Parsing Sustainability - Part 1

摘要

The ACS Spring 2010 National Meeting in San Francisco March 21-25 carries a theme near and dear to ES&Ts heart: Chemistry for a Sustainable World. Myriad articles in these pages over now decades have introduced, developed, and applied methods of determining sustainability (though sometimes by different names). The methods are not yet (universally) standardized, but with many more researchers diving into the fold, with both government and industry backing studies called for by an increasingly concerned public, progress is ever swift. A ready example comes in determining which alternative energies hold sufficient promise to direct investment dollars: Clarens et al.(Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es902838n) for example consider algae-based versus other biofuels.