Eco-Rom Ambalaje Magazine No.11, February - April 2014 | Page 6

ecopractic

GREENHOUSE GAS
AND CIRCULAR
ECONOMY
A new model for resource use, called “circular economy,” can offer a worldwide applicable solution to ensuring the necessary energy even if oil reserves are depleted,
without increasing the volume of harmful greenhouse gas.

I

t is the increase in greenhouse gas –
GHG volumes in the atmosphere
that lies at the foundation of climate
changes over the last decades. To be
able to understand to physical phenomena generated by this increase, we shall
refer to the “Earth + Atmosphere” system’s energy balance.
ﬔus, if Es = incident solar energy; Eir = infrared radiation energy emitted by the Earth’s
surface; Ec = the system’s kinetic
energy; U = the system’s internal
energy, then ∆ E = Es – Eir > 0 =>
∆ E > 0; ∆ E = ∆ U + ∆ Ec; an increase in the system’s internal
energy can be translated through
an increase in atmosphere and
Earth surface temperature, an increase in the biomass resulted
from photosynthesis, or a decrease in the polar cap ice mass.

Also, the system’s kinetic energy increase leads to a larger number of devastating storms and tornadoes. The
biggest challenge this new century is to

control these phenomena by converting
energies resulted by the greenhouse effect into useful energy, through the wide
scale use of renewable energies (solar,
biomass and wind energy).
The “circular economy” concept can be
perfectly adjusted to the idea of sustainable development. This type of economy
draws inspiration from how natural systems work, based on the principle of a
closed loop when it comes to energy and
material exchanges with the outside of
the system. Material flows are seen like
two types of “nutrients”: biologic nutrients – conceived to re-enter the biosphere safely, and technical nutrients –
conceived to feed closed industrial loops
without entering the biosphere.
Besides the manufacturing and consumption of goods and services, circular
economy also implies the switch from
fossil fuels (responsible for the GHG accumulation) to the use of energy from renewable sources.
Switching to circular economy is a valid
alternative for when the commercialization of oil and cheap raw materials
comes to an end, and is a non-linear
model, as the system’s elements are best
suited to the chosen time, social and en-

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Page by dr. Eng. mihai Florin Șolea, technical manager

vironmental context and the existing or
developing infrastructures.
In circular economy, the product reuse
loop also involves their repair and reconditioning, even for the purpose of obtaining a qualitative upgrade, while the loop
of material recycling involved a reduction
in energy-heavy activities to obtain raw
materials from natural resources, thus
lowering the consumption of exhaustible
natural resources. This paradigm change
after the implementation of circular economy activities leads to new regulations
that in turn will lead to an accelerated reduction (all the way to elimination) of activities related to the use of exhaustible
natural resources, the interdiction of activities related to the raw elimination of
waste, as well as a change in weight in
what regards taxation of labor for the use
of natural resources.
Given that in the short run – by 2020,
the European Commission has required
all nations to reach a mandatory quota
of 20% of the gross domestic consumption for renewable energy sources, a
20% increase in energy efficiency and
the reduction of the 1990 reference
value, we realize that GHG-related technical, economic and social challenges