|
所在平台: Coursera |
课程主页: https://www.coursera.org/learn/circular-economy-metals
课程评论：没有评论
课程名称：金属的循环经济：迈向可持续的社会代谢 课程概述：金属无处不在，是支撑我们经济的重要材料。经济发展与金属的使用密切相关。20世纪，金属在社会中的应用迅速增加。除了建筑中的钢铁和飞机中的铝，越来越多的金属被用于创新技术，比如LCD屏幕中的铟。未来对金属的需求将持续增长，但供应面临挑战，尤其是在新兴经济体和工业化国家，金属需求快速上升，导致采矿和生产活动的扩张及其环境影响。 本课程将探讨这些影响，并探讨如何向更可持续的金属生产和使用体系转变，特别是实现金属的循环经济，即尽可能长时间地保持金属的使用，以避免再次采矿。 此课程基于联合国环境规划署国际资源小组的全球金属流动报告。每周都将涉及联合国可持续发展目标（SDGs），这些雄心勃勃的目标将帮助我们评估朝向更可持续世界的进展，并检视本课程中针对金属挑战及其解决方案的有效性。 课程大纲： 1. **导言**：介绍课程主题及教师，鼓励学员介绍自己并与同学互动。 2. **金属在社会中的作用**：了解金属的种类、特性及其重要性，讨论主要和次要金属的应用，以及联合国可持续发展目标。 3. **金属挑战**：揭示金属不可或缺的同时与环境影响的矛盾，探讨未来金属需求与环境质量之间的关系。 4. **金属系统动态**：分析金属在社会中的存量与流动，理解自然法则对寻找解决方案的重要性。 5. **金属挑战的解决方案**：探索解决金属挑战的多种选择，包括材料设计、再制造和回收利用等，有助于维持社会中金属的存量。 6. **循环经济作为总体解决方案**：研究推进循环经济的有效性，评估其对解决金属挑战和促进可持续发展的潜在影响。 7. **未来展望**：讨论未来几十年或下个世纪的可能情景，分析金属需求、环境影响以及如何在可再生能源和循环经济中寻求平衡。 通过这门课程，学员将深入了解金属的可持续使用及其在经济和环境中的重要性，并探讨切实可行的解决方案。
Name:Introduction
Description:Welcome to the course! This first module aims at introducing you to the main topic of the MOOC and to the teaching staff that you will be seeing throughout the whole course. Before you start with the first lessons we encourage you to have a look at our introductory materials and to introduce yourself in the forum in order to meet your classmates.
Name:Metals in Society
Description:In Week 1, you will be introduced to the world of metals. What are they, what are their properties, what are they used for and how essential are they? We will address the difference between major and minor metals. Major metals are used in large basic applications such as buildings, cars, pipes, cables, bridges, trains and airplanes. Minor metals that are used mostly in all kinds of electronics and in new technologies, for example for wind and solar energy. The amounts used are much smaller. The minor metals have more attention in the news, because of problems with the supply from international trade, and are subject to criticality assessments. The major metals, on the other hand, are even more important, although less in the centre of attention. Without them, society would fall apart. In this course, we will focus mostly on those major metals. We also introduce the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. These SDGs are agreed on by all nations that are part of the UN, and outline goals for the future of the global society. They include goals on economic development, social development, health and the environment and form a powerful framework to judge developments in resource use, including metal use.
Name:Metals Challenge
Description:In week 2, the metals challenge is outlined. Metals are indispensable for society, but they are also associated with environmental impacts, especially related to climate change. The challenge is defined as how can we provide society with sufficient metals, now and in the future, without compromising environmental quality? An important part of the challenge is caused by the rapidly rising demand for metals. Over the 20th century demand has risen steeply, and this is expected to continue over the next decades. In this week, we will teach the issues around metal supply, scarcity and criticality, and environmental impacts to sketch the magnitude of the metals challenge. We also will meet the apparent contradiction between some of the SDGs: we need metals to develop societies and build up the infrastructure, on the other hand, we also need to reduce environmental impacts that will only increase if we don’t do anything about it.
Name:Dynamics of Metal Systems
Description:Week 3 and all subsequent weeks focus on solving the metals challenge. Obviously, we need to make changes in the metals system to reach a more sustainable situation and reconcile the different Sustainable Development Goals. When considering changes, it is important first to understand the system. We will be discussing stocks and flows of metals in society and see how they interact. In society, we do not just obey the laws of justice and economics, but also the laws of nature. It is important to realise that when contemplating solutions for the metals challenge. This week will be rather theoretical but will provide important information for the coming weeks.
Name:Solutions to the Metals Challenge
Description:Week 4 is rather packed with lectures on the different options to solve the metals challenge. You will meet experts from all over the world, who will lecture on materials and product design-for-environment and design-for-recycling, on the possibilities and also the barriers for remanufacturing, and on recycling as the last, but maybe most important resort to keep the metals in use. All these options aim at keeping up the stock-in-use of metals in society, while at the same time reducing the need to mine new metals. They all have their own strengths and limitations and can be regarded as pieces of the large puzzle aiming at solving the metals challenge, or in other words, reconciling the different SDGs.
Name:Circular Economy as an Overarching Solution
Description:In week 5, we try to get some idea of what the effectiveness could be of going for a circular economy. We do not consider all changes in society that have to be made to reach that, but simply have a look at whether or not, if we would reach a circular economy, we would indeed solve the metals challenge. Can we, theoretically, maintain supply and at the same time avoid supply problems and environmental issues in that way? And therefore, is it worthwhile pursuing a circular economy to reconcile the different SDGs? We use the case of aluminium to illustrate this.
Name:Look into the Future
Description:In this final week of the course, we will look briefly into the future. What can we expect for the next decades or even the next century? We’ll introduce the concept of scenarios, storylines about the future that have no predictive value but have their value as imagination of what could happen, and what the consequences would be if it did. And we will apply that to our major metals. Will demand go on rising? What will happen with the environmental impacts? Does it help, from the point of view of metal production, to have a renewable energy system in the background? Will more circularity in our economy make a difference? In short, is it possible to reconcile the SDG development goals with the environmental ones?
Metals are present everywhere around us and are one of the major materials upon which our economies are built. Economic development is deeply coupled with the use of metals. During the 20th century, the variety of metal applications in society grew rapidly. In addition to mass applications such as steel in buildings and aluminium in planes, more and more different metals are in use for innovative technologies such as the use of the speciality metal indium in LCD screens. A lot of metals will be needed in the future. It will not be easy to provide them. In particular in emerging economies, but also in industrialised countries, the demand for metals is increasing rapidly. Mining and production activities expand, and with that also the environmental consequences of metal production. In this course, we will explore those consequences and we will also explore options to move towards a more sustainable system of metals production and use. We will focus especially on the options to reach a circular economy for metals: keeping metals in use for a very long time, to avoid having to mine new ones. This course is based on the reports of the Global Metals Flows Group of the International Resource Panel that is part of UN Environment. An important aspect that will come back each week, are the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs. Those are ambitious goals to measure our progress towards a more sustainable world. We will use the SDGs as a touching stone for the assessment of the metals challenge, as well as the solutions we present in this course to solve that challenge.
