How can LCA include prospective elements to assess emerging technologies and system transitions? The 76th LCA Discussion Forum on Life Cycle Assessment, 19 November 2020

This paper summarizes the 76th LCA Discussion Forum end its main fndings. Main issues when addressing emerging technologies identifed were: the lack of primary data, the need for (shared) future background scenarios and (guidlines for) a common methodology. The following recommendations have been derived by the organizers: 1) Specifc foreground...

Greenhouse gas benefits from direct chemical recycling of mixed plastic waste

Dealing with heterogeneous plastic waste – i.e., high polymer heterogeneity, additives, and contaminants – and lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from plastic production requires integrated solutions. Here, we quantified current and future GHG footprints of direct chemical conversion of heterogeneous post-consumer plastic waste feedstock to...

Improving the analytical framework for quantifying technological progress in energy technologies

This article reviews experience curve applications in energy technology studies to illustrate best practices in analyzing technological learning. Findings are then applied to evaluate future performance projections of three emerging offshore energy technologies, namely, offshore wind, wave & tidal, and biofuel production from seaweed. Key...

The Electromagnetic framework of 'Nanoarchitectronics'

'Nanoarchitectronics' (NTX) denotes a new interdisciplinary research area at the crossroad of Electromagnetics and Nanoelectronics. This new technology will develope reconfigurable, adaptive and cognitive structures with unique physical properties, and engineering applications in the whole electromagnetic spectrum. This FET project funded by the...

A Microarchitecture for a Superconducting Quantum Processor

This article proposes a quantum microarchitecture, QuMA. Flexible programmability of a quantum processor is achieved by multilevel instructions decoding, abstracting analog control into digital control, and translating instruction execution with non-deterministic timing into event trigger with precise timing. QuMA is validated by several single...

Deformation monitoring of dam infrastructures via spaceborne MT-InSAR. The case of La Vinuela (Malaga, southern Spain)

Dams require continuous security and monitoring programs, integrated with visual inspection and testing in dam surveillance programs. New approaches for dam monitoring focus on multi-sensor integration, taking into account emerging technologies such as GNSS, optic fiber, TLS, InSAR techniques, GBInSAR, GPR, that can be used as complementary data...

Evaluating innovation networks in emerging technologies

Interorganisational innovation networks are increasingly important for innovation in emerging technology fields. The performance of such networks can have a large impact on the future development of emerging technologies. A useful framework for the evaluation of innovation networks however does not yet exist. In this paper, such a framework is...

Advances in maskless and mask-based optical lithography on plastic flexible substrates

Organic flexible electronics is an emerging technology with huge potential growth in the future which is likely to open up a complete new series of potential applications such as flexible OLED-based displays, urban commercial signage, and flexible electronic paper. The transistor is the fundamental building block of all these applications. A key...

Strategies for successful evaluation and policy-making toward health care technology on the move: The case of medical lasers

Evaluating new health care technology that is rapidly diffusing is one of the greatest challenges to researchers and policy-makers. If no evaluation is done until the technology is mature, evaluation will not influence processes of diffusion. If evaluation is done early, it may be irrelevant when it is completed because of developments in the...