During the spring semester of 2012 did Petra Hollsten independently a thesis on reducing the environmental impact of capsule for coffee, tea and chocolate. The work was performed at Karlstad University, Faculty of Technology and Science under the Bachelor of Science program in innovation, technology and design. The project's scope is at 22.5 points.The employment for this project is the company Löfbergs Lila AB in Karlstad. Supervisor at the Principal has been Maria Herou Wallner and Sandra Lyxell, product managers. Supervisor at Karlstad University is Monica Jakobsson, lecturer and program leader for innovation and design engineering program.

This thesis investigates the socio- and environmental economic effects of a deep repository for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark in the municipality of Östhammar. I seek to show the general picture but focus on the effects on employment, environment and income. Cost-benefit analysis is used to investigate the differences in utility between a scenario with and a scenario without a deep repository in Forsmark. Most of the possible effects can not be valued and many can not even be quantified with the data available today. Therefore this thesis has a bit of a ?preliminary study character? and seeks to show what we know today and what needs to be further investigated when available data allow it. The costs that could be valued are noise from the traffic during the period of building and emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides from the transportation of rock masses during the building period.

Highly polluted urban storm water from e.g. highways can contain large amounts of heavy metals that may cause harm if they are discharged into recipients. To remove the heavy metals a possible low-cost method that does not require much maintenance, could be the use of reactive filters with filter materials consisting of industrial residues or other cheap mineral based materials. Dissolved metal ions are removed by reactive filters through the processes of ions binding to active sites on the surface of the filter materials, or by formation of insoluble precipitates.The ability of CaO-treated granulated blast-furnace slag, iron oxide coated sand, olivine and nepheline to remove seven heavy metals (Cr, Cd, Cu, Ni, Zn, Pb and Hg) from urban storm water was studied. Initially batch experiments were performed where the effect of pH, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved ions on the adsorption efficiency was studied.

Welding is a common method for joining of metal or plastic construction parts. This report describes several different weld methods in general terms. The report focuses on the GMAW method, specifically MAG welding.A case study has also been performed for the company Wenmec. The task received from the company was to compare the mechanical properties of joints welded with the tube electrode called Nittetsu SM-3A and joints welded with the homogenous electrode called ESAB Aristorod 12.63. Both types of weld joint were welded with the MAG method with an Argon based shielding gas with 18% CO2.

Oilseed rape constitutes a good break crop within a cereal dominated cropping system. The normal sowing time for winter rape in Sweden is August. It's a time in the cropping year characterized by a heavy work load, such as harvest and soil management. In addition, it is often a period with large precipitation. Thus, it is sometimes problematic for the farmer to do the sowing of winter rape at the optimal time.

Four different kinds of filter-materials with reactive surfaces have been studied concerning their capacity to absorb heavy metals in leachate from a municipal waste deposit. The heavy metals studied were: lead, cadmium, copper, mercury, chromium, nickel and zinc. The leachate contains high levels of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and has a high pH-value along with a high buffer capacity. These characteristics of the leachate make it difficult to remove pollutants and require efficient filters. The filters that were examined in the report are blast-furnace slag with CaO, sand covered with iron oxides, olivine and nepheline.

In recent years it has become more and more evident that man has contributed to much of the climate changes that have taken place during the last century. A major challenge today is to reduce emissions and energy usage at the same time as the global population is growing. To contribute to a better environment, Stockholms Stad has set at target of becoming fossil fuel free by the year of 2050. The construction of new districts is done with this goal in mind; energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are examples of methods to achieve this.Solar energy is considered to be a sustainable energy source and the most common techniques to harvest solar energy in Sweden are solar cells and solar collectors which produce electricity and heat respectively. This report aims to investigate whether an investment in any of these systems would prove to be economically beneficial at Kvarnholmen, a district under construction in eastern Nacka, Stockholm.Since the finished blueprints only cover a small portion of Kvarnholmen, the report examines the possibilities for a house where construction has already begun, Nya Kvarnen.

