The present study compiles a life cycle inventory for Ecuadorian sugarcane-derived ethanol production to quantify its environmental performance and identify the life cycle stages that cause major impacts. The scope of this study encompasses a cradle-to-gate analysis that includes the agriculture, the milling, the distillation, and the co-generation of electricity. This assessment is modeled using the OpenLCA v1.10.3 software. Two functional units (FU) were established in this study: “1 ton of sugarcane at-the-farm-gate” for the agricultural stage and “1 L of ethanol at-the-plant-gate”. A hybrid attributional and consequential life cycle analysis (LCA) approach has been followed. Economic allocation (EA) and system expansion (SE) were used to take co-products into account in the milling and co-generation of electricity stages, respectively. The co-generation stage is analyzed in three different scenarios: (i) average mix displacement scenario where the surplus electricity produced in the co-generation stage is displaced; (ii) marginal technology displacement scenario where the marginal surplus electricity is displaced from the mix and (iii) no displacement scenario. The global warming potential (GWP) impact at the farm gate level was reported as 53.6 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (kg ${\mathrm{CO}}_{2\mathrm{eq}.}$) per ton of sugarcane produced. The two main contributors of the agricultural stage correspond to N₂O lixiviation and volatilization with 34% followed by the diesel used in agricultural machinery with 24%. The GWP for 1 L of ethanol produced was reported as 0.60 kg ${\mathrm{CO}}_{2\mathrm{eq}.}$ based on the average mix displacement scenario. No displacement scenario has a GWP impact of 0.84 kg ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$/liter of ethanol The distillation stage has the highest contribution to GWP impact with approximately 61% followed by the agricultural stage with 47%. The co-generation stage reports a contribution of −8.4% due to the surplus electricity displacement. The scenarios where the system expansion method is applied have a lower GWP impact compared to the scenario where no surplus electricity is displaced. Regarding terrestrial acidification potential impact, 0.01528 kg of ${\mathrm{SO}}_{2\mathrm{eq}.}$ was reported at the ethanol production level especially due to the nitrogen and phosphorous content in the vinasse produced from the distillation process. The marine eutrophication impact for 1 L of ethanol produced was 0.00381 kg of ${\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{eq}.}$ due to the content of nitrogen contained in the vinasse and the use of nitrogenous fertilizers in the agricultural stage. Finally, to create more eco-friendly Ecuadorian sugarcane and ethanol industries, sustainable and less polluting processes should be sought to reduce the environmental burdens. Companies should apply industrial symbiosis and circular economy strategies to produce lesser environmental loads within the ethanol production chain. The sugarcane industrial sector should also promote the surplus electricity production in order to gain credits.

Major concerns of carbon dioxide (CO₂) sequestration in subsurface formations are knowledge of the well injectivity and gas storage capacity of the formation, the CO₂ pressure and saturation plume extensions during and after injection, and the risks associated with CO₂ leakage and fault reactivation. Saline reservoirs are considered as one of the target formations for CO₂ sequestration through structural, residual, dissolution, and mineral trapping mechanisms. The boundary condition of the saline reservoir dictates the pressure and saturation plume extension of the injected supercritical CO₂ that could expand over large distances. This can lead to sources of risk, e.g., leakage and/or fault reactivation due to presence of wells, thief zones, and geological discontinuities. Therefore, there is a critical need to develop a model that describes how risk-related performance metrics (i.e., the CO₂ saturation plume size, the pressure differential plume area, and the pressure differential at specific locations) vary as a function of the size of injection, time following injection, injection operations, and geologic environment. In this study, a systematic reservoir modeling studies of anthropogenic CO₂ sequestration in Citronelle dome, Alabama, was performed where all relevant scenarios and conditions to address the questions of the saturation and pressure plume size in the area of review (AoR) and post-injection site care (PISC) are considered. The objective for this study was firstly to systematically simulate CO₂ sequestration, i.e., saturation dynamics, and pressure behavior over a range of operational and geological conditions and to derive conclusions about the factors influencing saturation and pressure plume size, post-injection behavior, and the risk associated with them, by developing third-generation reduced order models (ROMs) for reservoir behavior. Finally, to assess the uncertainty associated with our studies, Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) together with an experimental design technique, i.e., Plackett–Burman design, was used. Application of Pareto charts and respond surfaces enabled us to determine the most important parameters impacting saturation and pressure plume sizes and to quantify the auto- and cross-correlation among different parameters in both history-matched and upscaled models.

