IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/recore/v53y2009i8p470-477.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Development and assessment of strategies to ensure economic sustainability of the U.S. automotive recovery infrastructure

Author

Listed:
  • Kumar, Vishesh
  • Sutherland, John W.

Abstract

Currently, 95% of all the vehicles discarded in the U.S. enter the recovery infrastructure. The material recovery efficiency of the infrastructure is approximately 80% by weight. Significant changes are being pursued by automotive manufacturers to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles during the use phase. However, the effect of these changes on the automotive recovery infrastructure is uncertain. In addition to vehicle changes, calls for higher material recovery efficiencies from the government and society also add to the uncertainty. In order to characterize the effects of these uncertainties, a Material Flow and Economic Exchange (MFEE) model has been established. The model-predicted results showed that higher material recovery rates can only be achieved if the business entities within the recovery infrastructure employ new technological strategies such as increased plastic recovery rates. However, the economic sustainability or profitability of the business entities was found to be jeopardized. This paper will focus on certain profit-enhancement strategies that may be employed to ensure the economic sustainability. The MFEE model is used to assess the adequacy of these strategies to improve the profitability of the business entities within the recovery infrastructure. Based on the analysis of these strategies it is shown that the economic burden of achieving higher material recovery rates will have to be shared by all the stakeholders within the recovery infrastructure. A discussion on the potential government policies that may be enacted to implement the technological and profit-enhancement strategies is presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Kumar, Vishesh & Sutherland, John W., 2009. "Development and assessment of strategies to ensure economic sustainability of the U.S. automotive recovery infrastructure," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 470-477.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:53:y:2009:i:8:p:470-477
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2009.03.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344909000573
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resconrec.2009.03.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ogden, Joan M. & Williams, Robert H. & Larson, Eric D., 2004. "Societal lifecycle costs of cars with alternative fuels/engines," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 7-27, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simic, Vladimir & Dimitrijevic, Branka, 2013. "Risk explicit interval linear programming model for long-term planning of vehicle recycling in the EU legislative context under uncertainty," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 197-210.
    2. Hao, Han & Qiao, Qinyu & Liu, Zongwei & Zhao, Fuquan, 2017. "Impact of recycling on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from electric vehicle production: The China 2025 case," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 114-125.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lipman, Timothy & Kammen, Daniel & Ogden, Joan & Sperling, Dan, 2004. "An Integrated Hydrogen Vision for California," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt931583w4, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    2. Brand, Christian, 2016. "Beyond ‘Dieselgate’: Implications of unaccounted and future air pollutant emissions and energy use for cars in the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-12.
    3. Iogansen, Xiatian & Wang, Kailai & Bunch, David & Matson, Grant & Circella, Giovanni, 2023. "Deciphering the factors associated with adoption of alternative fuel vehicles in California: An investigation of latent attitudes, socio-demographics, and neighborhood effects," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. Solomon, Barry D. & Banerjee, Abhijit, 2006. "A global survey of hydrogen energy research, development and policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 781-792, May.
    5. Oskar Lecuyer & Adrien Vogt-Schilb, 2013. "Assessing and ordering investments in polluting fossil-fueled and zero-carbon capital," CIRED Working Papers hal-00850680, HAL.
    6. Clark II, Woodrow W. & Rifkin, Jeremy, 2006. "A green hydrogen economy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(17), pages 2630-2639, November.
    7. Lin, Zhenhong & Fan, Yueyue & Ogden, Joan M & Chen, Chien-Wei, 2008. "Optimized Pathways for Regional H2 Infrastructure Transitions: A Case Study for Southern California," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt9mk5n8jn, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    8. Anders Chr. Hansen, 2010. "The Contributions of the Hydrogen Transition to the Goals of the EU Energy and Climate Policy," Chapters, in: François Lévêque & Jean-Michel Glachant & Julián Barquín & Christian von Hirschhausen & Franziska Ho (ed.), Security of Energy Supply in Europe, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Wang, Guihua & Ogden, Joan M & Chang, Daniel P.Y., 2007. "Estimating changes in urban ozone concentrations due to life cycle emissions from hydrogen transportation systems," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt21c6p765, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    10. Lipman, Tim & Kammen, Daniel & Ogden, Joan & Sperling, Dan, 2004. "An Integrated Hydrogen Vision for California," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt9hx260wp, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    11. Lin, Zhenhong & Ogden, Joan & Fan, Yueyue & Chen, Chien-Wei, 2009. "The Fuel-Travel-Back Approach to Hydrogen Station Siting," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt14p44238, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    12. Delucchi, Mark A. & Murphy, James J., 2008. "US military expenditures to protect the use of Persian Gulf oil for motor vehicles," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 2253-2264, June.
    13. Clara Pardo Martínez, 2011. "Energy efficiency in the automotive industry evidence from Germany and Colombia," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 367-383, April.
    14. Hellgren, Jonas, 2007. "Life cycle cost analysis of a car, a city bus and an intercity bus powertrain for year 2005 and 2020," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 39-49, January.
    15. Siti Indati Mustapa & Bamidele Victor Ayodele & Waznatol Widad Mohamad Ishak & Freida Ozavize Ayodele, 2020. "Evaluation of Cost Competitiveness of Electric Vehicles in Malaysia Using Life Cycle Cost Analysis Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-14, June.
    16. Jorgensen, K., 2008. "Technologies for electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles: Electricity from renewable energy sources in transport," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 72-79, June.
    17. Lipman, Timothy & Kammen, Daniel M. & Ogden, Joan M & Sperling, Dan & Eggert, Anthony & Lehman, Peter A. & Shaheen, Susan & Shearer, David, 2004. "An Integrated Hydrogen Vision for California," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt0131v295, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    18. Colin J. Cockroft & Anthony D. Owen, 2007. "The Economics of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Buses," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(263), pages 359-370, December.
    19. Wang, Guihua & Ogden, Joan M & Chang, Daniel P.Y., 2007. "Estimating changes in urban ozone concentrations due to life cycle emissions from hydrogen transportation systems," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt4894t868, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    20. Lipman, Timothy E., 2004. "What Will Power the Hydrogen Economy? Present and Future Sources of Hydrogen Energy," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt5w82s62b, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:53:y:2009:i:8:p:470-477. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kai Meng (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/resources-conservation-and-recycling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.