Research Publications

Vehicles typically deteriorate with accumulating mileage and emit more tailpipe air pollutants per mile. Although incentive programs for scrapping old, high-emitting vehicles have been implemented ...

EDITOR's NOTE: This report is temporarily unavailable and will be posted again once a correction on a metric pertaining to the nuclear fuel cycle is made.  - October 25, 2010.  See also the ...

Land use is an increasingly important component of sustainability evaluations, and numerous performance metrics have evolved to meet this need. The selection of appropriate land-use metrics for dec...

This study develops a framework and analytical model based on life-cycle assessment (LCA) for NextEnergy to evaluate the environmental and energy life cycle performance of its Microgrid Pavilion (here...

INTRODUCTION: Microgrid systems powered with distributed generation (DG) technologies offer an alternative to the conventional system of centralized power and on-site thermal heating and cooling. A...

Over the last decade, enormous strides have been made in creating engineered cementitious composites (ECC) with extreme tensile ductility, on the order of several hundred times that of normal concr...

Biomass is a key renewable energy source expected to play an important role in US electricity production under stricter emission regulations and renewable portfolio standards. Willow energy crops a...

Using a Life Cycle Assessment perspective, this research examines optimal refrigerator lifetimes that minimize cumulative energy consumption and cost over the time horizon between 1985 and 2020. Dynam...

On October 16, 2003 the Secretary of Interior, Gale A. Norton, signed the Quantification Settlement Agreement in Boulder City, Nevada. This constitutes a milestone agreement for water allocation in...

This Toolkit is designed to provide the Vermont dairy farmer with information on how his or her current practices compare economically, socially and environmentally to best management practices. Addit...

Agricultural practices can create significant negative environmental, social and economic impacts. These impacts are becoming increasingly important for companies that rely upon agricultural inputs fo...

A life-cycle cost (LCC) model was developed to evaluate the sustainability of bridge decks. This study compared two bridge deck systems: one with conventional concrete (CC) joints, the other with engi...

A life cycle assessment (LCA) model was developed to compare the sustainability of alternative concrete bridge deck designs: one a conventional steel reinforced concrete (SRC) deck with mechanical ste...

Remanufacturing restores used automotive engines to likenew condition, providing engines that are functionally equivalent to a new engine at much lower environmental and economic costs than the manufa...

Wind energy is widely acknowledged as one of the most sustainable sources of electricity: environmental impacts are relatively low, further reductions in production costs are expected, the distributio...

In the United States, the predominant mode of personal transportation is the automobile with over 90% of all passenger miles traveled in 1997 (Davis and Diegel 2002). Similarly, total passenger miles ...

A life cycle assessment was conducted to evaluate the environmental performance of the yogurt product delivery system used by Stonyfield Farm. A life cycle model was developed which included material ...

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a business model for a renewable energy company called Developing Power. This business model is a response to the need for a viable solution for effectively me...

Although recent progress in automotive technology has reduced exhaust emissions per mile for new cars, the continuing use of inefficient, higher-polluting old cars as well as increasing vehicle mil...

A comprehensive case study life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted of a 7300m2, six-story building with a projected 75 year life span, located on the University of Michigan campus. The bottom thr...

A life cycle inventory (LCI) study evaluates the environmental performance of the ULSAB-AVC (UltraLight Steel Auto Body - Advanced Vehicle Concepts) vehicle product system. The LCI quantifies the inpu...

Historically, the demand for automobiles that reduce environmental impacts and the demands for improved vehicle safety and cost effectiveness have been in conflict. However, results of the ULSAB-AVC (...