Approaches for modelling the energy flow in food chains

Gowreesunker, Baboo Lesh; Tassou, S.A.

doi:10.1186/s13705-015-0035-y

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…The need for economical management of natural resources and the minimization of negative externalities in line with the Sustainable Development paradigm is of particular importance in the context of accelerating climate change. This increases the pressure to search for solutions that reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions not only in the sphere of food production, but also in general in distribution processes [21,[47][48][49][50][51].…”

Section: Gonçalves and Zeroualmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Short Food Supply Chains More Environmentally Sustainable than Long Chains? A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Eco-Efficiency of Food Chains in Selected EU Countries

et al. 2020

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Improving the eco-efficiency of food systems is one of the major global challenges faced by the modern world. Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are commonly regarded to be less harmful to the environment, among various reasons, due to their organizational distribution and thus the shortened physical distance between primary producers and final consumers. In this paper, we empirically test this hypothesis, by assessing and comparing the environmental impacts of short and long food supply chains. Based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, we calculate eco-efficiency indicators for nine types of food distribution chains. The analysis is performed on a sample of 428 short and long food supply chains from six European countries. Our results indicate that, on average, long food supply chains may generate less negative environmental impacts than short chains (in terms of fossil fuel energy consumption, pollution, and GHG emissions) per kg of a given product. The values of eco-efficiency indicators display a large variability across analyzed chains, and especially across different types of SFSCs. The analysis shows that the environmental impacts of the food distribution process are not only determined by the geographical distance between producer and consumer, but depend on numerous factors, including the supply chain infrastructure.

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Section: Gonçalves and Zeroualmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are Short Food Supply Chains More Environmentally Sustainable than Long Chains? A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Eco-Efficiency of Food Chains in Selected EU Countries

et al. 2020

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“…Bekhet and Abdullah [25] studied the agricultural energy chain in Malaysia, in an attempt to reduce food imports, minimise energy consumption and increase the yield of the agricultural industry. The observations from these previous studies, and from others [26] have shown that input-output models provide an aggregate overview of the energy flow of the sectors in question, allowing the user to analyse inter-industry relationships, with data usually obtained from the same sources (improving data consistency) and providing weights of the individual inputs to the final results allowing the user to determine the most consequential input. However, the main drawbacks are that input-output models tend to stop at demand along the chain, and generally ignore wastes.…”

Section: Analytical Approaches Used In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the main drawbacks are that input-output models tend to stop at demand along the chain, and generally ignore wastes. The aggregation of data at high level obtained from input-output tables prevents the determination of process-specific energy hotspots along the chain, and the low frequency of national input-output tables from the government statistics office further introduces uncertainty into the models [26]. The latter drawback increases the difficulty in the creation of trends and model validation.…”

Section: Analytical Approaches Used In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Cost-Energy Optimum Pathway for the UK Food Manufacturing Industry to Meet the UK National Emission Targets

2018

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This paper investigates and outlines a cost-energy optimised pathway for the UK food manufacturing industry to attain the national Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction target of 80%, relative to 1990 levels, by 2050. The paper employs the linear programming platform TIMES, and it models the current and future technology mix of the UK food manufacturing industry. The model considers parameters such as capital costs, operating costs, efficiency and the lifetime of technologies to determine the cheapest pathway to achieve the GHG emission constraints. The model also enables future parametric analyses and can predict the influence of different economic, trade and dietary preferences and the impact of technological investments and policies on emissions. The study showed that for the food manufacturing industry to meet the emission reduction targets by 2050 the use of natural gas as the dominant source of energy in the industry at present, will have to be replaced by decarbonised grid electricity and biogas. This will require investments in Anaerobic Digestion (AD), Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants driven by biogas and heat pumps powered by decarbonised electricity.

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“…The low temperatures are essential to preserve the food and ensure its quality. However, the cold that they cause must be balanced by the HVAC systems which generally translates in increased use of energy [ 6 ]. Finding the balance point where thermal comfort is available to the costumers and at the same time spending the lowest amount of energy is the objective of the HVAC management [ 7 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Simulation of a Supermarket Cold Zone with Integrated Assessment of Human Thermal Comfort

Noversa

Silva

Rodrigues

et al. 2020

Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2020

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This work seeks to analyze the thermal comfort of the occupants in a large building of Commerce and Services, integrating measures of assessment and energy efficiency promotion. The building is still in the construction phase and at its conclusion, will correspond to a supermarket located in the Central region of Portugal. For the evaluation of thermal comfort, Fanger’s methodology was used, where the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD) were calculated based on a detailed analysis of the environmental variables. These are essential to obtain, namely, mean air velocity, mean radiant temperature, mean air temperature and relative humidity. The other crucial variables are the metabolic rate and the thermal clothing resistance. The simulations necessary for the thermal comfort assessment were performed in ANSYS Fluent, in order to minimize the energy consumption in the cold thermal zone of the building, the sales area with frozen and chilled food, by means of reducing the inflow of air, without compromising thermal Comfort. The final results showed that the reduction of the amount of air to be inflated did not compromise the thermal comfort of the occupants. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methodology allowed the creation of comfort maps, albeit for a single zone due to computational limitations. According to the results, the most comfortable zone was located right below the air insufflation with the summer being a more comfortable season. In winter, the main problem detected was the cold located near the floor.

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Approaches for modelling the energy flow in food chains

Cited by 6 publications

References 74 publications

Are Short Food Supply Chains More Environmentally Sustainable than Long Chains? A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Eco-Efficiency of Food Chains in Selected EU Countries

Are Short Food Supply Chains More Environmentally Sustainable than Long Chains? A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Eco-Efficiency of Food Chains in Selected EU Countries

Cost-Energy Optimum Pathway for the UK Food Manufacturing Industry to Meet the UK National Emission Targets

Thermal Simulation of a Supermarket Cold Zone with Integrated Assessment of Human Thermal Comfort

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