Technology assessment Flashcards
What different types of scenario purposes are there and what question do they answer?
Forecasting: how will it be? Learning: how could it be? Change: How should it be? Warning: What to avoid? Vision: what to aim for?
What different types of scenario qualities are there, what do they look at?
Time perspective: shorter, longer
Values: neutral/objective, selective/normative
Departure: history, present, future
Transition: logical, linear
In the sustainability assessment, we have used three sustainability constraints. Describe these constraints and what the consequences of them can be for a long-term and large-scale use of a technology.
Limited space - can the availability of land fulfil the demand of a product?
Limited availability of non-renewable resources - availability of material, reserves and resources, accessible or not?
Limited assimilation capacity - Are the emissions on a sustainable level?
Describe the sus constraint Limited space
Limited space – Land use
o can the availability of land fulfil the demand of a product?
Measurement: Land demand: which depends on: • Total demand of the product • Land use efficiency: yield, losses • Reference values: available land with diff. productivity
Available land depends on:
• Competing demand of land: Food, material, energy, societal constructions, natural preservation
• Degradation of land
Consequences for a long-term and large-scale use
- loss of biodiversity
- taking up land that could be used for something els
- cultural land loss
Describe the sus constraint: limited availability
Limited availability of non-renewable resources
Measurement:
Total or annual material demand, which depend on:
• Demand of product (total or annual)
• Material content in products
• Material losses in the production system
Availability if material depend on
- Stocks in lithosphere: resources, reserves
- Extraction rate: (annual availability)
• Mining & refining capacity of metals
• Main or bi-metal in an ore
- Distribution of resources among countries
• Geopolitical resources
- Availability of recycled (secondary) materials
• Depends on: Stock in society, Life length of products, Dissipative uses, Recycling rate, Quality of recycled material
- Competing demand from other products
o Consequences for a long-term and large-scale use
- Material exhaustion
- More expensive to mine – willingness-to-pay -> uneven distribution of materials
Describe the sus constraint: limited assimilation capacity
Limited assimilation capacity – emissions
o Are the emissions on a sustainable level?
Assimilation capacity, not systematically building up in the ecosphere
Measurements:
- Emissions, eg:
• Emission factor for processes
• Emission factors for the use of products
• Dissipative use
- Emissions from different processes from cradle-to-grave
- Limited assimilation capacity of substances that are emitted into nature
Reference values, eg: Threshold values, Target values (political goals), Total emissions (whole world, all products), Historic emissions
Consequences for a long-term and large-scale use
- More pollution and toxicity harmful to humans, animals and nature
- A global problem
Give examples of relevant research question for a TA performed for
i) bioenergy production
ii) lithium batteries in electric vehicle
(i. e. one research question for each of them) and explain why these research questions are relevant. The research questions should be concrete and should have an explicit connection to a relevant sustainability constraint that have been used in the course.
i) What emissions are there in bioenergy production?
ii) Is there a risk that lithium scarcity can constrain a large-scale diffusion of electrical vehicles?
iii) Lead-acid batteries: do toxic substances have to be phased out to get sustainable material systems, or can they be used in closed systems?
Describe the different types of scenarios.
Forecasting:
- Purpose: forecasts – looking at how it will be, (warning, learning)
- Time perspective: shorter
- Values: neutral – no value attached
- Departure: history, present
Explorative:
- Purpose: learning – looking at how it could be, and warning - looking at what to avoid
- Time perspective: long term, enough time to see a difference (30-50 years)
- Values: neutral
- Departure: present
Normative
- Purpose: change – looking at how it should be, and vision – what to aim for in the future
- Time perspective: long term
- Values: normative – values added (not always sustainable aim)
- Departure: future
Reference
- Purpose: reference (to compare with)
- Time perspective: shorter and longer
- Values: neutral
- Departure: present (history)
Business as usual
- Purpose: reference (to compare with), learning - looking at how it could be, forecasting – looking at how it will be
- Time perspective: shorter and longer
- Values: neutral
- Departure: present, history
Worst case/best case
- Purpose: learning - looking at how it could be, warning - what to avoid, vision – what to aim for (forecast)
- Time perspective: longer
- Values: neutral and normative (depends on purpose)
- Departure: present
Backcasting
- Purpose: change – how should it be, vision – what to aim for
- Time perspective: long term
- Values: normative – value added
- Departure: future
Describe some possibilities and challenges with TA.
Possibilities:
- to contribute to an optimal alignment between technologies and societal development
- to predict possible unintended dangers with a technology
Challenges:
- when TA only studies some aspects of sustainability:
- risk of sub-optimization
- might be limited, not looking into economical perspective – miss something
- when TA studies all aspects of sustainability
- risk of becoming a very large study – very time and cost demanding, so might not be able to finish
- risk that the study is only done for products with much available information, ie products already in use -> might wait to long and damage already done
Formulate research questions for a TA, which are clearly connected to the three sustainability constraints that are included in the course (one for each constraint) and explain why the research questions are relevant for a TA.
i) What emissions are there in bioenergy production?
ii) Is there a risk that lithium scarcity can constrain a large-scale diffusion of electrical vehicles?
iii) How much more land does the agriculture of soy take compared to meat consumption?
Describe how one could do scenarios for the future use of scarce metals in solar cells if one would use: - backcasting - business as usual scenario - explorative scenario.
Backcasting:
- The approach to develop normative scenarios for a desirable future
- Describes a desirable future
- Makes a strategy to go there from the present situation
- Long term perspective
Business as usual
- Purpose: reference (to compare with), learning - looking at how it could be, forecasting – looking at how it will be
- Time perspective: shorter and longer
- Values: neutral/objective
- Departure: present, history
- The business-as-usual perspective looks at what the scarce metal use for solar cells will lead to if we continue using the material in the same rate as we do now. It is more to use as a reference and looking at how it could be. It looks at the present and even historical use of the scarce metals.
Explorative
- Purpose: learning – looking at how it could be, and warning - looking at what to avoid
- Time perspective: long term, enough time to see a difference (30-50 years)
- Values: neutral
- Departure: present
- The explorative is also for learning about how it could be, but the purpose is also to provide a warning for what might happen in the future though different exploring scenarios. It evaluates it objectively for long term.
Describe the steps in the procedure for the TA methodology that is used in the course.
- A product/technology
- Scenarios for the future
Future demand of the product
- Large scale
- Long term – 30-50 years
Per product: material content, recycling rate, emissions, lifespan
Total impact of the whole system
- Emissions, material, land – sus. constraints - Indicators
- Ethical analysis – for a social aspect of a sustainability assessment
Describe the four steps in a backcasting approach. Describe the difference between backcasting and forecasting. Have you use backcasting or forecasting in your technology assessment assignment in the course? Motivate your answer! (You do not have to mention which product that you have analysed. You just have to describe the methodology that you have used for the scenarios.)
The 4 steps of backcasting:
1. Refining criteria for sustainability
2. Describing the present situation in relation to the criteria for sus
3. Envisioning one or several possible future situations
4. Finding strategy towards that sustainable future
The difference between backcasting and forecasting is scenarios is that forecasting looks at how it will be, with a neutral value, while backcasting looks at how it should be and what to aim for, and therefore subjective values are involved. Forecasting also looks at the scenarios from a short time perspective, while backcasting looks at a long term perspective and don’t look at history but finding a strategy to work towards the aimed sustainable future.
