Development of breakwater repair, maintenance and dismantling emergy diagrams
In the case of a breakwater project, emergy analysis provides the amount of energy used up through different project stages and processes, referenced to a given unique source of primary energy (solar radiation), hence making it comparable with primary energy involved/required in projects of different nature. Therefore, the first step is to define all the material, environmental and economic goods involved through project stages, from construction to an eventual demolition, including operation, service, maintenance and repair. The environmental and economic goods are classified as: renewable environmental resource (R), non-renewable environmental resource (N), material, equipment and human services (F). On the other hand, the yield of the processes (Y), which in the case of a breakwater project is considered to be the economic benefit derived from the creation of a protected harbor area, must also be considered. Finally, the coproduct output of pollutants (C) will be analyzed.
The amount of emergy (measured in emjoule, a unit referring to the available energy of one kind consumed in transformations) of all the goods involved in the project, will be analyzed, ultimately building up the emergy diagram. All construction processes, transformations, operational flows and human services involved will be quantified in terms of the primary solar energy transformed (solar emjoule, seJ) to render the energy involved in a given process or flow (energy involved in transformation and manufacturing of materials, oil combustion in machinery, emissions, etc).
Milestone 1.1: State-of-the-art review: information available on breakwater damage and repairs
Milestone 1.2: State-of-the-art review: emergy diagrams and emergy tables
Milestone 1.3: Analysis of all the flows and processes involved in the useful life of a breakwater
Milestone 1.4: Proposal of emergy values of all the flows, obtaining the emergy diagrams & tables