In Europe, diesel combustion is being banned due to the NO_x and PM_2.5 emissions impact on air quality. The bus sector is being electrified and is increasing its use of alternative fuels, such as natural gas (in spark ignition engines) and bioethanol (in compression ignition engines), to reduce such harmful emissions. Even if a diesel bus is equipped with selective catalytic reduction (SCR), its NO_x emissions are reduced its but produces more NH₃ emissions that are PM_2.5 precursors. In developing countries, the air quality is still barely monitored, however, the air quality issue is well known and is being addressed. Moreover, the Ecuadorian sugar cane industry is seeking ways to increase its ethanol production. This is the ideal framework to explore a new technology and energy source in developing economies such as Ecuador. This paper explores the impact of the Ecuadorian diesel bus fleet conversion to hybrid compression ignition ethanol (HEV-ED95), hybrid diesel and plug-in hybrid flex-fuel using electricity and internal combustion engine ICE-E20 and ICE-E100. The impacts are measured in terms of final energy consumption, criteria pollutant emissions (NH₃, NO_x, PM_2.5) and 100 years global warming potential in a well-to-wheels framework. For the tank-to-wheels data the method follows the typical values of conversion efficiency from final to useful energy (cross checked with a microsimulation model), the Tier 2 European Environmental Agency approach combined with ethanol influence on compression ratio, lower heating value, criteria emissions taken from a literature review, and well-to-tank emission factors for electricity (10–58% thermal natural gas or coal powerplant contribution), for ethanol from banana industry wastes (ED95, E20 and E100), gasoline and diesel from US databases. A discussion on whether sugarcane biorefineries are necessary is highlighted in the results. All input parameters have an uncertainty range between a minimum and a maximum and the probability for each is giving by a uniform distribution.

The Galapagos Islands is one of the world's pristine archipelago. It has been inscribed as an UNESCO World Natural Heritage since 1978 [1]. This archipelago is also well known because Charles Darwin studied the origin of species in these islands. However, it is in great threat due to the main energy source is diesel. Hence, the Ecuadorian government has an initiative called 'Zero fossil fuel in the Galapagos Islands' which aims to reduce diesel consumption by replacing it for renewable energy. In this context this research will show the electricity sector market mix particularly of Santa Cruz island, in order to indicate how much is done and needs to be done to become an island fossil fuel free in electricity generation. It will present a literature review as well as novel information from electricity generated in 2014 by the solar PV power plant of Santa Cruz and a forecasted wind generation of 2014 of Santa Cruz base on wind speeds from a meteorological tower. It concludes that even though the significant efforts of international cooperation to co fund renewable energy projects in order to increase its installed capacity, almost 80% of the electricity is generated by thermoelectric turbines run by diesel.

Climate change is a serious threat to sustainability. Anthropogenic climate change is due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere beyond natural levels. Anthropogenic GHG emissions are mostly associated with carbon-dioxide (CO₂) originated in the combustion of fossil fuels used for heat, power, and transportation. Globally, transportation contributes to 14% of the global GHG emissions. The transport sector is one of the main contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions of Ecuador. In Guayaquil, the road mass transportation system comprises regular buses and the bus rapid transit (BRT) system. Electricity in Ecuador is mostly derived from hydropower, hence incurs relatively low GHG emissions along its life cycle. Therefore, electrification of transport has been seen as an opportunity for mitigation of GHG emissions. In this study, the effect of partial replacement of the bus rapid system fleet is investigated. Feeders have been chosen as the replacement target in five different scenarios. GHG emissions from diesel-based feeders have been calculated using the GREET Fleet Footprint Calculator tool. The GHG emissions associated with the electricity used for transportation is calculated using the life cycle inventory of the electricity generation system of Ecuador. Three energy mix scenarios are used for this purpose. The 2012 mix which had 61% hydropower; the mix of 85% hydropower and the marginal electricity scenario, which supposed the extreme case when the new demand for electricity occurs during peak demand periods. Results indicate that mitigation of GHG emissions is possible for almost all scenarios of percentage fleet replacement and all mix scenarios. Electric buses efficiency and the carbon intensity of the electricity mix are critical for GHG mitigation.

Potato cultivation in the Ecuadorian Andes is largely manual and relies on intensive agrochemical inputs. We introduce a reproducible workflow that couples life cycle assessment (LCA) with a neural-network surrogate to enable rapid multi-impact screening of two potato management scenarios in Ecuador: (i) conventional manual management and (ii) Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based field monitoring to identify hotspots for targeted ground-based input application. Multi-category impacts are computed in OpenLCA using the environmental footprint method (EF 3.0) per kilogram of potatoes and scaled to annual national totals using reported national production data. UAV operation is parameterized as 0.51 kg CO₂ eq·h⁻¹, equivalent to 0.225 kg CO₂ eq·ha⁻¹ at a coverage rate of 2.27 ha·h⁻¹. For 2024, the UAV-informed scenario reduces climate change from 4.29 × 10⁷ to 3.75 × 10⁷ kg CO₂ eq (−12.7%), resource use, fossils from 5.09 × 10⁸ to 4.54 × 10⁸ MJ (−10.7%), and freshwater eutrophication from 3.33 × 10⁴ to 2.83 × 10⁴ kg P eq (−15.0%), while land use remains nearly unchanged at ~4.73 × 10⁹ Pt (−0.1%). To avoid repeated LCA recalculations, a multi-output artificial neural network (ANN) surrogate (29 outputs) was trained in Python (TensorFlow/Keras) and evaluated using leave-one-year-out (LOYO) cross-validation (2015–2024), showing strong agreement with the LCA results. This framework enables scalable what-if analysis and efficient evaluation of UAV-enabled precision monitoring strategies in resource-constrained settings.