@article{liu_barlaz_johnson_2024, title={Economic and environmental comparison of emerging plastic waste management technologies}, volume={205}, ISSN={["1879-0658"]}, url={https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2024.107531}, DOI={10.1016/j.resconrec.2024.107531}, abstractNote={Recovery of plastics may need to move beyond traditional mechanical methods and adopt emerging recycling processes including dissolution/precipitation, solvolysis, and pyrolysis. We investigate the costs and climate impacts of optimal solid waste management (SWM) strategies when deploying emerging recycling processes. Introducing a mix of emerging recycling technologies can reduce SWM system costs, increase plastic recycling rates, and potentially help SWM systems achieve net reductions in life cycle emissions. Recycling programs that rely solely on traditional mechanical recycling incur higher system costs, but can achieve the lowest life cycle emissions, regardless of whether the rejected plastic streams are landfilled or treated in waste-to-energy. In a future with increased recycling, SWM systems that utilize fully commercialized dissolution/precipitation and chemical recycling can further improve the cost advantage and the emission reduction potential. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates that enhancing waste collection and refining emerging recycling technologies can considerably increase the economic and environmental performance of SWM.}, journal={RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND RECYCLING}, author={Liu, Lily and Barlaz, Morton A. and Johnson, Jeremiah X.}, year={2024}, month={Jun} }
 @article{liu_miranda_bielicki_ellis_johnson_2024, title={Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of CO<sub>2</sub>-Enabled Sedimentary Basin Geothermal}, volume={58}, ISSN={["1520-5851"]}, DOI={10.1021/acs.est.3c04006}, abstractNote={The expansion of renewable energy and the large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) can decarbonize the power sector. The use of CO2 to extract geothermal heat from naturally porous and permeable sedimentary basins to generate electricity (CO2-plume geothermal (CPG) system) presents an opportunity to simultaneously generate renewable energy and geologically store CO2. In this study, we estimate the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of CPG systems through 12 scenarios in which CPG systems are combined with one of six CO2 sources (e.g., bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and iron and steel facilities) and operate in two geological settings. We find the life cycle GHG emissions of CPG systems ranging from -0.25 to -6.18 kg CO2eq/kWh. CPG systems can achieve the highest emissions reductions when utilizing the CO2 captured from BECCS. We evaluate uncertainty through a Monte Carlo simulation, demonstrating consistent net reductions in life cycle emissions and a local, one-parameter-at-a-time sensitivity analysis that identifies the CO2 capture capacity as the high-impact parameter of the results. Through the production of electricity, CPG systems can provide additional environmental benefits to the deployment of large-scale CCS.}, number={4}, journal={ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY}, author={Liu, Lily and Miranda, Marcos M. and Bielicki, Jeffrey M. and Ellis, Brian R. and Johnson, Jeremiah X.}, year={2024}, month={Jan}, pages={1882–1893} }