Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Systems Engineering
Geospatial Variation in Carbon Accounting of Low-Carbon Hydrogen Production Pathways: Implications for the Inflation Reduction Act
Published: 2023-11-20
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Systems Engineering
Low-carbon hydrogen is considered a key component of global energy system decarbonization strategy. The US Inflation Reduction Act includes incentives in the form of production tax credits for low-carbon hydrogen production, provided the lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity (EI) of hydrogen is below 4 kg CO2e/kg H2. Blue hydrogen or hydrogen produced from natural gas coupled with [...]
Notes from the Oil Patch: Planning for a Worker-Focused Transition in the Oil and Gas Industry
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Systems Engineering
The energy transition portends major disruption to livelihoods of oil and gas workers and communities dependent on the fossil fuel industry. Managing this transition smoothly will require coordinated policy planning, community and place-based incentives, and structural reforms and support structures that carefully map the skills of the worker to opportunities in the clean energy economy.
Complex multi-source emissions quantification results for the PoMELO vehicle measurement system, test results from the CSU METEC facility
Published: 2022-03-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Other Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, Systems Engineering
Methane emissions from oil and gas sites are often characterized by mixed plumes from multiple sources in close proximity. This presents a challenge for screening methods that rely on emissions quantification to direct and prioritize follow-up inspections. Here, we present results from experiments evaluating mixed-source quantifications using the University of Calgary Portable Methane Leak [...]
Acting on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) synergies and trade-offs requires policy-focused systems tools
Published: 2022-03-04
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Systems Engineering
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is contingent on managing complex interactions that create synergies and trade-offs between different goals. Given the importance of interactions, it is necessary to understand the system mechanisms underpinning them to provide insight into their non-linear behaviours such as side-effects, delay, and acceleration. Prominent methods of SDG [...]
Optimizing nature-based solutions by combining social equity, hydro-environmental performance, and economic costs through a novel Gini coefficient
Published: 2021-11-15
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Physical and Environmental Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Systems Engineering
A robust multi-functional framework for widespread planning of nature-based solutions (NBS) must incorporate components of social equity and hydro-environmental performance in a cost-effective manner. NBS systems address stormwater mitigation by increasing on-site infiltration and evaporation through enhanced greenspace while also improving various components of societal well-being, such as [...]
A Machine Learning Approach to Methane Emissions Mitigation in the Oil and Gas Industry
Published: 2020-11-05
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Systems Engineering
Reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is a key component of climate policy in the United States. Methane leaks across the supply chain are stochastic and intermittent, with a small number of sites (‘super-emitters’) responsible for a majority of emissions. Thus, cost-effective emissions reduction critically relies on effectively identifying the super-emitters from thousands [...]
Evaluating participatory modelling methods for co-creating pathways to sustainability
Published: 2020-11-03
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Planetary Sciences, Systems Engineering
The achievement of global sustainability agendas, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, relies on transformational change across society, economy, and environment that are co-created in a transdisciplinary exercise by all stakeholders. Within this context, environmental and societal change is increasingly understood and represented via participatory modelling for genuine engagement with [...]
Information-theoretic Portfolio Decision Model for Optimal Flood Management
Published: 2019-06-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Risk Analysis, Statistics and Probability, Sustainability, Systems Engineering, Water Resource Management
The increasing impact of flooding urges more effective flood management strategies to guarantee sustainable ecosystem development. Recent catastrophes underline the importance of avoiding local flood management, but characterizing large scale basin wide approaches for systemic flood risk management. Here we introduce an information-theoretic Portfolio Decision Model (iPDM) for the optimization of [...]