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Objective: The recycling business is traditionally dominated by SMEs. In the last 5 years a general trend in the electronics recycling sector to bigger companies is very visible. Multinational, multi-sector companies are buying several smaller recyclers every year. Hence the previous project HydroWEEE (03/200902/2012) dealt with the recovery of rare and precious metals from WEEE. The idea has been to develop a mobile plant using hydrometallurgical processes to extract metals like yttrium, indium, lithium, cobalt, zinc, copper, gold, silver, nickel, lead, tin in a high purity. By making this plant mobile several SMEs can benefit from the same plant. By making the processes universal several fractions (lamps, CRTs, LCDs, printed circuit boards and Li-batteries) can be treated in the same mobile plant in batches. This reduces the minimum quantities and necessary investments. In addition these innovative HydroWEEE processes produce pure enough materials that can be directly used for electroplating and other applications. The objective of HydroWEEE Demo is to build 2 industrial, real-life demonstration plants (1 stationary and 1 mobile) in order to test the performance and prove the viability of the processes from an integrated point of view (technical, economical, operational, social) including the assessment of its risks (incl. health) and benefits to the society and the environment as well as remove the barriers for a wide market uptake. Finally the previously developed processes of extracting yttrium, indium, lithium, cobalt, zinc, copper, gold, silver, nickel, lead, tin will be improved and new processes to recover additional metals which are still in this fractions (Cerium, Platinum, Palladium, Europium, Lanthanum, Terbium, ) as well as the integrated treatment of solid and liquid wastes will be developed. Summarized HydroWEEE Demo will boost European competitiveness by applying novel processes for improved resource efficiency by extracting rare and precious metals.
Objective: The poor condition of sanitation and wastewater management in India (as in many Asian countries) is well documented and has recently led the Asian Development Bank to call for a revolution in wastewater management across Asia. Conventional, centralized approaches have failed in many areas and will hardly be able to solve potential problems in rural, hilly and rapidly developing urban areas in India. Instead, innovative, decentralised systems aiming at various benefits are needed. A main benefit in the context of SARASWATI is the reuse of treated wastewater for different purposes. Other benefits include reuse of energy and nutrients, which are also important. Despite the overall poor condition of wastewater treatment across South Asia, India has already considerable experience with such decentralised approaches. Over the last decade, hundreds of decentralised wastewater treatment plants of different technology types have been installed all over India. However, not all are functioning well and several also failed, due to various reasons. Also, there is no consolidated evaluation and review of all those existing plants available. As a result there is only very limited knowledge on the performance of those existing technologies available and a review and evaluation of those plants is very timely in order to derive sound conclusions and recommendations for future wastewater management strategies in India. SARASWATI will perform such a comprehensive and independent evaluation and hence provide key suggestions for the improvement of existing technologies. In addition, SARASWATI aims at deploying selected proven EU technologies with a potential for solving grave water challenges in India (water pollution due to discharge of untreated wastewater and storm-water, water scarcity and groundwater depletion, unhygienic sludge handling practices due to lack of suitable technologies). Water challenged sites have been identified in 5 Indian States comprising almost all regions.
The Clean Hydrogen in European Cities (CHIC) Project is the essential next step to full commercialisation of hydrogen powered fuel cell (H2FC) buses. CHIC will reduce the 'time to market' for the technology and support 'market lift off' 2 central objectives of the Joint Undertaking. CHIC will: - Intensively test the technology to generate learning for the final steps towards commercialisation by operating 28 H2FC buses in medium sized fleets in normal city bus operation and 10 fuel cell passenger cars, and substantially enlarging hydrogen infrastructure in 5 European regions. - Embed the substantial knowledge and experience from previous H2FC bus projects (CUTE & HyFLEET:CUTE). - Accelerate development of clean public transport systems in 14 new European Regions. - Conduct a life cycle based sustainability assessment of the use of H2FC buses in public transport, based on a triple bottom line approach considering environmental, economic and social aspects. - Identify the advantages, improvement potentials, complementarities and synergies of H2FC buses compared with conventional and alternative technologies - Build a critical mass of public support for the benefits of 'green' hydrogen powered transport, leading to increased visibility and political commitment across Europe. The project is based on a staged introduction and build-up of H2FC bus fleets and the supporting infrastructure across Europe. A phased approach will link experienced and new cities in partnerships, greatly facilitating the smooth introduction of the new systems now and into the future. With this arrangement the project will be linked to projects fully funded from other sources and therefore magnifies the impact of the JTI. In the context of the H2FC bus projects and progress achieved to this point, the expected results of CHIC will take the technology to the brink of commercialisation, leading in turn to very significant environmental & economic benefits to Europe and to the World.
