• Energy Research
• 13. Climate action close
• SE close
• DK close
• Transport Research close

Dynamics of societal material stocks such as buildings and infrastructures and their spatial patterns drive surging resource use and emissions. Building up and maintaining stocks requires large amounts of resources; currently stock-building materials amount to almost 60% of all materials used by humanity. Buildings, infrastructures and machinery shape social practices of production and consumption, thereby creating path dependencies for future resource use. They constitute the physical basis of the spatial organization of most socio-economic activities, for example as mobility networks, urbanization and settlement patterns and various other infrastructures. This dataset features a detailed map of material stocks for the whole of Germany on a 10m grid based on high resolution Earth Observation data (Sentinel-1 + Sentinel-2), crowd-sourced geodata (OSM) and material intensity factors. Temporal extent The map is representative for ca. 2018. Data format Per federal state, the data come in tiles of 30x30km (see shapefile). The projection is EPSG:3035. The images are compressed GeoTiff files (*.tif). There is a mosaic in GDAL Virtual format (*.vrt), which can readily be opened in most Geographic Information Systems. The dataset features area and mass for different street types area and mass for different rail types area and mass for other infrastructure area, volume and mass for different building types Masses are reported as total values, and per material category. Units area in m² height in m volume in m³ mass in t for infrastructure and buildings Further information For further information, please see the publication or contact Helmut Haberl (helmut.haberl@boku.ac.at). A web-visualization of this dataset is available here. Visit our website to learn more about our project MAT_STOCKS - Understanding the Role of Material Stock Patterns for the Transformation to a Sustainable Society. Publication Haberl, H., Wiedenhofer, D., Schug, F., Frantz, D., Virág, D., Plutzar, C., Gruhler, K., Lederer, J., Schiller, G. , Fishman, T., Lanau, M., Gattringer, A., Kemper, T., Liu, G., Tanikawa, H., van der Linden, S., Hostert, P. (accepted): High-resolution maps of material stocks in buildings and infrastructures in Austria and Germany. Environmental Science & Technology Funding This research was primarly funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (MAT_STOCKS, grant agreement No 741950). ML and GL acknowledge funding by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (CityWeight, 6111-00555B), ML thanks the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC; project Multi-Scale, Circular Economic Potential of Non-Residential Building Scale, EP/S029273/1), JL acknowledges funding by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), project ESR17-067, TF acknowledges the Israel Science Foundation grant no. 2706/19.

The Danish energy system is undergoing a transition from a system based on storable fossil fuels to a system based on fluctuating renewable energy sources. At the same time, more of and more of the energy system is becoming electrified; transportation, heating and fuel usage in industry and elsewhere. This article investigates the development of the Danish energy system in a medium year 2030 situation as well as in a long-term year 2050 situation. The analyses are based on scenario development by the Danish Climate Commission. In the short term, it is investigated what the effects will be of having flexible or inflexible electric vehicles and individual heat pumps, and in the long term it is investigated what the effects of changes in the load profiles due to changing weights of demand sectors are. The analyses are based on energy systems simulations using EnergyPLAN and demand forecasting using the Helena model. The results show that even with a limited short-term electric car fleet, these will have a significant effect on the energy system; the energy system’s ability to integrated wind power and the demand for condensing power generation capacity in the system. Charging patterns and flexibility have significant effects on this. Likewise, individual heat pumps may affect the system operation if they are equipped with heat storages. The analyses also show that the long-term changes in electricity demand curve profiles have little impact on the energy system performance. The flexibility given by heat pumps and electric vehicles in the long-term future overshadows any effects of changes in hourly demand curve profiles. International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management, Vol 7 (2015)

Science-based, multinational management of the Baltic Sea offers lessons on amelioration of highly disturbed marine ecosystems.

