Industrial Symbiosis and Networks Flashcards

1
Q

What are the three variants of natural symbiosis?

A
  1. Mutualism: Both parts take advantage
  2. Commensalism: One part takes advantage, the other part is indifferent
  3. Parasitism: One part takes advantage, the other part is damaged
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2
Q

What is Industrial symbiosis? Short definition

A

Separate industries collaborate to exchange materials, energy, water and by products

  • A waste from another industry can be a resource/raw material for production in another industry
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3
Q

What are the 3 pillars that makes industrial Symbiosis?

A
  1. Separate entities: Companies don’t make the same products nor are in the same market, but can still collaborate and exchange resources
  2. Collective approach to competitive advantage: Companies need to work together to gain competitive edge
  3. Involving physical exchanges: Using waste from process A as raw material in process B reduces the need for new sources –> lowered environmental impact
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4
Q

What is perfect symbiosis?

A

The by-product from the first process can be used directly in process 2
- No need for treatment or additional resources
- Waste heating and excess heating

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5
Q

What is imperfect symbiosis?

A

Symbiosis where a treatment process is needed to reuse the waste as an input in another process
- There can also be a need for additional resources

OBS!!! The transportation of the waste is not classified as a treatment

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6
Q

There are 4 different models of industrial symbiosis? What are these?

A
  1. Internal Use and Input replacement: waste replace an input within the same company
    - McDonalds: Uses frying oil as biofuel
  2. Internal use and product development: Waste creates new products used within the same company
    - Guitang makes alcohol and paper from sugar production waste
  3. External use and Input replacement: Waste replaces an input for another company
    - Gyproc use fly ash in cement production
  4. External use and product development: Waste becomes a new product for another company
    - Kazmok makes bags from old conveyor belts
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7
Q

Why industrial symbiosis? What are the environmental benefits?

A
  • Less waste discharged
  • Less raw materials used in production processes
  • Less GHG
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8
Q

How can the environmental benefits of industrial symbiosis be assessed in terms of flow?

A
  1. Material flow analysis (MFA): tracks the movement of materials through a system to asses resource use and waste
  2. Substance Flow analysis (SFA): Focuses on flow of specific substances to understand their impact and management needs

MFA is broader while SFA focuses on specific substances

  1. Enterpise Input-Output analysis (IOA): Maps how outputs from one industry becomes inputs for others, helping to analyze the flow of goods and services throughout an economy
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9
Q

What is emergy?

A

The total available amount of energy that is consumed to produce a product
- E.g. The energy used to grow a tree

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10
Q

What is exergy?

A

The quality of the energy: How much work it can actually do

  • E.g. low exergy: district heating
  • E.g. high exergy: Steam at 300 degrees driving turbines
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11
Q

What are the economical benefits of industrial symbiosis?

A
  1. Lower waste disposal
  2. Lower input purchasing costs
  3. Additional revenue: since you cab sell product for a higher price if they are “green”
    - Also, producer can give waste for free which incurs a bigger profit
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12
Q

What are the formula for the economic benefits of Industrial symbiosis from a holistic perspective?

A

BE =[ (dc + pc) - (rc+tc) ] * e

Where,

dc= Waste disposal cost you save from selling the waste to other company
pc= Input purchase cost you save from buying wastes instead of virgin materials
rc= waste treatment additional cost
tc= waste transportation additional cost
e= amount of waste exchanged

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13
Q

What defines an industrial symbiosis network?

A

Network of at least 3 companies exchanging at least 2 wastes (3-2 heuristic)

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14
Q

The industrial symbiosis network can be formed in 2 different ways, explain and give examples

A

1). Top down approach.
Centralization of control: A central organization/company is responsible for monitoring the industrial symbiosis:
- Designing the relationships,
- managing operations and infrastructure
- Selecting new companies that can be involved
NOT THAT DEMOCRATIC

2). Bottom Up approach.
Decentralization of control: networks arise spontaneously and companies are free to enter or exit (free design of relationships)
- E.g. early stages of the Kalundborg symbiosis, that began as spontaneous collaboration among companies

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15
Q

How does a self-organized ISN arise?

A
  1. Sprouting: companies starts to build relationships, things are starting to build up
  2. Uncovering: The network is created
  3. Embeddedness: Companies are aware of that the network exists and understand how being apart of it is useful for them
    - Starts promote and advertise the network, attracting other companies to enter the network
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16
Q

What is industrial Urban Symbiosis?

