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Local development is a subject that arouses significant interest in the international scientific community in general, and in the Ibero-American one, in particular. The process of globalization has transformed the management of local development, altering the role that is played by local and regional entities, and it is the object of an important follow-up and analysis by academia. This research uses a bibliometric methodology and a fractional counting method, reviewing the 738 articles from the Scopus database in order to understand the state of Ibero-American research on local development, and analyze the scientific literature on the topic. The results show a significant increase in the number of publications in the 21st century, with Spain and Brazil leading the way. In addition, this research provides interesting results regarding the most influential authors on this topic, the most relevant journals, and the most important institutions and funding organizations. There are several areas of knowledge involved since local development is a transversal field, such as Social Science, environment, business, economics, and agriculture. A deep analysis of authors’ keywords identified new trends, linking local development with tourism, education, geotourism, climate change, local sustainable development, social innovation, and creativity, which provides academia with potential new lines of research.

Successive international commitments relating to energy and climatic change (embodied in the Kyoto Protocol) and the need to rationalise the sources of generated energy, have meant that renewable energies have started to gain a great deal of importance within the worldwide energy network. In the case of Wind Energy, and in terms of production, Spain is the second most important country at European level and the third most important country at global level. Spain holds these positions as a result of the establishment of a stable regulatory framework, better understanding of the resource and improved technology that have afforded considerable cost reduction in terms of initial investment, maintenance and exploitation. This article focuses on these circumstances in view of their relevance at international level, which is due to the highly feasible possibility of exporting Spain's experiences to other countries with guarantees of success.

[EN] There is an attempt nowadays to provide a more comprehensive and realistic safety assessment of design and operation of Nuclear Power Plants. In this context, innovative approaches are being proposed for safety assessment of nuclear power plants design including both design basis conditions and design extension conditions. An area of research aims at developing methods for combining insights from probabilistic and deterministic safety analyses in Option 4, also called realistic approach, from the International Atomic Energy Agency specific safety guide. The development of Option 4 or realistic approach involves the adoption of best estimate computer codes, best estimate assumptions on systems availability and best estimate of initial and boundary conditions for the safety analysis. This paper focusses on providing the fundamentals and practical implementation of an approach to integrate PSA-based probabilistic models and data, which incorporate best estimate assumptions on the availability of safety systems, into Option 4. It is presented a practical approach to identify relevant, i.e. most probable, configurations of safety systems and to assess the associated occurrence probability of each configuration using PSA models and data of a NPP, which is based on the use of a Pure Monte Carlo method. An example of application is provided to demonstrate how this approach performs. The case study focusses on an accident scenario corresponding to the initiating event Loss Of Feed Water (LOFW) for a typical three-loops Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) NPP. Authors are grateful to the Spanish CSN (Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear) for the financial support of this research (Research Project SIN/4078/2013/640; MASA Project).

[EN] Renewable energies are a central element in the search for energy sustainability, so they are becoming a substantial component of the energy scenario of every country, both as systems connected to the grid or in stand-alone applications. Feasibility of these renewable energy systems could be necessary not only in their application in isolated areas, but also in systems connected to the grid, in this last case when their contribution reaches a substantial fraction of the total electricity demand. To overcome this reliability problem, hybrid renewable systems could become essential and activities to optimize their design should be addressed, both in the simulation and in the experimental areas. In this paper, a laboratory to simulate and verify the reliability of hybrid renewable systems is presented and its application to the feasibility analysis of multicomponent systems including photovoltaic panels, wind generator and biomass gasification plant, plus energy storage in a battery bank, are described.

