The potential of biomass supply for energetic utilization in a small Italian region: Basilicata

The European Union Directive 2009/28/EC (European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC, Directive 2009/28/EC) establishes a common framework for the use of energy from renewable sources in order to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels from foreign markets; more specifically the EU has the ambitious goal of reaching a 20 % share of energy from renewable sources in the overall energy mix by 2020. These objectives could drive policies that offer substantial economic subsidies for the use of renewable energy, both in Italy and in many other European countries. For all these reasons, biomass (one of the major sources of renewable energy) plants are getting a lot of attention in Italy, but it is necessary to determine whether using of this type of energy is environmentally beneficial and economically feasible. In this study, we evaluate the energy and so the environmental aspects by considering both current and potential biomass supplies available for energy utilization in a small region in the South of Italy: Basilicata, as well as the consequences of this energy conversion at both the local and the global scale.     

Production of green energy from co-digestion: perspectives for the Province of Cuneo, energetic balance and environmental sustainability

In Italy and many European countries, energy production from biomass is encouraged by strong economic subsidies so that biomass energy plants are getting large diffusion. Nevertheless, it is necessary to define the environmental compatibility taking into account global parameters as well as environmental impacts at regional and local scales coming from new polluting emissions. The environmental balances regarding new energy plants are of primary importance within very polluted areas such as Northern Italy where air quality limits are systematically exceeded, in particular for PM₁₀, NO₂, and ozone. The paper analyzes the renewable energy scenario relating to manure anaerobic digestion and biogas production for the Province of Cuneo, N–W Italy, and the environmental sustainability of the possible choices. The study is focused on energy producibility, heat and power, nitrogen oxides and ammonia emissions, GHG (greenhouse gases) balances dealing also with indirect releases of CH₄ and N₂O, as well as emissions due to energy crops production. The most important conclusion that can be drawn is that the production of renewable energy from anaerobic digestion could cover up to 13 % of the Province electricity consumption, but sustainability in terms of CO₂ emissions can be reached only through an overriding use of agricultural waste products (manure and by-products instead of energy crops) and cogeneration of thermal energy at disposal; the application of the best available techniques to waste gas cleaning, energy recovery, and digestate chemical–physical treatments allows positive emissive balances.     

Energy policy shifts towards sustainable energy future for Malaysia

As a developing country, Malaysia’s prosperity and welfare depends heavily on having access to reliable and secure supplies of energy. As a result, the country’s future energy requirements have become a policy priority in recent years. Energy is essential for human life, and a secure and accessible supply of energy becomes important for the modern societies. Fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas are currently the world’s primary energy sources and continue to provide energy source to the world. These energy sources have depleted in reserves in recent years and they can also cause irreparably damage to the environment such as global warming and climate change. These environmental concerns can be addressed, to some extent, through more sustainable solutions such as the use of renewable energy resources. In Malaysia, the economic and environmental impacts of fossil fuels use have become hard to ignore. The government has introduced and implemented policy measures to address concerns surrounding the use of fossil fuels and to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy use. In this paper, we review the historical evolution of Malaysian energy policies and initiatives designed to secure diverse energy sources and avoid over-reliance on fossil fuels. In recent years, Malaysia has been catching up with global call to shift to renewable energy use and is now putting a focus on renewable energy in its future energy mix. The paper also discusses challenges and concerns over the future of sustainable energy of the country.     

Personal viewpoint: hemodialysis--water, power, and waste disposal: rethinking our environmental responsibilities

While medical health professionals are trained to detect, treat, and comfort, they are not trained to consider the environmental impact of the services they provide. Dialysis practitioners seem particularly careless in the use of natural resources—especially water and power—and seem broadly ignorant of the profound medical waste issues created by single use dialysis equipment. If the data we have collected is an indication, then extrapolation of this data to a dialysis population currently estimated at ~2 million patients worldwide, a “world dialysis service” would use ~156 billion liters of water and discard ~2/3 of that during reverse osmosis. This waste occurs, despite the discarded water being high-grade “gray water” of potable standard. The same world dialysis service would consume 1.62 billion kWh of power—mostly generated from coal and other environmentally damaging sources. Our world dialysis service, based on ~2 kg of waste from each dialysis treatment, would generate ~625,000 tonnes of plastic waste—waste that would be potentially reusable if simple sterilizing techniques were applied to it at the point of generation. Dialysis services must begin to explore eco-dialysis potentials. The continued plundering of resources without considering reuse or recycling, exploration of renewable energy options, or the reduction of the carbon footprint of the dialysis process . . . is unsustainable. Sustainable dialysis practices should be a global goal in the coming decade.     