Under the 2003 EU Greek presidency, cooperation with Balkan countries on environmental issues was identified as a priority of the EU/Balkan Action Plan. Large-scale co-operation is essential for effective action in the vulnerable Mediterranean and Black Sea coastal zones. During the last 50 years both areas suffered major changes; as semi-enclosed basins, both Seas are ultra-sensitive to anthropogenic stress and to climate change. An EU Presidency Conference on Sustainable Development in the Mediterranean/Black Sea (May 2003), revealed major gaps in management structures, scientific strategies and identified a diversity of environmental issues to be resolved through priority-focused RTD cooperation. Yet, while pressure on the resources of the two seas increases and the potential impact of climate change on coastal and deep-sea resources remains unknown, the two seas have never been jointly studied as systems of interacting basins and ecosystems. The proposal outlines collaboration and clustering schemes involving environmental, economic and scientific organisations in Mediterranean, Black Sea and other EU nations, in order to create synergies in networking and exchanges at several levels, addressing for the first time the system of interconnected basins as one, based on the integration of, both horizontally and vertically, natural scientists and economists. These will: 1) Create an international, interdisciplinary platform coordinating the region's scientific potential in order to prepare RTD projects, based on a Science Plan for the region, securing sustainable development; 2) Focus on natural and anthropogenic pressures exerted upon the functioning of the ecosystem; 3) Reinforce RTD capacity by setting up an environment/resource monitoring network in the light of existing observation networks of different scopes. Prime Contractor: Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Oceanography, Anavyssos, GR.
Two innovative integrated Fuel Cell Systems for automotive application will be developed within specific Technological Platforms (TPs): TP1 POWERTRAIN: development of a system for traction power by an 80 kW direct hydrogen PEM fuel cell system implemented on a passenger car. TP2 APU: development of 5 kW Auxiliary Power Unit for both light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles, including microstructured diesel oil steam reformer, clean-up reactors, an innovative reformate hydrogen stack and balance of plant components. These objectives will be reached via R&TD activities that will address the most critical technical bottlenecks which currently hamper wide market penetration of PEM fuel cell systems for road transport, while accounting some of the key market and policy drivers and barriers. Particularly, the following innovative components will be developed: A 80 kW direct hydrogen stack with strong weight and volume reduction, increased efficiency, durability and start-up time, with innovative MEAs embodying sealing layers (7-layers MEAs); A 5 kW reformate stack, including innovative electrocatalyst and MEA elements tolerant to very high CO concentrations and low-resisitivity bipolar plates; A highly efficient, clean and compact micro-structured diesel steam reformer and gas purification unit; Variable displacement compressors with reduced noise level; Innovative humidification/dehumidification apparatus; Heat exchanger and radiator customised for the different applications; Specific targets for both platforms will be achieved via a system approach leading to development and validation of the concepts (POWERTRAIN: in a passenger car; APU: dynamic test validation in bench) with high well-to-wheel efficiency (low fuel consumption), easy and optimised packaging and on-board integration.
Objective: The decoupling of economic growth and the growth of transport represents a major objective within the European transport policy. The major contributor to transport growth has to be seen in the increased transport intensity of value creation. On the supply side, the non-optimal utilisation of transport capacities and modes contributes to the growth of transport, for example in the lack of acceptance of inter-modal transport. This has been a major issue for policy makers for many years. In order to get a better understanding of the interrelation between logistics decisions and transport demand, the EC supported a number of research projects, such as SULOGTRA, EUTRALOG and PROTRANS. As a result, substantial scientific evidence has been produced. However, to achieve the Commission objectives, these findings must be translated into the daily operations of shippers and logistics service providers.
Objective: Human use and exploitation of the biosphere is increasing at such a pace and scale that the sustainability of major ecosystems is threatened, and may not be able to continue to function in ways that are vital to the existence of humanity. Re-framing environmental resource use has led to the emergence of the concepts of ecosystem services (ES) and natural capital (NC). This discourse indicates not only a change in our understanding of planetary functions at the ecosystem scale, but also a fundamental shift in how we perceive the relationship between people and the ecosystems on which they depend. OPERAs (OPERATIONAL POTENTIAL OF ECOSYSTEMS RESEARCH APPLICATIONS) aims to improve understanding of how ES/NC contribute to human well-being in different social-ecological systems in inland and coastal zones, in rural and urban areas, related to different ecosystems including forests and fresh water resources. The OPERAs research will establish whether, how and under what conditions the ES/NC concepts can move beyond the academic domain towards practical implementation in support of sustainable ecosystem management. OPERAs will use a meta-analysis (systematic review) of existing ES/NC practice to identify knowledge gaps and requirements for new policy options and instruments. New insights, and improved or novel tools and instruments, will be tested in practice in exemplar case studies in a range of socio-ecological systems across locales, sectors, scales and time. Throughout this iterative process, available resources and tools will be brought together in a Resource Hub, a web-based portal that will be co-developed by scientists and practitioners representing different interests and perspectives on the development, communication and implementation of the ES/NC concepts. The Resource Hub will provide the main interface between OPERAs and a Community of Excellence (CoE) for continued practice that will benefit from OPERAs outcomes.
