C-VORR: Complex-Value Optimisation for Resource Recovery

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Traditionally, we think of industrial manufacturing processes as producing useful output that have economic value - products - and unwanted outputs with disposal costs - wastes. It is often more useful to think in terms of the 'total value' of the process and its products and co-products, for two reasons. First, adjusting the manufacturing process can often make the 'waste' material into a something useful for another product (e.g. iron and steel manufacture can be adapted so that the main waste, blast-furnace slag, can be added to concrete to make it cheaper and more resistant to corrosion). This can increase the total value of the process. Secondly, if we only take in to account the economic value of the products and coproducts, we overlook other important aspects of the total value. For example, adding economic value to the blast-furnace slag has the added benefit of diverting it from landfill; thus, the evnvironmental damage is reduced, or, put another way, the environmental value is also increased. Iron and steel manufacture may also have a social value, by providing jobs for a region. By looking at how all three aspects of total value - economic, environmental and social - vary as the manufacturing process is adjusted, we can move away from a 'product + waste' model to one where we can optimise the total value to society of the whole manufacturing process. To do this, we need to build a completely new model for analysing manufacturing processes. This will combine a number of modelling approaches used in environmental science (life cycle assessment), environmental economics (materials flow analysis), social science (social cost/benefit analysis) and mathematical modelling (stochastic multi-criteria decision analysis). It wil also create a new concept of 'value' - total complex value - that considers and combines the economic, social and environmental impacts of industrial processes. It will strive to optimise value from 'cradle to cradle' and allow us to measure the true value of e.g. designing for dismantling, upstream de-pollution, optimising closed-loop recycling and upvs. down-cycling. Because it will allow us to analyse the effect of interventions in the process on total value, we can then use it to adjust existing processes or design new processes, ensuring they are installed in the right place at the right time to maximise the benefit to society. Ultimately, we want the new model to move us away from old thinking about waste, and help us build a sustainable society with circular materials flow. A very broad range of expertise is required to develop the model. We can bring together experts from the necessary fields (e.g. civil engineering, environmental engineering, economics, mathematics, industrial ecology, social science, materials science, product design, geography, water management, process engineering) because Leeds University is unique in that several interdisciplinary consortia with a range of the necessary expertise already exist (e.g. water@leeds, EPSRC Undermining Infrastructure, FP7 FESSUD - see Track Record). This grant will help these consortia collaborate across projects through research challenge workshops. Initially, we will concentrate within the University of Leeds, leveraging our enormous range of disciplines to extract maximum value from the NERC resource by minimising transport expenditure, communication barriers and lag time. Later, where external expertise is identified as essential, collaborators from outside Leeds or academia will be sought; again, via extensive existing networks.