A Uniform Definition and Quantitative Basis for Industrial Ecology
Seager and Theis sought to provide a clear contrast of the effectiveness of life cycle assessment (LCA) and systems analysis in industrial ecology (IE) research. The authors believe that there is no single measure that has proved its effectiveness, including employing comparative environmental metrics in cost minimization thermodynamic efficiency studies. Seager and Theis believed that chemical exergy mixing concept is the most appropriate basis for developing a uniform and broad-based measure for chemical pollution (Seager and Theis 233). They proposed that this measure could remain relevant and advance the approach to IE significantly.
I agree with Seager and Theis that the chemical exergy mixing concept could be used to advance IE, and especially when measuring the environmental impact with a specific focus on chemical exergy. Exergy is a
widely accepted approach that determines the energy resource consumption while at the same time measuring material. Thus, it could be classified as a thermodynamic due to the absence of a reliable methodology to link exergy and any environmental impacts (Coatanéa 10) This is probably because waste exergy that is released to the environment presents itself in different forms that may have both qualitative and quantitative environmental
effects. Thus, an analysis of exergy emissions could be used to provide a prior approximation of the nature of the environmental impacts.
The authors supported the feasibility of LCA or systems analysis based on exegetic efficiency or exergic mixing. The tactic taken by the article is impressive as it focuses in lowering production costs by increasing exergy efficiency which is one of the production objectives of using energy analysis. I also believe that the thermodynamic approach used in the article is developed scientifically basing on arguments trying to explain
and calculate the relevance of exergy in industrial ecology. Exergy indeed an indicator or environmental depletion as it represents a measure of what has already been consumed and not what will be consumed.
Works Cited
Coatanéa, Eric, et al. "A uniform environmental metric based on exergy for early design evaluation." International Journal of Environmentally Conscious Design & Manufacturing 13.2 (2007): 1-23.
Seager, T. P., and Thomas L. Theis. "A uniform definition and quantitative basis for industrial ecology." Journal of Cleaner Production 10.3 (2002): …