Integration of environmental impact estimation in system architecture and supplier identification

With the emergence of environmental legislations in many countries, the importance placed upon environmental protection has been raised to a new level, especially for industrial activities. Considering environmental issues as early as possible, starting with the design stage, is expected in order to better manage and diminish adverse environmental impact. Commensurate progress has been made in method/tool development for use in environmental impact estimation; however, very few of these methods allow integrating this estimation early in the design process—a critical point of deciding for potential product concepts and suppliers. In this paper, we propose a tool that integrates environmental impact estimation into architecture and supplier identification, in order to conjointly consider requirements satisfaction as well as uncertainty due to new module and new supplier integration. This tool is developed to support original equipment manufacturer decision making in the context of an extended enterprise. A case study is presented to illustrate a plausible implementation.     

Flow shop scheduling with grid-integrated onsite wind power using stochastic MILP

Over the last decade, manufacturing companies have identified renewable energy as a promising means to cope with time-varying energy prices and to reduce energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. As a result of this development, global installed capacity of wind power has expanded significantly. To make efficient use of onsite wind power generation facilities in manufacturing, production scheduling tools need to consider the uncertainty attached to wind power generation along with changes in the energy procurement cost and in the products’ environmental footprints. To this end, we propose a solution procedure that first generates a large number of wind power scenarios that characterise the variability in wind power over time. Subsequently, a two-stage stochastic optimisation procedure computes a production schedule and energy supply decisions for a flow shop system. In the first stage, a bi-objective mixed integer linear programme simultaneously minimises the total weighted flow time and the expected energy cost, based on the generated wind power scenarios. In the second stage, energy supply decisions are adjusted based on real-time wind power data. A numerical example is used to illustrate the ability of the developed decision support tool to handle the uncertainty attached to wind power generation and its effectiveness in realising energy-related objectives in manufacturing.     

Energy recovery from waste incineration: economic aspects

If we consider the desirability of reducing fossil fuel consumption, together with the increasing production of combustible solid wastes, there is clearly a need for waste treatment systems which achieve both volume reduction and energy recovery. Direct incineration method is one such system. The aim of this work was to analyze the municipal solid waste incineration situated in the Province of Turin (Piedmont, North Italy), especially its economical effects in consequence of the energy recovery that can be achieved. In order to perform this analysis, two kinds of energy recovery have been studied: electric energy (electrical configuration) only, and both electric and thermal energy (cogenerative configuration). So after a reconstruction of the economic situation, by considering all the costs and revenues, for both the possible energetic configurations the correspondence between the environmental convenience (that was evaluated in a previously work) and the economic convenience has been defined. The main obtained results highlight that currently the environmental convenience corresponds to the cogenerative configuration; instead the economical convenience in the actual condition corresponds to the only electric configuration. Anyway, by working on the thermal energy price, it is possible to obtain at the same time an environmental and economic convenience.     

Sustainability assessment of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Ricinus communis</Emphasis> biodiesel using LCA Approach

Biofuels are considered as eco-friendly fuels and can readily replace fossil fuels while helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promoting sustainable rural development. Although Algeria is an oil producer and exporter, the development of renewable energies is a strategic goal for public authorities, which are giving new impetus to this sector to replace the fossil energy resources of which are becoming increasingly scarce. In this context, the life-cycle assessment (LCA) of a second-generation biodiesel derived from Ricinus communis feedstock is undertaken. LCA is a tool that can be used effectively in evaluating various renewable energy sources for their sustainability and can help policy makers to choose the optimal energy source for specific purpose. The life cycle of Castor bean-based biodiesel production includes the stages of cultivation, oil extraction, and biodiesel production. The impact categories studied were global warming, Energy return-on-energy investment (EROEI), human health, and ecosystem. We have used the impact 2002 + evaluation method which is implemented in the SimaPro© software package. Moreover, it is the most useful method for identifying and measuring the impact of industrial products on the environment. Results show that among all the production stages, the cultivation process of Ricinus communis and the conversion of oil to biodiesel are the largest contributors to most of environmental impact categories. Life-cycle analysis revealed that the use of castor for biodiesel production could have many advantages like an energy return-on-energy investment (EROEI) of 2.60 and a positive contribution to climate-change reduction as revealed by a positive carbon balance.     

