RES support in Russia: Impact on capacity and electricity market prices

Russian renewable energy policy has undergone changes following an establishment of targets for installed capacity and power production using renewable energy sources and the introduction of new capacity based support scheme for renewable energy. The forecasted amount of future renewable power will not provide enough power production to meet growing demand for renewable energy; although, it will help with modernization of the energy sector and development of renewable technology and innovation. At the same time, the capacity support scheme for renewable energy may adversely affect capacity prices and become an additional burden for industrial consumers, who are already paying the cost of capacity support for conventional power plants, so-called Capacity Delivery Agreements (CDAs). This work assesses the impact of the new capacity based support scheme on capacity and electricity price formation. Modeling results show that the impact of capacity support for renewable energy is small compared to that of capacity support for conventional energy, suggesting that the Russian energy production mix will continue to be dominated by fossil fuel based generation.     

Developments in food processing and increasing gaps in consumers competence of food handling––the challenge for nutrition policy in Europe

Human evolution is accompanied by innovations in food processing. The results are remarkable: there is food security, as there is surplus on cheap, safe and high quality food. Despite this situation nutritional studies reveal that there are still nutritional problems in the world. Food security is only a precondition but no guarantee for nutrition security.The causes of nutritional problems are complex. In industrialised societies the importance of the last links of the food chain, being the competence of consumers regarding food and nutrition, is ignored. Whereas the global knowledge on food processing is increasing continuously, a reverse trend regarding consumer competence can be observed. The consequences of these trends have to be observed and studied. People with less food and nutrition competence are susceptible to disorientation and misguided behaviour. It is likely that the trend accelerates since the traditional ways to learn food and nutrition competence are diminishing; even in the case of food professionals, like cooks or bakers, there is clear evidence of lack of practical experiences.Nutrition and food policy has to focus on this gap. The most important nutritional problems are no longer those of food quality, but related to consumer behaviour. Today’s consumers need high qualification to use all the opportunities to manage the everyday tasks. Without fostering such training (not only for the general population, but also for food professionals) we in Europe are in danger of becoming a food illiterate population.     

Experimental study of the relation between the permeability of kaolinite and its deformation at micro and macro scale

We present an experimental study of relations between hydraulic properties of clayey rocks and their deformation at bulk and micro scale. The experimentation is based on triaxial deformation of kaolinitic core samples, on permeability measurements, and on several methods of analysis of the microstructure. To produce the samples, remoulded kaolinite material is consolidated by axial loading up to 20 MPa in an oedometric cell. Then, in a triaxial cell, an undrained stress path is applied in order to induce shearing damage in the sample. The permeability of the sample is measured by fluid flow across the sample. Before and after these hydro-mechanical tests, the evolution and the homogeneity of the pore space and moreover the texture of the material are analysed by X-ray tomography, environmental scanning electron microscopy and thermic neutron diffraction. Contrary to expectations, the permeability at the sample scale does not vary significantly, although quite large deformation is reached. The final deformation is heterogeneous, with well-developed shear bands. It appears that the development of compacting and dilating zones generates a heterogeneous permeability field, which results in a negligible variation of the bulk permeability at the sample scale.