K.-H. Robèrt et al., "Strategic sustainable development — selection, design and synergies of applied tools", Journal of Cleaner Production 10(3):197-214 (2002)
Susan Svoboda, "Note on Life Cycle Analysis" (1995)
Either
David Lin et al., "Ecological Footprint Accounting for Countries: Updates and Results of the National Footprint Accounts, 2012-2018", Resources 7(3):58 (2018)
or
Davy Vanham et al., "Environmental footprint family to address local to planetary sustainability and deliver on the SDGs", Science of The Total Environment 693:133642 (2019)
Either
RR Heeres, WJV Vermeulen, and FB de Walle, "Eco-industrial park initiatives in the USA and the Netherlands: first lessons", Journal of Cleaner Production 12(8-10):985-995 (2004)
or
A Neves, R Godina, SG Azevedo, JCO Matias, "A comprehensive review of industrial symbiosis", Journal of Cleaner Production 247: 119113 (2020)
David Rogers Tilley, "Howard T. Odum’s contribution to the laws of energy", Ecological Modelling 178: 121–125 (2004)
Will Steffen et al. "Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet", Science 347(6223): 1259855 (2015)
James E Hansen et al., "Global warming has accelerated: Are the United Nations and the public well-informed?", Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 67: 6-44 (2025)
David JC MacKay, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air (2008), Chapters 1-4 (Pages 1-34)
Göran Wall, Exergetics (2009), Pages 1-50
Penn State University Center for Medieval Studies, "Colonial America's pre-industrial age of wood and water"
Sashi Sivramkrishna, "Production Cycles and Decline in Traditional Iron Smelting in the Maidan, Southern India, c. 1750-1950: An Environmental History Perspective" (2009), Environment and History 15(2): 163-197
Julian M Allwood and Jonathan M Cullen, Sustainable Materials with Both Eyes Open (2012), Chapters 1-3 (Pages 1-50) [The whole book is worth reading, especially if you're interested in buildings.]
Gus Speth, "American passage: Towards a new economy and a new politics" (2012), Ecological Economics 84: 181-186
(1) Use a tool such as the Inventory of Carbon & Energy from the University of Bath here or the NIST BEES software, which have estimates of the energy requirements and CO2 emissions associated with using different materials, to roughly assess the greenhouse gas emissions associated with constructing a building or piece of infrastructure of your choice. What are some ways for the environmental impacts associated with this construction to be reduced?
(2) What makes industrial ecology "ecological"? Describe or analyze examples for how your sector of interest can adopt industrial ecology principles. If possible, give some quantitative estimates of the potential reduction in resource extraction or pollution, as quantified, for example, by ecological footprint.
(1) List five steps (government policies or individual actions) that, in your view, have the potential to significantly help in mitigating and/or adapting to global warming (and/or other major disruptions to Earth's climate and biosphere), and briefly explain why each is a good idea. Also, discuss one or more ideas that have been proposed as solutions that, in your view, are ineffective or harmful.
(2) Survey the most recent New York City Panel on Climate Change assessment for projected impacts of global warming on NYC. What sources of information do they mainly use to make such projections?
(1) Summarize the concept of energy quality and how it relates to building and infrastructure design. Use as sources relevant sections of Wall's book, as well as the International Energy Agency's Annex 49 project website on "Low Exergy Systems for High-Performance Buildings and Communities" – this document (esp. the case studies in Chapter 7) might be particularly helpful.
(2) Pose and solve one or more numerical thermodynamics/exergy problems of interest to you, based on last week's reading and/or (some of) the following sources. Summarize what you learned from working through the problem(s).
(1) Referring to the Penn State or Sivramkrishna articles, why didn't societies without fossil fuels, such as 18th-Century Pennsylvania or India, build steel-framed structures? What resource utilization practices were facilitated by low population density (e.g. ~4 people per km2 in 18th-Century Pennsylvania)? If the population density were comparable to today's (e.g. 100 people per km2 in Pennsylvania), what would have been the alternatives?
(2) The Speth article questions the value of economic growth. What are the arguments that economic growth can be destructive? How would you expect engineering practice to be different in a world that did not see economic growth as the main goal of society? See also Chapter 17 of Allwood and Cullen.