This paper evaluates how policy shaped the emergence of electric mobility in three countries, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark, between 2010 and 2015. Whereas previous studies have looked at the effects of separate policy instruments, this paper gives insights in the interaction effects of instruments on the diffusion of battery electric cars between five policy areas. Based on analysis of synergetic, contradictory and pre-conditional effects, we find that an effective policy mix includes: fiscal incentives that mirror the actual carbon footprint of the respective vehicles; non-fiscal demand-side incentives; centrally financed and/or coordinated charging infrastructure; clarity regarding the choice of technology that will be supported. Moreover, development of a domestic, e-mobility-related industry and a high share of renewable energy strengthens the legitimization of e-mobility support. The findings help designing policy mixes in the transition to electric mobility.

The rapidly increasing penetration of electric vehicles in modern metropolises has been witnessed during the past decade, inspired by financial subsidies as well as public awareness of climate change and environment protection. Integrating charging facilities, especially high-power chargers in fast charging stations, into power distribution systems remarkably alters the traditional load flow pattern, and thus imposes great challenges on the operation of distribution network in which controllable resources are rare. On the other hand, provided with appropriate incentives, the energy storage capability of electric vehicle offers a unique opportunity to facilitate the integration of distributed wind and solar power generation into power distribution system. The above trends call for thorough investigation and research on the interdependence between transportation system and power distribution system. This paper conducts a comprehensive survey on this line of research. The basic models of transportation system and power distribution system are introduced, especially the user equilibrium model, which describes the vehicular flow on each road segment and is not familiar to the readers in power system community. The modelling of interdependence across the two systems is highlighted. Taking into account such interdependence, applications ranging from long-term planning to short-term operation are reviewed with emphasis on comparing the description of traffic-power interdependence. Finally, an outlook of prospective directions and key technologies in future research is summarized.

Abstract Models of social-ecological systems (SES) are acknowledged as an important tool to understand human-nature relations. However, many SES models fail to integrate adequate information from both the human and ecological subsystems. With an example model of a future Offshore Wind Farm development and its effects on both the ecosystem and local human population, we illustrate a method facilitating a “balanced” SES model, in terms of including information from both subsystems. We use qualitative mathematical modeling, which allows to quickly analyze the structure and dynamics of a system without including quantitative data, and therefore to compare alternative system structures based on different understandings of how the system works. By including similar number of system variables in the two subsystems, we balanced the complexity between them. Our analyses show that this complexity is important in order to predict indirect and sometimes counterintuitive effects. We also highlight some conceptually important questions concerning social compensations during developmental projects in general, and wind farms in particular. Our results suggest that the more project holders get involved in various manner in the local socio-ecological system, the more society will benefit as a whole. Increased involvement through e.g. new projects or job-opportunities around the windfarm has the capacity to offset the negative effects of the windfarm on the local community. These benefits are enhanced when there is an overall acceptance and appropriation of the project. We suggest this method as a tool to support the decision-making process and to facilitate discussions between stakeholders, especially among local communities.

Mesocosm experiments have become increasingly popular in climate change research as they bridge the gap between small-scale, less realistic, microcosm experiments, and large-scale, more complex, natural systems. Characteristics of aquatic mesocosm designs (e.g., mesocosm volume, study duration, and replication) vary widely, potentially affecting the magnitude and direction of effect sizes measured in experiments. In this global systematic review we aim to identify the type, direction and strength of climate warming effects on aquatic species, communities and ecosystems in mesocosm experiments. Furthermore, we will investigate the context-dependency of the observed effects on several a priori determined effect moderators (ecological and methodological). Our conclusions will provide recommendations for aquatic scientists designing mesocosm experiments, as well as guidelines for interpretation of experimental results by scientists, policy-makers and the general public. We will conduct a systematic search using multiple online databases to gather evidence from the scientific literature on the effects of warming experimentally tested in aquatic mesocosms. Data from relevant studies will be extracted and used in a random effects meta-analysis to estimate the overall effect sizes of warming experiments on species performance, biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Experimental characteristics (e.g., mesocosm size and shape, replication-level, experimental duration and design, biogeographic region, community type, crossed manipulation) will be further analysed using subgroup analyses.