Determinants of household use of energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies in rural Ethiopia

The poor households living in low-income countries depend on traditional sources for basic energy service; which has a broader socio-economic and environmental adverse effect. To mitigate the problem policy measures were used to increase access to energy-efficient and renewable energy technology. However, there are few studies on demand-side particularly on the drivers of household joint technology adoption behavior. Against this backdrop, this paper examined the determinants of household behavior concerning the adoption decision of energy-efficient and renewable energy technology using cross-sectional data collected from 195 households in central Ethiopia. For identification, the generalized ordered probit model which is a more flexible discrete choice model was applied. The findings reveal that the richer the households, the more likely that they adopt both improved cookstoves and renewable energy technology because of the greater financial capacity to afford to pay the upfront cost of the technologies. Household size and assets such as landholding size and the number of cattle owned positively associated with the use of both technologies. Likewise, a high level of education attained by the head of the household likely reduces the likelihood of adoption of neither technology but increases the likelihood of adoption of renewable energy. Participation in off-farm income-earning activities likely increases the propensity to invest in renewable energy. Similarly, household membership in local cooperatives found to increase the propensity to invest in renewable energy technology. While access to credit found to increase the adoption of energy-efficient technology. The finding of this study implies that poverty reduction and education policies increase the propensity to invest in energy-efficient and renewable energy technology. Likewise, better access to credit, off-farm employment opportunities, and cooperatives are also important.     

Choice of Life Cycle Assessment Software Can Impact Packaging System Decisions

A number of software packages are available that are designed to facilitate making environmental comparisons between different packaging options, to facilitate ‘green’ packaging design and assessment of the environmental aspect of sustainability. Some of these (e.g. SimaPro and GaBi) are full‐fledged ISO 14040/14044‐compliant programs for life cycle assessment (LCA). Others are more limited, but are designed to be much simpler to use (e.g. COMPASS and Package Modeling). A systematic comparison of the evaluation of several packaging systems using COMPASS, SimaPro, GaBi, and Package Modeling found significant discrepancies in LCA results from different software systems. Availability of common impact categories among the software limited comparisons to four categories: greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel/non‐renewable energy, eutrophication, and water depletion. Given a common set of basic packaging containers as input, results from the LCA software systems being studied disagreed on which container had the greatest environmental impact, and in some cases results were more than an order of magnitude different between software. Discrepancies in results occurred in all four impact categories, and all four software systems disagreed with each other at multiple points in the comparisons. If there is to be increasing use of LCA analysis in guiding packaging design, this issue must be fully understood and resolved. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Statistical investigation of wave power potential in the North Aegean Sea

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Wave energy is recognized as a significant renewable energy source with a high energy density and very low environmental impact. Today, in parallel...     

Technological unemployment,robotisation, and green deal: A story of unstable spillovers in China and South Korea (2008–2018)

The growing use of robots in the current ICT revolution has sparked a serious debate about the potential threat robots pose to human labour. In parallel, the convergence towards a more sustainable economy has caused a transformation of firms and a consequent restructuring of employment. In this article we investigate the problem of technological unemployment and environmental rebound effect by looking at how relationships between jobless growth, industrial robots usage, CO₂ emissions, and renewable energy consumption changed over time in China and South Korea. Findings from a competition model based on differential equations for the period 2008–2018 show that robots do not always increase unemployment growth. On the other hand, the type of relationship between unemployment and sustainable use of energy changes over time, questioning the possibility of a smart green new deal.     

