Research Publications

There is an increasing interest in adding renewables such as wind to electricity generation portfolios in larger amounts as one response to concern about atmospheric carbon emissions from our energ...

In the fall of 2008, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Water Bureau Director established a wet weather program designed to improve the understanding of rules, policies and regulat...

Although Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become an important tool in the context of environmental and industrial analysis, its limitations keep it from achieving wider acceptance. One limitation is it...

With the discovery of massive deposits of nickel in the 1920s, slave labor camps to mine these reserves soon followed, and the city of Norilsk was born. Officially founded in 1935 as the Norilsk Co...

The concept of dematerialization refers broadly to the reduction of materials used by society over time. Definitions of the term material use vary, but generally include some estimate of ecosystem ...

This study is the second phase of a three-phase sustainability assessment of milk production by Aurora Organic Dairy (AOD).  AOD is a leading provider of private-label organic milk to retailers t...

Introduction Utilizing more efficient air conditioning equipment is an important strategy to curb residential energy consumption. The potential benefit from replacing an air conditioning unit wit...

Despite temporal changes in wholesale electricity prices, retail prices are typically constant throughout the day. To address this economic inefficiency, Detroit Edison, a subsidiary of DTE Energy (DT...

Part Six: National Innovation Systems Chapter 52: The U.S. National Innovation System The United States of America (U.S.) has been heralded as the world's premier engine of technological advan...

The geography of mineral resources and human settlement influences the production-consumption cycle of cement and other mined construction materials, and affects the energy, cost and environmental ...

Urban areas are home to more than half of the world's people, responsible for >70% of anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide and 76% of wood used for industrial purposes. By 2050 the proportion...

Utilizing more efficient central air conditioning equipment is one strategy to curb residential energy consumption. The average efficiency of air conditioning units sold tends to increase gradually ov...

In the fall of 2008, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MI DEQ) Water Bureau Director established a wet weather program designed to improve the understanding of rules, policies and regu...

There is disagreement on whether the supply of lithium is adequate to support a future global fleet of electric vehicles. We report a comprehensive analysis of the global lithium resources and an asse...

This study analyzed the sustainability and environmental impact of indoor recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) used for raising shrimp in the U.S. A life cycle analysis (LCA) was performed to evalu...

The electrical consumption from central air conditioners currently accounts for about 14% of residential electrical use in the United States. Utilizing more efficient air conditioning units is one str...

Introduction: Conventionally CO2 abated by generating photovoltaic electricity has been evaluated using average grid fuel mix profiles at various scales. However at low capacity PV installations i...

In this paper we consider life cycle emissions paybacks and costs associated with lightweighting (LW) automobiles. Both aluminum and high strength steel (HSS) are considered with LW ranging from 6%...

Pavement preservation (maintenance and rehabilitation) requires large resource investments and generates significant environmental impacts. A project-level pavement asset management system (PAMS) i...

Aurora Organic Dairy (AOD) is the largest provider of private-label organic milk and butter in the U.S. managing over 12000 milking cows and processing over 84 million liters (22 million gallons) of m...