The world?s growing need for energy together with a desire to ward off the worst consequences of global climate change has resulted in a never seen desire to invest resources in renewable energy sources. Biogas production through anaerobic digestion is one of those growing energy sources. In Sweden there are over two hundred plants that uses this biological process to break down organic substances while producing carbon dioxide and the energy-rich gas methane.This master?s thesis has focused on development of the mixture of different organic substances that is treated at a specific plant, namely Mosserud biogas plant.

The Swedish building and property management sector are responsible for about 30 % of the total energy use. In order to take environmental consideration, different environmental assessment tools and standards are used. Miljo?byggnad, Svanen, FEBY12 and PHI are some of these. There has been increased interest to certify buildings and therefore it is of interest to evaluate the assessment of the energy field to see if relevant energy aspects are assessed.

Increased resource efficiency in an energy system could result in large economic and environmental benefits. Tekniska verken i Linköping AB (Tekniska verken) is responsible for the district heating network in Linköping. Their vision is to create the world?s most resource efficient region. An important step towards this vision is more efficient usage of produced heat, something which could be achieved through integration of a seasonal heat storage in the energy system.

This is a tale about energy and power. It describes the geographer Halford Mackinder?s geopolitical theories and compares them with current views outlined by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael T Klare, among others. With a critical approach it also provides a historical account of a Europe that stands in front of an energy struggle so severe that the current world order seems destined to fall. Oil and natural gas, has since the beginning of the 20th century, been used as a geopolitical tool in order to create dependence, control and even sometimes overthrow empires.

Mine waste from Ljusnarsbergsfältet in Kopparberg, Sweden, is considered to constitute a great risk for human health and the surrounding environment. Some of the waste rock consists of sulphide minerals. When sulphide minerals come into contact with dissolved oxygen and precipitation, oxidation may occur resulting in acid mine drainage (AMD) and the release of heavy metals. The purpose of this study has been to characterise the waste material and try to chemically stabilize the waste rock with a mixture of sewage sludge and calcium carbonate. The drawback of using organic matter is the risk that dissolved organic matter can act as a complexing agent for heavy metals and in this way increase their mobility.

Burkina Faso as well as most sub-Saharan African countries struggle with providing food for a fast growing population. The dominating farming system is agroforestry parklands. Agroforestry parklands can broadly be defined as areas where scattered trees occur on farmlands as a result of selective clearing. The presence of trees in crop fields may in the long term have a positive effect on the production of annual crops. It is commonly discussed, but not proven, that the presence of trees leads to increased groundwater recharge due to higher infiltration capacity of the soil.

The eutrophication of inshore seas, lakes and watercourses is mainly due to leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus (P) from agriculture. Many efforts are made to reduce the lea-kage of phosphorus in Sweden and the Baltic Sea countries. Phosphorus is also a finite resource and the mining of good quality raw material gets more and more difficult. Se-dimentation dams in combination with filters is one relatively new method to separate P from run-off and drainage water from agricultural land. This study was a part of an IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute?s project which tests the capacity and func-tion for separation of phosphorus in four phosphorus filters.

Ökad växthuseffekt har länge varit i fokus för dess inverkan på framtida klimat. Det är i huvudsak mänskliga utsläpp som är orsaken till ökade mängder växthusgaser i atmosfären och stora ansträngningar görs för att utsläppen på sikt ska minska. I klimatmodeller beskrivs växthusgasbalansen utifrån både mänsklig och naturlig påverkan. Förståelsen för naturlig påverkan har länge varit begränsad och mer forskning behövs inom området. Flera studier visar på att sötvattensystem (sjöar, vattendrag osv.) avger växthusgaser som koldioxid, CO2 och metan, CH4, i större proportioner än vad som tidigare varit känt.Denna studie syftade till att undersöka CO2 och CH4-flöden från Erssjön i Skogaryd, Västergötland (en typisk svensk skogssjö) och få förståelse för hur den omgivande skogen påverkar såväl flöden som turbulens (utbyteskoefficienter) över sjön.