Sustainable energy and environmental impact: role of renewables as clean and secure source of energy for the 21st century in Jordan

In this article, present and future energy consumption, electricity demand, potential of renewable energy sources and national energy policy in Jordan are presented. The related environmental impacts are discussed from the sustainable development point of view, including the future role of renewable energy sources. Jordan is a net energy importing country, with almost 96% of its annual needs relying on imported crude oil and refined products from neighboring Arab countries. Due to increasing fossil fuel combustion to meet growing national energy demand, especially electricity generation, air pollution is becoming an important issue in urban areas. Profound cuts in current emission rates, including carbon dioxide, are possible at a bearable cost, and that the government must now invest in low carbon options because of the long lead in time of some technologies. A great deal more could be done to improve energy efficiency, and new and renewable energy schemes should be advocated on different levels. To achieve this, all obstacles including institutional barriers to investment in renewable technologies and national energy plan need to be addressed urgently. Thus, the government is invited to create a Sustainable Energy Unit, which will coordinate government cross-departmental thinking and provide adequate information to the public and to private investors.     

Ink Processing for Thermoelectric Materials and Power‐Generating Devices

The growing concern over the depletion of hydrocarbon resources, and the adverse environmental effects associated with their use, has increased the demand for renewable energy sources. Thermoelectric (TE) power generation from waste heat has emerged as a renewable energy source that does not generate any pollutants. Recently, ink‐based processing for the preparation of TE materials has attracted tremendous attention because of the simplicity in design of power generators and the possibility of cost‐effective manufacturing. In this progress report, recent advances in the development of TE inks, processing techniques, and ink‐fabricated devices are reviewed. A summary of typical formulations of TE materials as inks is included, as well as a discussion on various ink‐based fabrication methods, with several examples of newly designed devices fabricated using these techniques. Finally, the prospects of this field with respect to the industrialization of TE power generation technology are presented.     

Promotion of wind energy in isolated energy systems: the case of the Orites wind farm

With the establishment of the first wind farm on the island, Cyprus has made progress to satisfy the European Union’s 2020 renewable energy targets. Operational since September 2010, the 174 M€ Orites wind farm is currently the largest wind project in the Mediterranean region. In this article, the main characteristics of the project with regard to Cyprus’s national action plan for the promotion of renewable energy sources are presented. The socio-economic impacts of the project and its feasibility in the context of an isolated energy system are also examined. The results of a public survey to identify the attitudes of surrounding households and neighbouring cities towards the wind farm are presented. The assessment was based on face-to-face interviews conducted with 50 households from the surrounding communities and 100 interviewees from neighbouring cities. According to the survey, the public opinion on the wind farm was generally positive, and the majority of the respondents considered the wind farm to be acceptable as of no considerable environmental impact.     

纸/纤维素基摩擦纳米发电机的研究进展

能源危机与环境污染是全世界可持续发展面临的主要挑战之一。摩擦纳米发电机是一种高效的能源装置,具有可持续、较高的电输出性能和材料选择不受限制等突出特性,其独特的自驱动系统可以确保设备的持续可靠供电。纤维素及其衍生物来源广泛、环境友好,是一种可再生、易降解的天然大分子材料,基于天然纤维素制备的电极材料设计制作的纸/纤维素基摩擦纳米发电机是一种成本低廉、来源丰富且用途广泛的能源装置。首先简述了摩擦纳米发电机主要的4种模式及电极材料对摩擦纳米发电机的影响,然后综述了材料的结构优化、表面改性对纸/纤维素基摩擦纳米发电机电输出性能的影响,以及近年来纸/纤维素基摩擦纳米发电机在自驱动传感器、可穿戴和医用领域的应用和研究进展。     

Meso-scale life-cycle impact assessment of novel technology policies: the case of renewable energy

Assessing the environmental risk of novel technological systems and of the European Union (EU) policies supporting them and regulating their implementation requires good understanding of (i) the pressure on the environment posed by the large-scale use of new technology, and (ii) the vulnerability of the receptor of this pressure. Generic life-cycle assessments (LCAs) provide exhaustive accounting of environmental pressure, yet they do not take into account the vulnerability of the receiving ecosystem. Generic studies of technology externalities fail to produce conclusions on the impacts in a certain area of the systems envisaged due to lack of site-specific information. The combined use of generic (LCA) and spatially referenced data offers new opportunities for comprehensively analysing the environmental impact of novel technologies. A novel information fusion methodology is suggested. Example applications are presented herein focusing on the evaluation of renewable energy technologies as an example of the implementation of meso-scale LCA for integrated environmental risk assessment of EU technology policies.     

