
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From page 135... ...
In the face of climate change and dwindling resources, we must reduce this environmental footprint and maximize the benefits of our infrastructure. INTRODUCTION Operating, expanding, and maintaining infrastructure costs a substantial fraction of our gross national product.
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From page 136... ...
launched by the Federal Aid High way Act in 1956 became the largest infrastructure project the world had ever seen. It was said that IHS would increase the defense readiness of the United States by providing reliable highways for the movement of military personnel and equip ment and provide a backbone for interstate commerce.
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From page 137... ...
Modeling infrastructure is doubly difficult because most infrastructures are networks of systems with large geographical and temporal dimensions. For example, the electric power system in the United States is more than 100 years old and reaches every corner of this vast country.
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Unfortunately, few have used LCA in practice, and it has rarely been applied to real-life situations. LCA was conceptualized to change practices throughout the entire economy, protect human and ecological health, preserve resources, and support sustainable development.
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From page 139... ...
Our analysis was based not only on tailpipe emissions, a typical measure of vehicle emissions, but also on the provision of vehicles, the transportation infrastructure, and fuels, in other words, all of the life-cycle phases of vehicles, the physical infrastructure that makes travel possible (e.g., roads, rails, stations, FIGURE 1 Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions per passenger kilometer traveled (PkT) for various modes of passenger transportation.
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From page 140... ...
Our analysis showed that physical infrastructure and the provision of fuel contributed significantly to environmental effects. For example, they add 63 percent to road, 155 percent to rail, and 31 percent to air transport's total burden, above and beyond tailpipe GHG emissions, as expressed in passenger kilometers.
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ACkNOWLEDGMENTS This material is based on research supported by the UC Berkeley Center for Future Urban Transport (A Volvo Center of Excellence)
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