Industrial symbiosis and the successional city : adapting exchange networks to energy constraints

Industrial ecology offers models for hybridizing technology and natural processes, human desires and the capacities of ecosystems in an effort to reconcile the expanding conflicts among them. Industrial symbiosis applies this thinking to the scale of the city and its supporting industrial operations. Case studies of industrial symbiosis, which is the changing of linear, open-loop production to closed-loop systems through the reuse and exchange of waste materials, energy, and knowledge, showcase advantages in waste and energy use reduction within the United States. What are the major limits holding back the widespread development of industrial symbiosis in this country and how can they be overcome? Secondly, what tools can foster its large-scale implementation once the constraints are overcome? Methodologically, the successful study of the future capacity of industrial symbiosis within the American context must address the future consequences of resources that are no longer cheap nor abundant, as well as the current state of their production, distribution, and consumption.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Terway, Timothy M. (Timothy Michael)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anne Whiston Spirn.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/40129

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/40129