Renewable energy transition: a market-driven solution for the energy and environmental concerns in Chile

Chile is undergoing a remarkable energy matrix transition to renewable energy. Renewable energies are expanding extraordinarily fast, exceeding earlier predictions. As a result, the country is expected to meet its 2025 goal of generating 20% of its electricity from renewable energy sources quite before. Chile has become one of the first countries in the world with subsidy-free markets, where renewable projects compete directly with other conventional sources. Favorable market conditions and successful policy reforms were keys to fostering this renewable energy development. Although the country has achieved a substantial growth in renewable energy investment in a relatively short period of time, this optimism should be treated with caution. A successful transition requires a combination of a clear decision making, persistent and consistent government policies, and a clear commitment to tackling challenges to accommodate renewable energy in the power system. In this context, this paper analyses the Chilean renewable industry and the required government policies to succeed in this transition. For this purpose, we identify several critical factors that have attracted and that could attract investment to the renewable energy sector and propose key recommendations to effectively address the major challenges faced for the future development of the industry.     

Electricity generation: options for reduction in carbon emissions

Historically, the bulk production of electricity has been achieved by burning fossil fuels, with unavoidable gaseous emissions, including large quantities of carbon dioxide: an average-sized modern coal-burning power station is responsible for more than 10 Mt of CO(2) each year. This paper details typical emissions from present-day power stations and discusses the options for their reduction. Acknowledging that the cuts achieved in the past decade in the UK CO(2) emissions have been achieved largely by fuel switching, the remaining possibilities offered by this method are discussed. Switching to less-polluting fossil fuels will achieve some measure of reduction, but the basic problem of CO(2) emissions continues. Of the alternatives to fossil fuels, only nuclear power represents a zero-carbon large-scale energy source. Unfortunately, public concerns over safety and radioactive waste have still to be assuaged. Other approaches include the application of improved combustion technology, the removal of harmful gases from power-station flues and the use of waste heat to improve overall power-station efficiency. These all have a part to play, but many consider our best hope for emissions reduction to be the use of renewable energy. The main renewable energy contenders are assessed in this paper and realistic estimates of the contribution that each could provide are indicated. It appears that, in the time-scale envisaged by planners for reduction in CO(2) emission, in many countries renewable energy will be unlikely to deliver. At the same time, it is worth commenting that, again in many countries, the level of penetration of renewable energy will fall short of the present somewhat optimistic targets. Of renewable options, wind energy could be used in the short to medium term to cover for thermal plant closures, but for wind energy to be successful, the network will have to be modified to cope with wind's intermittent nature. Globally, hydroelectricity is currently the largest developed source of renewable electricity, but future large-scale projects will probably be limited to the less-developed world: the best schemes in the developed countries have already been exploited. Wave and tidal can be looked on as medium- to long-term generators of electricity, as their respective industries are not as mature as competing renewable resources. Municipal solid-waste combustion and landfill gas technologies can also be seen as short term, as can their rural equivalents, agriculture and forestry waste. Any widespread exploitation of renewable energy will depend on being able to transmit the energy from source to point of use, so the implications for the electrical network from the penetration of substantial levels of renewable energy are presented. Effective management of renewable energy installations will require technical assessment of the range of exploitation strategies, to compare local production of, say, hydrogen and the more traditional transmission of electricity. Such resources will have to compete with others in any national, or grid, system and detailed economic analysis will be necessary to determine the deployment that best fits the trading regime under which the energy will be sold. Consideration will also be necessary to determine how best to control the introduction of this radically new resource such that it does not attract punitive cost overheads until it is mature enough to cope. Finally, it is inescapable that nuclear power is a proven technology that could take its place in any future generation portfolio. Unfortunately, suspicion and mistrust surround waste management and radioactivity release. Unless this is overcome, the lack of confidence engendered by this public mistrust may result in few, if any, new nuclear power stations being built. In the event of that decision, it is difficult to see how CO(2) levels can be significantly reduced: the irony is that nuclear energy may emerge as environmentally essential.     

Biomass availability assessment for biogas or methane production in Rio Grande do Sul,Brazil

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Ensuring the environmental sustainability of energy production, including research and investment in renewable energy, can minimize the negative impact...