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Microalgae are promising feedstock for the production of biodiesel and diverse medium- and high-value products such as pigments and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The importance of strain selection adapted to specific environments is important for economical purposes. We characterize here two microalgal strains, isolated from wastewater of shrimp cultivation ponds in Vietnam. Based on the 18S rDNA-ITS region, one strain belongs to the Eustigmatophyceae class and is identical to the Nannochloropsis salina isolate D12 (JX185299.1), while the other is a Chlorophyceae belonging to the Desmodesmus genus, which possesses a S516 group I intron in its 18S rDNA gene. The N. salina strain is a marine and oleaginous microalga (40% of dry weight (DW) at stationary phase) whole oil is rich in saturated fatty acids (around 45% of C16:0) suitable for biodiesel and contains a few percent of eicosapentaenoic acid (C20:5). The Desmodesmus isolate can assimilate acetate and ammonium and is rich in lutein. Its oil contains around 40%–50% α-linolenic acid (C18:3), an essential fatty acid. Since they tolerate various salinities (10% to 35‰), both strains are thus interesting for biodiesel or aquaculture valorization in coastal and tropical climate where water, nutrient, and salinity availability vary greatly depending on the season.

This paper analyses decarbonisation scenarios for the European passenger car fleet in 2050. The scenarios have been developed using the backcasting approach and aim to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of passenger cars to a level defined in the Transport White paper that is 60% below 1990 levels. Considering the emission levels of 2010, a yearly reduction of 1.7% is required in order to achieve the target. Car emissions were decomposed into the main emission factors of mobility, efficiency and carbon intensity. How these factors change over time depends on various external factors: the pace of technological improvements, the future role of cars in society’s mobility system and the priority given to decarbonising energy demand. The analysis showed that if car mobility and ownership continue to increase as expected in a ‘business as usual’ case, a share of 97% plug-in hybrid or battery electric vehicles might be required by 2050, together with a substantial decrease in greenhouse gas emission from electricity production. A transition to more advanced car technology such as automated driving, advanced batteries or lightweight materials in vehicle production would raise vehicle efficiency. Should car mobility continue at a high level, an early technology transition will be required.

In the early design phase of a building, the task of the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) engineer is to propose an appropriate HVAC system for a given building. This system should provide thermal comfort to the building occupants at all time, meet the building owner’s specific requirements, and have minimal investment, running, maintenance and replacement costs (i.e., the total cost) and energy use or environmental impact. Calculating these different aspects is highly time-consuming and the HVAC engineer will therefore only be able to compare a (very) limited number of alternatives leading to suboptimal designs. This study presents therefore a Python tool that automates the generation of all possible scenarios for given thermal power profiles and energy load and a given database of HVAC components. The tool sizes each scenario properly, computes its present total cost (PC) and the total CO 2 emissions associated with the building energy use. Finally, the different scenarios can be searched and classified to pick the most appropriate scenario. The tool uses static calculations based on standards, manufacturer data and basic assumptions similar to those made by engineers in the early design phase. The current version of the tool is further focused on hybrid GEOTABS building, which combines a GEOthermal heat pump with a Thermally Activated System (TABS). It should further be noted that the tool optimizes the HVAC system but not the building envelope, while, ideally, both should be simultaneously optimized.

It is unclear whether the production of biochar is economically feasible. As a consequence, firms do not often invest in biochar production plants. However, biochar production and application might be desirable from a societal perspective as it might entail net environmental benefits. Hence, the aim of this work has been to assess and monetize the environmental impacts of biochar production systems so that the environmental aspects can be integrated with the economic and social ones later on to quantify the total return for society. Therefore, a life cycle analysis (LCA) has been performed for two potential biochar production systems in Belgium based on two different feedstocks: (i) willow and (ii) pig manure. First, the environmental impacts of the two biochar production systems are assessed from a life cycle perspective, assuming one ton of biochar as the functional unit. Therefore, LCA using SimaPro software has been performed both on the midpoint and endpoint level. Biochar production from willow achieves better results compared to biochar from pig manure for all environmental impact categories considered. In a second step, monetary valuation has been applied to the LCA results in order to weigh environmental benefits against environmental costs using the Ecotax, Ecovalue, and Stepwise approach. Consequently, sensitivity analysis investigates the impact of variation in NPK savings and byproducts of the biochar production process on monetized life cycle assessment results. As a result, it is suggested that biochar production from willow is preferred to biochar production from pig manure from an environmental point of view. In future research, those monetized environmental impacts will be integrated within existing techno-economic models that calculate the financial viability from an investor’s point of view, so that the total return for society can be quantified and the preferred biochar production system from a societal point of view can be identified.

Turning carbon dioxide (CO2) into fuels and chemicals using chemical, photochemical, electrochemical, and enzymatic methods could be used to recycle large quantities of carbon. The enzymatic method, which is inspired by cellular CO2 metabolism, has attracted considerable attention for efficient CO2 conversion due to improved selectivity and yields under mild reaction conditions. In this review, the research progress of green and potent enzymatic conversion of CO2 into useful fuels and chemicals was discussed. Furthermore, applications of the enzymatic conversion of CO2 to assist in CO2 capture and sequestration were highlighted. A summary including the industrial applications, barriers, and some perspectives on the research and development of the enzymatic approach to convert CO2 were introduced.

The signatory countries of the Paris Agreement must submit their updated Intended National Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the UNFCCC secretariat every five years. In Colombia, this activity was historically carried out with a wide set of diverse non-interconnected sector-specific models. Given the complexity of GHG emissions reporting and the evaluation of mitigation actions on a national scale, the need for a centralized platform was evident. Such approach would allow the integration and analysis of potential interactions among sectors, as well as to guarantee the homogeneity of assumptions and input parameters. In this paper, we describe the construction of an integrated bottom-up LEAP model tailored to the Colombian case, which covers all IPCC sectors. An integrated model facilitates capturing synergies and intersectoral interactions within the national GHG emissions system. Hence, policies addressing one sector and influencing others are identified and correctly assessed. Thus, 44 mitigation policies and mitigation actions were included in the model, in this way, identifying the sectors directly and being indirectly affected by them. The mitigation scenario developed in this paper reaches a reduction of 28% of GHG emissions compared with the reference scenario. The importance of including non-energy sectors is evident in the Colombian case, as GHG emission reductions are mainly driven by AFOLU. The first section describes the GHG emissions context in Colombia. Next, we describe the model structure, main input parameters, assumptions, considerations, and used LEAP functionalities. Results are presented from a GHG emissions accounting and energy demand perspective. The model allows for the correct estimate of the scope and potential of mitigation actions by considering indirect, unintended emissions reductions in all IPCC categories, as well as synergies with all mitigation actions included in the mitigation scenario. Moreover, the structure of the model is suitable for testing potential emission trajectories, facilitating its adoption by official entities and its application in climate policymaking.

Scientific research plays an important role in the achievement of a sustainable society. However, grasping the trends in sustainability research is difficult because studies are not devised and conducted in a top-down manner with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To understand the bottom-up research activities, we analyzed over 300,000 publications concerned with sustainability by using citation network analysis and natural language processing. The results suggest that sustainability science’s diverse and dynamic changes have been occurring over the last few years; several new topics, such as nanocellulose and global health, have begun to attract widespread scientific attention. We further examined the relationship between sustainability research subjects and SDGs and found significant correspondence between the two. Moreover, we extracted SDG topics that were discussed following a convergent approach in academic studies, such as “inclusive society” and “early childhood development”, by observing the convergence of terms in the citation network. These results are valuable for government officials, private companies, and academic researchers, empowering them to understand current academic progress along with research attention devoted to SDGs.