Embodied Energy and Environmental Impact in Electric Transportation Systems

摘要

This study aims to demonstrate, in terms of sustainability, the usefulness of the embodied energy and exergy concepts for analyzing systems which convert energy or matter, particularly, an electric transportation system in a dualist view, technical and environmental. It is argued in the paper the sustainability framework, which revealed tentative steps in "cradle to grave" embodied energy assessment of an electric train, from the manufacturing processes to the train operation regimes modeling. In particular, this study tries to provide a missing link in the analysis of electric transportation systems, a bond between Environment and Science that could be translated into the paradigm: only the win model of the self-organizing systems of Nature as solution for human technology applied will have survival value.