An Integrated Approach to Risk and Impacts of Geo-Resources Exploration and Exploitation

Maria Vittoria Gargiulo, Alexander Garcia, Andrea Paulillo, Ortensia Amoroso, Ernesto Salzano and Paolo Capuano
Additional contact information
Maria Vittoria Gargiulo: Department of Physics “E.R. Caianiello”, Università degli Studi di Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy
Alexander Garcia: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Bologna, Via Donato Creti 12, 40128 Bologna, Italy
Andrea Paulillo: Department of Chemical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E7JE, UK
Ortensia Amoroso: Department of Physics “E.R. Caianiello”, Università degli Studi di Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy
Ernesto Salzano: Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering, Via Terracini 28, 40131 Bologna, Italy
Paolo Capuano: Department of Physics “E.R. Caianiello”, Università degli Studi di Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 14, 1-31

Abstract: Geo-resources are widely exploited in our society, with huge benefits for both economy and communities. Nevertheless, with benefits come risks and impacts. Understanding how such risks and impacts are intrinsically borne in a given project is of critical importance for both industry and society. In particular, it is crucial to distinguish between the specific impacts related to exploiting a given energy resource and those shared with the exploitation of other energy resources. A variety of different approaches can be used to identify and assess such risks and impacts. In particular, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and risk assessments (RAs) are the most commonly adopted. Although both are widely used to support decision making in environmental management, they are rarely used in combination perhaps because they have been developed by largely different groups of specialists. By analyzing the structure and the ratio of the two tools, we have developed an approach for combining and harmonizing LCA and MRA; the resulting protocol envisages building MRA upon LCA both qualitatively and quantitatively. We demonstrate the approach in a case study using a virtual site (based on a real one) for geothermal energy production.

Keywords: multi-risk assessment; life cycle assessment; development of new technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/14/4178/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/14/4178/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:14:p:4178-:d:592156

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().