Although essential in the human diet, large quantities of available protein are currently lost or under-utilized within the food system, including protein rich side streams from conventional potato starch production. By using the genome editing technique CRISPR-Cas9, conventional starch potato cultivars can be upgraded to facilitate high-value recovery of potato protein fit for human consumption. In turn, this could support the nessecary transition towards more circular food systems. The aim of this study was to assess what environmental benefits could be gained by shifting from conventional protein recovery practice to a novel approach using genome edited potato. Our results, using consequential life cycle assessment, showed that the novel protein recovery scenario provided substantial environmental savings for every ton potato starch produced, with a reduction in global warming impact, terrestrial acidification, land use and ecosystem damage of −720 kgCO2eq, −13 kgSO2eq, −760 m2a crop eq, and −1.1 × 10−5 species.yr respectively. The potential environmental benefits of using genome edited potato were maintained even when simulating reduced tuber yield, increased production inputs, and substitution of various protein sources. Although currently limited by EU legislation and technical maturity, high-value protein recovery from food side streams holds a promising potential to support sustainable production and circularity within the food system.
Fuel efficiency is an important characteristic of a vehicles engine. Improved fuel efficiency will result in bothenvironmental and economic benefits. In spite of the fact that the content of transient load components is extensive in manynormal driving operations, measurements of fuel efficiency for agricultural tractor engines are normally carried out insteadystate conditions, i.e. at constant engine speed and loading torque. This article presents a methodology for estimatingthe effects of transient load components on the fuel efficiency of agricultural tractor engines. One application of the methodis quantifying the effects of transient loads, to evaluate the accuracy of fuel efficiency and engine emission tests based onsteadystate conditions. Another area of use may be in work to improve the engine and drive train characteristics with theaim of minimizing the transient effects.
Measurement equipment includes strain gauge transducers, fuel consumption and engine speed sensors. The equipmentalso measures the fuel consumption and the engine speed. The results of measurements performed to test the methodologyshow that the transient parts of the load at the engine have important effects on the fuel efficiency. The decrease in fuelefficiency relative to steadystate based calculations was approximately 13% for a normal front end loading operation and7% when driving on the farm without any implement attached. The tractor tested was supplied with a turbocharged enginewith special equipment to reduce the smoke produced at sudden load changes, and the effects on fuel efficiency would probablybe even greater if engines without this device were tested.
Organic agriculture is dependent on fossil fuels, just like conventional agriculture, but this can be reduced by the use of on-farm biomass resources. The energy efficiency and environmental impacts of different alternatives can be assessed by life cycle assessment (LCA), which we have done in this project. Swedish organic milk production can become self-sufficient in energy by using renewable sources available on the farm, with biogas from manure as the main energy source. Thereby greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the production system can be reduced, both by substituting fossil fuels and by reducing methane emissions from manure. The arable organic farm studied in the project could be self-sufficient in energy by using the residues available in the crop rotation. Because of soil carbon losses, the greenhouse gas emission savings were lower with the use of straw ethanol, heat and power (9%) than by using ley for biogas production (35%).
In this research project, the system boundaries were set at energy self-sufficiency at farm or farm-cluster level. Heat and fuel were supplied as needed, and electricity production was equal to use on an annual basis. In practice, however, better resource efficiency can be achieved by making full use of available energy infrastructure, and basing production on resource availability and economic constraints, rather than a narrow self-sufficiency approach.
SUMMARY This paper describes active agricultural tractor cab suspensions based on optimal control theory. Control algorithms based on time invariant state feedback and on adaptive control are developed and studied. The influence of different observers and measurement noise levels on the vibration damping capacity are studied as well as the power consumption for the suspensions. The principle for the adaptive algorithm is based on the parameters in the penalty matrices being varied so that the resulting controller always strives to make optimum use of available travel space. The feedback and observer gains are also changed depending on the characteristics of the vehicle's frame movements. The results show that it is possible to design an effective active suspension, but that the choice of feedback gains must be dependent on the surface characteristics to reach satisfactory vibration damping performance.
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