Objective: The RAMSES project will develop a rigorous, analytical framework for the implementation of adaptation strategies and measures in EU and international cities. It will develop a set of innovative methods and tools that will quantify the impacts of climate change and the costs and benefits of adaptation to climate change and thus provide the evidence to enable policy makers to design adaptation strategies. It integrates the assessment of impacts and costs to provide a much more coherent approach than currently exists. As major centres of population, economic importance, greenhouse gas emissions and infrastructure, RAMSES focuses on adaptation issues in cities. RAMSES will deliver: 1. A strategic frame for evidence-based adaptation decision-making. A pragmatic and standardised framework for decision making using comparable climate change impact assumptions, impact and adaptation costs while taking account of uncertainty. This will apply and combine smart and unconventional scientific methodologies. 2. Multi-level analysis as local administrative units, cities will be used to develop adaptation (and more generally sustainable development) strategies from the bottom-up/top-down, that can be aggregated to consider costs at the national, EU and international levels. 3. Quantification of adaptation costs a framework for assessment of full economic costs and benefits of adaptation (to date a woefully under-researched area). 4. Policy relevance and acceptance of adaptation measures city case studies and stakeholder engagement will ensure the relevance of the framework for policy makers and ensure adaptation measures become better accepted by other stakeholders. The frameworks will be converted into a user-friendly guide for stakeholders who need to prioritize adaptation and mitigation decisions. This reduces costs and enhances understanding and acceptance of adaptation. The data will be fed into the European Clearinghouse Mechanism to increase transparency/stakeholder access.
Sustainable governance of our biological resources demands reliable scientific knowledge to be accessible and applicable to the needs of society. The fact that current biodiversity observation systems and environmental datasets are unbalanced in coverage and not well integrated brings the need of a new system which will facilitate access to this knowledge and will effectively improve the work in the field of biodiversity observation in general. In light of the new Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), such a network and approach are imperative for attaining efficient processes of data collation, analysis and provisioning to stakeholders. A system that facilitates open access to taxonomic data is essential because it will allow a sustainable provision of high quality data to partners and users, including e-science infrastructure projects as well as global initiatives on biodiversity informatics. EU BON proposes an innovative approach in terms of integration of biodiversity information system from on-ground to remote sensing data, for addressing policy and information needs in a timely and customized way. The project will reassure integration between social networks of science and policy and technological networks of interoperating IT infrastructures. This will enable a stable new open-access platform for sharing biodiversity data and tools to be created. EU BONs 30 partners from 18 countries are members of networks of biodiversity data-holders, monitoring organisations, and leading scientific institutions. EU BON will build on existing components, in particular GBIF, LifeWatch infrastructures, and national biodiversity data centres.
Objective: Despite improved understanding of the links between ecosystem health, provision of ecosystem services and human well-being, further conceptual and empirical work is needed to make the ideas of ecosystem services (ESS) and natural capital (NC) operational. OpenNESS will therefore develop innovative and practical ways of applying them in land, water and urban management: it will identify how, where and when the concepts can most effectively be applied to solve problems. To do this, it will work with public and private decision makers and stakeholders to better understand the range of policy and management problems faced in different case study contexts (ranging across locales, sectors, scales and time). OpenNESS will consolidate, refine and develop a range of spatially-explicit methods to identify, quantify and value ecosystem services, and will develop hybrid assessment methods. It will also explore the effectiveness of financial and governance mechanisms, such as payments for ecosystem services, habitat banking, biodiversity offsetting and land and ecosystem accounting. These types of interventions have potential for sustaining ESS and NC, and for the design of new economic and social investment opportunities. Finally, OpenNESS will assess how current regulatory frameworks and other institutional factors at EU and national levels enable or constrain consideration of ESS and NC, and identify the implications for issues related to well-being, governance and competitiveness. OpenNESS will analyse the knowledge that is needed to define ESS and NC in the legal, administrative and political contexts that are relevant to the EU. The work will deliver a menu of multi-scale solutions to be used in real life situations by stakeholders, practitioners, and decision makers in public and business organizations, by providing new frameworks, data-sets, methods and tools that are fit-for-purpose and sensitive to the plurality of decision-making contexts.
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