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Construction management in practice
Published in Fred Sherratt, Peter Farrell, Introduction to Construction Management, 2023
Consideration of materials can also help a project improve its overall sustainability. Many construction products have high embodied energy – they use large amounts of energy to produce from raw materials, and this energy remains trapped within them. For example, the production of one tonne of cement can produce over one tonne of CO2 (Scientific American 2008). Alternatively timber is a more sustainable material, and may be renewed over a period of time as trees are regrown. Other materials may come from overseas countries, and the energy needed to transport them to projects can be considerable. Others may be a finite resource and inherently unsustainable, or made of complex composites and therefore unrecyclable.
Sustainable development
Published in Richard Reed, Property Development, 2021
Embodied energy is directly related to sustainability and commonly viewed as the total energy used to produce the construction material or product used in a development. It refers to the total energy involved in the extraction or mining, transportation and manufacturing of a specific material or product. Some materials, such as concrete and steel, have a relatively high amount of embodied energy. In direct contrast the level of embodied energy in other materials, for example stone and timber, is relatively low. If a developer seeks to undertake a project with low embodied energy then they must avoid using large amounts of high embodied energy materials.
Sustainability
Published in Fiona Cobb, Structural Engineer’s Pocket Book, 2020
The embodied energy of a material is the energy used to extract, process, refine and transport it for use. Typically the more processing steps, or distance travelled, the higher the embodied energy — which is often reflected in its price. The higher the embodied energy, the higher the carbon emissions generated by production.
A decision-making framework for life-cycle energy and seismic loss assessment of buildings
Published in Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 2023
Negar Mohammadgholibeyki, Farnaz Nazari, Varusha Venkatraj, Maria Koliou, Wei Yan, Manish Dixit, Petros Sideris
The building sector has a considerable impact on the environment since it accounts for one third of greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of the total primary energy consumption in the U.S and E.U. (International Energy Agency & Birol, 2013). Most of this energy use is attributed to two main energy components, operational and embodied energy. Embodied energy focuses on the energy used for material extraction, product manufacturing, on-site construction, transportation, life-cycle maintenance and building demolition (Copiello, 2016), while operational energy refers to the energy used for heating, cooling and lighting purposes in a building. In the case of operational energy, the design goal is to reduce the building’s heating and cooling energy use to minimise its environmental footprint, while providing thermal comfort for its occupants. In the case of embodied energy, however, the focus is on reducing material use, which is the largest embodied energy component. In the last two decades, there has been an increasing demand for the construction sector to deliver high performance buildings with low energy use while ensuring cost efficiency (Government, 2013).
Conventional fluid- and nanofluid-based photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) systems: a techno-economic and environmental analysis
Published in International Journal of Green Energy, 2018
M. Imtiaz Hussain, Jun-Tae Kim
An accurate estimation of the total energy required to manufacture a PV module is called the embodied energy. Using embodied energy as an input, economic and environmental indicators can be estimated (Alsema and Nieuwlaar 2000). Different groups of researchers have performed energy analysis of the PV system with and without considering the embodied energy of the support structure and the batteries (Frankl et al. 1998; Krauter and Rüther 2004). Tiwari, Raman, and Tiwari (2007) suggested that the embodied energy of interval of battery replacement and the efficiency of the balance-of-system (BOS) for precise calculation of the energy payback period (EPBP) and net CO2 mitigation also need to be considered.
Enhanced solar still productivity using transparent walls with an integral trough and organic porous absorber material
Published in International Journal of Green Energy, 2019
Amol Balu Mande, Premalatha Manickam
Embodied energy is the total energy used to produce any goods or services in addition to the energy consumed for transportation and other functions. Embodied energy concept is useful in estimating net CO2 emissions reduced by the functioning of the energy-saving or energy-producing device. Embodied energy for the components used in the fabrication of solar still has been given in Table 7