The long essay question with which I chose to cap off my Ecological Science and Management exam was something along the lines of: explain the importance of biodiversity. Truth be told, I wasn't all that confident with this exam (though ended up passing, phew) and actually wrote a fairly mediocre long answer involving a joke about tomatoes. (Something about how losing a zillion species of tomatoes wouldn't only impact salad-eaters everywhere, but might affect other organisms dependent on each species of tomato for crucial parts of their life cycle.)
I could've added another example, enriched my answer and improved my grade had I read The Onion first.
Just kidding. In addition to all the scientific arguments for biodiversity conservation, I am one of those deep greens that believes in the intrinsic, inalienable value of every blade of grass.
I tell ya: I sure learned a lot in the first year of my MSc --if I learn even half as much this year, I'll get more than my money's worth. Anyone interested in talking about or sharing more information on eco-industrial parks, please do email me; I don't know how I feel about the prefabricated flavour that they're beginning to take on (to me, sponteneity is part of their beauty) but would nonetheless love to hear about diverse experiences and potential jobs (!) related to industrial ecology.
Read on for a very exciting explanation of what the heck I'm talking about, totally lifted from last year's Design and Innovation course:
Industrial Symbiosis: ‘For the purposes of this work we define Industrial Symbiosis networks as ‘a collection of long-term, symbiotic relationships between and among regional activities involving physical exchanges or materials and energy carriers as well as the exchange of knowledge, human and technical resources, concurrently providing environmental and competitive benefits’.’ (Mirata and Emtairah, 2005, page 2)
Eco-industrial parks, eco-industrial estate: ‘An eco-industrial park or estate is a community of manufacturing and service businesses located together on a common property. Member businesses seek to enhance environmental, economic, and social performance through collaboration in managing environmental resource issues. By working together, the community of businesses seeks a collective benefit that is greater than the sum of individual benefits each company would realise by only optimising its individual performance.’ (Lowe, 2001 quoted in Lowe, 2005)
One of the favourite cases presented by industrial ecologists is the story of the spontaneous but slow evolution of the ‘industrial symbiosis’ at Kalundborg, Denmark. This web of materials and energy exchanges among companies (and with the community) has developed over the last 25 years in a small industrial zone on the coast, 75 miles west of Copenhagen. Originally, the motivation behind most of the exchanges was to reduce costs by seeking income-producing uses for ‘waste’ products. The latest numbers from Kalundborg indicate that the firms have saved US$ 160 million to date … as a return on a total investment of $75 million. Gradually, the managers and town residents realised their transactions were generating significant environmental benefits as well.
The Kalundborg system now includes six core partners:
Asnæs Power Station – Denmark’s largest power station
Statoil Refinery – Denmark’s largest oil refinery
Gyproc – a plasterboard factory
Novo-Nordisk – an international biotechnological company
A-S Bioteknisk Jordrens, a soil remediation company
The City of Kalundborg
Over the last two and a half decades, these partners spontaneously developed a series of bilateral exchanges, which also include a number of other companies. There was no initial planning of the overall network; it simply evolved as a collection of one-to-one deals that made economic sense for the pairs of participants in each.
It is important to understand initially that water is a scarce resource in this part of Denmark and is therefore systematically valorised. In order to reduce consumption of ground water, Lake Tissø has become the main source of water for the industrial partners in Kalundborg. However, in order to reduce overall water consumption by the partners, the Statoil refinery supplies its purified wastewater as well as its used cooling water to Asnæs power station, thereby allowing this water to be ‘used twice’.
Asnæs power station supplies steam both to Statoil and Novo Nordisk for heating of their processes. By functioning in a co-generation mode, the power station is able to increase its efficiency.
Excess gas from the operations at the Statoil refinery is treated to remove sulphur, which is sold as a raw material for the manufacture of sulphuric acid, and the clean gas is then supplied to Asnæs power station and to Gyproc as an energy source.
In 1993 Asnæs power station installed a desulphurisation unit to remove sulphur from its flue gases, which allows it to produce calcium sulphate (gypsum). This is the main raw material in the manufacture of plasterboard at Gyproc. By purchasing synthetic ‘waste’ gypsum from Asnæs power station, Gyproc has been able to replace the natural gypsum that it used to buy from Spain.
Novo Nordisk creates a large quantity of used bio-mass coming from the synthetic processes and the company has realised that this can be used as a fertiliser since it contains nitrogen, phosporus and potassium. The local farming communities use this liquid fertiliser as well as a solid form of the fertiliser.
Finally, residual heat is also provided by Asnæs power station to the district heating system of the town. The system functions via heat exchangers so that the industrial water and the district heating water are kept separate.
All these exchanges are based on contracts between two companies each.
