Mechanisms for evaluating system sustainability should allow for the consideration of three main parameters: social, economic and environmental. While, there are methods for comparing processes, projects or systems on the basis of environmental impact or cost, few incorporate all three parameters into the decision process. Life cycle index (LInX) is an indexing system that is meant to simplify the decision making process by incorporating a life cycle based approach with components of sustainability and safety. Although LInX was designed for large industrial systems, this paper presents the application on a small anaerobic digestion (AD) unit on a dairy farm in Clymer, New York. An AD unit can be used to generate electricity from the combustion of biogas produced from organic waste. From the analysis, the AD unit performed well on environmental and cost parameters, but not as well on risk and social parameters. However, the AD unit performed similar to natural gas and biomass-based production. One recommendation for the method is that consideration be given to modifying parameters and weightings to suit agriculture and location specific needs. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Agriculture; Life cycle based decision making; Nova Scotia; Sustainability; Agricultural applications; Cost parameters; Dairy farms; Decision making process; Decision process; Generate electricity; Indexing systems; Industrial systems; New York
Research Division:	Engineering
Research Group:	Maritime Engineering
Research Field:	Ocean Engineering
Objective Division:	Mineral Resources (excl. Energy Resources)
Objective Group:	Environmentally Sustainable Mineral Resource Activities
Objective Field:	Environmentally Sustainable Mineral Resource Activities not elsewhere classified
Author:	Khan, FI (Professor Faisal Khan)
ID Code:	94551
Year Published:	2010
Web of Science® Times Cited:	5
Deposited By:	NC Maritime Engineering and Hydrodynamics
Deposited On:	2014-09-11
Last Modified:	2014-09-11
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