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Innovation in photovoltaics (PV) is mostly driven by the cost per kilowatt ratio, making it easy to overlook environmental impacts of technological enhancements during early research and development stages. As PV technology developers introduce novel materials and manufacturing methods, the well-studied environmental profile of conventional silicon-based PV may change considerably. Herein, existing trends and hotspots across different types of emerging PV technologies are investigated through a systematic review and meta-analysis of life-cycle assessments (LCAs). To incorporate as many data points as possible, a comprehensive harmonization procedure is applied, producing over 600 impact data points for organic, perovskite (PK), dye-sensitized, tandem, silicon, and other thin-film cells. How the panel and balance of system components affect environmental footprints in comparable installations is also investigated and discussed. Despite the large uncertainties and variabilities in the underlying LCA data and models, the harmonized results show clear positive trends across the sector. Seven potential hotspots are identified for specific PV technologies and impact categories. The analysis offers a high-level guidance for technology developers to avoid introducing undesired environmental trade-offs as they advance to make PV more competitive in the energy markets.

Door het IMAG en Animal Science Group Lelystad werd een duurzaamheidsanalyse uitgevoerd. Hieruit wordt duidelijk welke aanpassingen de vleeskuikenhouderij in Nederland moeten plaatsvinden om op langere termijn verder te kunnen. Uit de scores, in een tabel weergegeven, blijkt dat de duurzame vleeskuikenhouderij beter scoort dan de reguliere op de factoren emissie, energiegebruik, diergezondheid, dierenwelzijn en voedselveiligheid

Verslag van een onderszoek naar strategieverkenning waarbij de mogelijke middelen om gewasverdamping te verlagen zou worden geëvalueerd t.a.v. de effectiviteit, energiebesparing en potentieel voor implementatie.

The concept of food system has gained prominence in recent years amongst both scholars and policy-makers. Experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds have in particular discussed the nature and origin of the “unsustainability” of our modern food systems. These efforts tend, however, to be framed within distinctive disciplinary narratives. In this paper we propose to explore these narratives and to shed light on the explicit -or implicit- epistemological assumptions, mental models, and disciplinary paradigms that underpin those. The analysis indicates that different views and interpretations prevail amongst experts about the nature of the “crisis”, and consequently about the research and priorities needed to “fix” the problem. We then explore how sustainability is included in these different narratives and the link to the question of healthy diets. The analysis reveals that the concept of sustainability, although widely used by all the different communities of practice, remains poorly defined, and applied in different ways and usually based on a relatively narrow interpretation. In so doing we argue that current attempts to equate or subsume healthy diets within sustainability in the context of food system may be misleading and need to be challenged. We stress that trade-offs between different dimensions of food system sustainability are unavoidable and need to be navigated in an explicit manner when developing or implementing sustainable food system initiatives. Building on this overall analysis, a framework structured around several entry points including outcomes, core activities, trade-offs and feedbacks is then proposed, which allows to identify key elements necessary to support the transition toward sustainable food systems.

Gedurende 2005, 2006 en 2007 ondersteunt het programma Netwerken in de Veehouderij (NidV) in totaal zo'n 115 netwerken van ondernemers in de veehouderij en andere betrokkenen in hun streven naar een meer duurzame veehouderij in Nederland. In dit rapport bundelt NidV 29 netwerkverhalen in de vorm van leergeschiedenissen van netwerken die in het jaar 2006 ondersteunde

Resultaten van drie jaar ontwikkeling van een geintegreerd prei-aardbeibedrijf. De gestelde streefopbrengsten, kwaliteitsproductie, verliesnormen (MINAS) voor droge zandgronden, en onkruidbestrijding staan in een figuur weergegeven.

This report studies processes which convert biomass-derived feedstocks (e.g. fermentable sugar) into organic bulk chemicals (e.g. lactic acid, acetic acid, butanol and ethanol) by means of white biotechnology (e.g. fermentation or enzymatic conversion), either with or without genetically modified organisms. Apart from white biotechnology, also conventional chemistry is involved in all processes. All white biotechnology products are compared to functionally equivalent petrochemical products. The key research questions addressed in this report are which products could be made with white biotechnology, whether these products can contribute to savings of energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, under which conditions the products become economically viable, which risks may originate from a shift towards white biotechnology chemicals including the use of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in fermentation and what the public perception is.

Jarenlang was de lijn: meer is beter. Maar als je voor CO2 moet betalen, is het verstandig naar het optimum te zoeken. Misschien hoef je bij tomaat wel helemaal niet zoveel te doseren. Onderzoek van Wageningen UR en GreenQ Improvement Centre geeft verrassende (tussen)resultaten.

Greenhouse tomato cultivation often requires a high energy input to maintain set-point temperatures. If set-point temperatures could be lowered by a few degrees this would reduce energy consumption significantly. However, this can only be applied when new, more energy-efficient cultivars are developed, i.e. cultivars that can be cultivated at sub-optimal temperatures without loss of production or quality. As variation for temperature response within the current elite tomato cultivars is limited, it is important to look for other sources of variation. One option are wild relatives which originate from South America, where they grow at altitudes up to 3300 m. In this study we examined the effects of temperature (12¿24°C) on growth of young vegetative tomato plants of the cultivar `Moneymaker¿ and two wild relatives (L. hirsutum LA 1777 and L. pennellii LA 716). The aim was to elucidate the physiological and morphological parameters which underlie interspecific differences in growth response to sub-optimal temperatures. During a 28-day period five destructive measurements were carried out in which total dry weight, including root weight, leaf area and leaf dry weight were measured in order to calculate growth parameters. Even though `Moneymaker¿ had a higher relative growth rate (RGR) over a large temperature range (16¿24°C), RGR of `Moneymaker¿ was severely reduced below 20°C, while RGRs of L. hirsutum and L. pennellii were only decreased below 16°C. At 12°C RGR of `Moneymaker¿ was reduced by 41% compared to 20°C, while in L. pennellii and L. hirsutum this decrease was only 27 and 18%, respectively. This decrease in RGR in `Moneymaker¿ was mainly a result of a decreased leaf area ratio (LAR), caused by a 35% decrease in specific leaf area (SLA). In contrast, the decrease in RGR in L. pennellii and L. hirsutum was a result of a decreased net assimilation rate (NAR) of 24 and 14%, respectively. This study illustrates that wild tomato species provide possibilities for the breeding of more energy-efficient tomato greenhouse cultivars

Field measured estimates of aboveground biomass (AGB) in the mountainous region of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park ('Bwindi'), Uganda were used to train remote sensing models in order to estimate AGB within the park. AGB estimates were extrapolated using dual-polarization radar satellite data from ALOS PALSAR, optical imagery from Landsat 7 and a fusion of both, and compared to field estimates as indicators of the model prediction strength. Significant geolocation errors existed in the radar data due to the extreme terrain. Fusing the radar and optical data using the non-parametric algorithm Random Forest (RF) in R, provided lower error than using either radar or optical data alone (RMSE ∼120 Mg ha-1), however, saturation at higher biomass levels was evident. The AGB in Bwindi was estimated at 8.91 Tg ± 0.39 Tg (260.9 Mg ha-1 ± 11.4 Mg ha-1).