A

A concept of IS where urban areas are a part of the network
- Involve e.g. the local community into the industrial symbiosis
- Company and local community exchanging waste/resources

  • For e.g. plastic waste from the city is sent to an incinerator burning the wastes and returning district heat to the city

-

17
Q

An ISN can create other external positive side effects other than just the network, explain? What are the advantages of agglomeration economics?

A
  1. Proximity facilitates knowledge exchange:
    - When companies are located near each other, they can easily share knowledge, skills and ideas
  2. Cluster of companies can drive other companies to enter
  3. New markets can arise to serve the ISN
  4. Cluster of companies can enforce local workforce:
    - raised demand for skilled workers, which can drive up local sallaries
  5. New infrastructure or improvement of existing ones
    - New roads between companies may enhance the overall infrastructure and benefit the society as well
18
Q

What are agglomeration economic benefits?

A

Benefits of having multiple companies located closeby

19
Q

What is resilience in terms of ISN?

A

The ability to absorb impact which comes from disruptive events like. natural disasters, terror attacks, technical issues, and in this case, companies leaving the network

  • if the ISN has low resilience, then the network is weak if changes happens like companies leaving the network, delays etc.
20
Q

What factors related to diversity are affecting the resilience of ISN?

A
  1. Network diversity: = number of different types of wastes exchanged within the network
    - high network diversity increases resilience because it reduces dependency on specific resources or waste flows
  2. Firm diversity: number of different wastes per company
    - Low firm diversity is better for resilience as it reduces the complexity and dependency of a single companies waste exchange
    - Sea star effect: not desirable
21
Q

What is ubiquity of waste and what factors related to ubiquity are affecting the resilience of ISN?

A

Ubiquity of waste: a lot of companies with the same type of waste

  • High ubiquity increases resilience, since multiple companies handles the same waste which make the system not as vulnerable if one company were to step out of the network
22
Q

What is the optimal recipe for a resilient ISN?

A

A network with many companies, each having low waste diversity, where multiple companies exchange the same type of waste

23
Q

There are barriers of industrial symbiosis at a company level, explain

A
  • Problem: Companies don’t have the knowledge on how to implement industrial symbiosis nor which benefit they can achieve from industrial symbiosis

+ Solution: Education and Industrial guidance (success cases)

24
Q

There are barriers of industrial symbiosis at intercompany level?

A

Legal Barriers.
- Different regulations for different inputs and waste can complicate the collaboration between companies in different countries or regions

+ Important with clear procedures (transparency), ensuring that it’s legal for everyone

If issue still exists –> risk of ILLEGAL DUMPING

25
Q

What is illegal dumping?

A

When companies improperly dispose of waste, like in landfills, to avoid rules and regulations

  • This can happen if bureaucratic issues makes it complex for companies to collaborate with other companies
  • Then illegal dumping may seem like a simpler and less costly option
26
Q

What are the technical barriers of ISN?

A
  1. Challenges in production.
    Mixing waste and inputs can be technically difficult and may require skilled engineers
    - Not easy to set up multiple system –> costly and time consuming
  2. Low geographic proximity. Exchanging heat depends on the distance: the longer the distance, the higher the temperature and preassure losses
  3. Mismatch between demand and supply of wastes
    - Waste production is not always driven by product demand, it depends on the output produced
    - This can mismatch!!It har to do a proper prognosis of the market especially as demand and supply can fluctuate over time
  4. Production structure.
    - Problem: No waste producers/users
  • Solution: As hoc policy measures
  • Basically means tailored policies: providing incentives to locate waste users/producers in a specific area
  1. Lack of information.
    - Problem: Data on waste production/waste demand is not accessible. Some companies may not be willing to share that kind of information due to competitors
  • Solution: Online platforms, increasing transparency by providing information about waste inputs and outputs, supply and demand
  • Through these platforms, companies can easy identify symbiotic partners
27
Q

What can the government do to encourage companies to join industrial symbiosis networks? What can be challenging?

A

Titta på benefit-formeln!

  1. Higher costs of disposal and input purchasing costs, leading to increased revenue for the government
    - Hopefully this will encourage the willingness to be more comitted to a circular economy approach amd industrial symbiosis
  2. Lower the cost for transportation and treatment of waste by providing subsidies on these costs, leading to increased costs for the government
  3. Invest in improving techniques/processes, infrastructure and shared facilities for waste processing –> cost for government

OBS! The introduction of a landfill tax or subsidy will not lead to a linear increase of companies joining ISN, which can be due to technical/legal/geographical limitations

OBS2! Taxes and subsidies can be combined