Refine
Year of Publication
Document Type
- Report (140)
- Part of a Book (113)
- Peer-Reviewed Article (81)
- Contribution to Periodical (55)
- Working Paper (49)
- Conference Object (27)
- Book (12)
- Doctoral Thesis (5)
- Periodical Part (3)
- Habilitation (1)
Division
- Stoffströme und Ressourcenmanagement (487) (remove)
Biodiversity loss is widely recognized as a serious global environmental change process. While large-scale metal mining activities do not belong to the top drivers of such change, these operations exert or may intensify pressures on biodiversity by adversely changing habitats, directly and indirectly, at local and regional scales. So far, analyses of global spatial dynamics of mining and its burden on biodiversity focused on the overlap between mines and protected areas or areas of high value for conservation. However, it is less clear how operating metal mines are globally exerting pressure on zones of different biodiversity richness; a similar gap exists for unmined but known mineral deposits. By using vascular plants' diversity as a proxy to quantify overall biodiversity, this study provides a first examination of the global spatial distribution of mines and deposits for five key metals across different biodiversity zones. The results indicate that mines and deposits are not randomly distributed, but concentrated within intermediate and high diversity zones, especially bauxite and silver. In contrast, iron, gold, and copper mines and deposits are closer to a more proportional distribution while showing a high concentration in the intermediate biodiversity zone. Considering the five metals together, 63% and 61% of available mines and deposits, respectively, are located in intermediate diversity zones, comprising 52% of the global land terrestrial surface. 23% of mines and 20% of ore deposits are located in areas of high plant diversity, covering 17% of the land. 13% of mines and 19% of deposits are in areas of low plant diversity, comprising 31% of the land surface. Thus, there seems to be potential for opening new mines in areas of low biodiversity in the future.
Poor sustainability and increasing economic shortcomings in fossil raw material use besides further technical developments of substitutes lead to a growing potential for CO2-utilisation. Hence, we balanced CO2-based methane and methanol production in a life cycle assessment and identified CO2-utilisation as a greenhouse gas saving method. However, it requires a lot of renewable energy.
In the future, the capacities of renewable SNG (synthetic natural gas) will expand significantly. Pilot plants are underway to use surplus renewable power, mainly from wind, for electrolysis and the production of hydrogen, which is methanated and fed into the existing gas pipeline grid. Pilot projects aim at the energetic use of SNG for households and transport in particular for gas fueled cars. Another option could be the use of SNG as feedstock in chemical industry.
The early stage of development raises the question of whether SNG should be better used for mobility or the production of chemicals. This study compares the global warming potential (GWP) of the production of fossil natural gas (NG) and carbon-dioxide (CO2)-based SNG and its use for car transport versus chemical use in the form of synthesis gas. Since the potential of wind energy for SNG production is mainly located in northern Germany, the consequences by a growing distance between production in the North and transport to the South of Germany are also examined.
The results indicate that CO2-based SNG produced with wind power would lead to lower GWP when substituting NG for both uses in either transport or chemical production. Differences of the savings potential occur in short-distance pipeline transport. The critical factor is the energy required for compression along the process chain.
Der Verfasser legt eine vergleichende Analyse von Abfallwirtschaftsregimen in drei deutschen Stadtregionen vor. Als Fallbeispiele wurden Frankfurt in der Rhein-Main-Region, Berlin als Kern der Metropolregion Berlin-Brandenburg und Bochum im Ruhrgebiet ausgewählt. Einerseits weisen die drei Stadtregionen eine ganze Reihe von Gemeinsamkeiten auf, die sie für einen solchen Vergleich geeignet erscheinen lassen.
Alle drei Stadtregionen bilden Zentren wichtiger Metropolregionen in Deutschland, denen angesichts ihrer Bevölkerungsdichte sowie der ökonomischen und politischen Bedeutung besondere Relevanz für die Planung von Infrastruktursystemen zukommt. Gleichzeitig unterscheidet sich jedoch die Bedeutung der drei Fallregionen innerhalb ihrer Metropolregion durchaus deutlich, von der absoluten Dominanz in Berlin-Brandenburg bis zur Polyzentralität im Ruhrgebiet, woraus sich auch unterschiedliche Herausforderungen an regionale Planungsverbände und die Gestaltung der Kooperationsbeziehungen mit den Umlandgemeinden ergeben.
Als Bestandteile von Metropolregionen sind sie alle drei intensiv in internationale Geschäfts- und Wissensnetzwerke eingebunden, sind Standort für die Entwicklung soziotechnischer Innovationen und verfügen in vielen Bereichen über hochqualifizierte Humanressourcen. Auch im Hinblick auf die spezielle Situation der Abfallwirtschaft zeigen sich vergleichbare Ausgangsbedingungen: In allen drei Regionen wurde auf eine vollständige Privatisierung der kommunalen Abfallwirtschaft verzichtet, nach wie vor werden mit der Sammlung und Entsorgung von Abfällen Unternehmen beauftragt, die sich überwiegend im kommunalen Besitz befinden.