AbstractBio-syngas from gasification of sugarcane bagasse is one of the most promising sources for renewable energy. As an agriculture-based biomass, sugarcane bagasse has a high content of moisture (46-52%), fibrous (43-52%) and low bulk density (80-120kg/m3). This quality of bagasse will tend to initiate agglomeration and cause de-fluidization. It will disturb the gasification process and finally will decrease yield and quality of syn-gas. Its chracteristics in low quality can be improved by pretreatment, i.e., torrefaction process, addressed by slow heating of biomass on wet or dry conditions on atmosphere pressure for 1hour before it is used as feedstock gasification.This preliminary work features an experimental investigation of torrefaction process of Indonesian sugarcane cane bagasse. Temperature of torrefaction varies from 150, 175, 200, 225, 250 and 300°C. For bagasse gasification process, the optimum temperature of dry torrefaction is 150°C. At this temperature, yield of syngas will higher than other torrefaction temperature. Temperature of dry torrefaction will give energy saving opportunities than that's of wet torrefaction (180°C, 1 hr).Analysis ultimate and proximate also indicate that sugarcane bagasse with temperature torrefaction 150°C give better result than other torrefaction's temperature in high content of hydrogen and low content of carbon.

AbstractThe US Department of Defense (DoD) routinely uses wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for military tactical communications. Sensor node die-out has a significant impact on the topology of a tactical WSN. This is problematic for military applications where situational data is critical to tactical decision making. To increase the amount of time all sensor nodes remain active within the network and to control the network topology tactically, energy efficient routing mechanisms must be employed. In this paper, we aim to provide realistic insights on the practical advantages and disadvantages of using established routing techniques for tactical WSNs. We investigate the following established routing algorithms: direct routing, minimum transmission energy (MTE), Low Energy Adaptive Cluster Head routing (LEACH), and zone clustering. Based on the node die out statistics observed with these algorithms and the topological impact the node die outs have on the network, we develop a novel, energy efficient zone clustering algorithm called EZone. Via extensive simulations using MATLAB, we analyze the effectiveness of these algorithms on network performance for single and multiple gateway scenarios and show that the EZone algorithm tactically controls the topology of the network, thereby maintaining significant service area coverage when compared to the other routing algorithms.

Paper mill sludge (PMS) is a residual biomass that is generated at paper mills in large quantities. Currently, PMS is commonly disposed in landfills, which causes environmental issues through chemical leaching and greenhouse gas production. In this research, we are exploring the potential of fast pyrolysis process for converting PMS into useful bio-oil and biochar products. We demonstrate that by subjecting PMS to a combination of acid hydrolysis and torrefaction pre-treatment processes it is possible to alter the physicochemical properties and composition of the feedstock material. Fast pyrolysis of pretreated PMS produced bio-oil with significantly higher selectivity to levoglucosenone and significantly reduced the amount of ketone, aldehyde, and organic acid components. Pretreatment of PMS with combined 4% mass fraction phosphoric acid hydrolysis and 220 °C torrefaction processed prior to fast pyrolysis resulted in a 17 times increase of relative selectivity towards levoglucosenone in bio-oil product along with a reduction of acids, ketones, and aldehydes combined from 21 % to 11 %. Biochar, produced in higher yield, has characteristics that potentially make the solid byproduct ideal for soil amendment agent or sorbent material. This work reveals a promising process system to convert PMS waste into useful bio-based products. More in-depth research is required to gather more data information for assessing the economic and sustainability aspects of the process.

This research presents a 100% renewable energy (RE) scenario by 2050 with a high share of electric vehicles on the grid (V2G) developed in Ecuador with the support of the EnergyPLAN analysis tool. Hour-by-hour data iterations were performed to determine solutions among various features, including energy storage, V2G connections that spanned the distribution system, and long-term evaluation. The high participation in V2G connections keeps the electrical system available; meanwhile, the high proportions of variable renewable energy are the pillar of the joint electrical system. The layout of the sustainable mobility scenario and the high V2G participation maintain the balance of the electrical system during most of the day, simplifying the storage equipment requirements. Consequently, the influence of V2G systems on storage is a significant result that must be considered in the energy transition that Ecuador is developing in the long term. The stored electricity will not only serve as storage for future grid use. Additionally, the V2G batteries serve as a buffer between generation from diversified renewable sources and the end-use stage.