• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• ES close
• US close
• English close

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are a key component of the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. WSN nodes are in general battery-powered, thereby and efficient usage of their energy budget is of paramount importance to avoid performance degradation in IoT applications. To this end, this chapter proposes techniques to manage the WSN nodes’ power consumption. The aim of the first technique is to minimize the transmitted power for a given quality of service requirement at the receiver side. To this end, a power control is considered at each WSN node as well as the use of multiple distributed access points at the receiver side. The second technique to reduce the WSN energy consumption is energy harvesting (EH). Namely, the use of artificial light EH is considered to extend the WSN lifetime. Thus, an experimental setup based on a photovoltaic cell, a boost converter and a commercial WSN node is presented. It is shown that under certain settings it is possible to extend the WSN node’s lifetime without bound, when the transmission time period is above a certain threshold.

Trabajo Fin de Grado leído en la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos en el curso académico 2022/2023. Directores/as: Javier Alfonso De Esteban Curiel ; This paper explores the evolution of tourism and sustainability, the impacts of tourism and the main challenges and opportunities for sustainable tourism in Spain. The policy instruments and frameworks that promote and regulate sustainable tourism are also examined. This paper aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on tourism and sustainability, providing a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing sustainable tourism in Spain.

Moral panic, our predisposition to exaggerate threats against our livelihood and start blaming ourselves, is as old as human history. We always feared “others”, people with skin colors or ethnicity other than ours, people coming from other corners of the globe, and the infectious diseases the strangers might bring along. This paper deals with a new version of such moral panics which is arguably even more intense than the previous ones, but which relates to a new dimension of human experience, namely globalization. The health, economic and environmental challenges we are now faced with are posed globally. The moral panic today stems from this triple challenge. Our central thesis is that these three emergencies are interrelated, but there is no simple causal relationship between them. They can only be addressed in a global manner, while we still live in a world which is segmented into sovereign nation-states.

Since 2009, with the appearance of the Bitcoin, blockchain has gained great popularity all over the world for multiple reasons. The ones that stand out the most are the transparency of the information, its immutability, meaning it is permanent and unalterable, its security thanks to the nature and the way the network is organized, and the fact that it is decentralized. The most common thing until then, or even now, when people want to send information or money, is having to go through a central node, and then from that node the information is sent to the receiver. Some clear examples are social media and banks, who are in clear control of all the information since the central servers first receive the data and then send it to the recipient. It can be said that the whole paradigm of data and the way it was handled changed when blockchain appeared, and the investigation and development have not stopped since. It was clear that there was a lack of security on the previous methods, given that the central node or server could forge and manipulate the data, since it had the whole control. Thus, a change was highly needed, and it finally appeared. Considering the huge amount of industry practitioners that take part in construction, trust is one of the most important things. This is the reason why the construction industry has already started asking itself whether things could change completely to try and avoid information asymmetry, to be able to keep track of all the payments and contracts alongside with their corresponding modifications, among others. With the current energetic situation of the planet, decentralized P2P energy trading systems are gaining importance and reputation. Not only are they linked to renewable energy systems, but they also allow the prosumers either buying or selling energy depending on their needs, decreasing the high dependency people currently have on the electric companies. The goal of this project is to introduce some concepts regarding the blockchain, the smart grids and the ...

SUSTAGRI4.0 will bring digital and marketing skills to small-scale farmers and agribusiness owners towards a sustainable and community-driven future. SUSTAGRI4.0 core aim is to promote a more sustainable agriculture and support sustainable agriculture businesses in their transition to Agriculture 4.0. This report, comprised from three clusters, the highlighting results of the study, focusing on the professional skills of the future European farming community build on the cornerstones of sustainability, digitalization, and entrepreneurship: Best practices at consortium level; digital survey; focus groups. The country analysis is based on critical research of relevant open sources, including, inter alia, data from national and regional/municipal organizations, law enforcement practice, formal education curriculum, scientific publications and NGOs reports. These desk studies have been of high importance for us, balancing academic findings, correcting views and seriously expanding our understanding of youth issues and related processes of digitalization. Moreover, they have served as a pool for ideas, inspiration and practical models for partner organizations [Cluster I]. Digital Survey recap the desk and case studies, providing valuable insights from our target groups – both from youth and stakeholders and enriching us with clarifying first-hand knowledge for preparing the next steps of our project [Cluster II]. Development of focus groups: Research on local producers & sustainable agricultural business owners and VET. After finishing the research phase (national level) has been completed, a number of best practices has been identified and described in order to compare official data and statistics with real implementation of abovementioned tools [Cluster III]

Trabajo Fin de Grado leído en la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos en el curso académico 2022/2023. Directores/as: Sandra Flores Ureba, Vera Gelashvili ; In this Project, we will analyze the different faces of Sustainability and address its importance in military actions such as the war between Russia and Ukraine which many say is the most important one since World War II. Sustainability is a commonly used term, however not many know all the areas that hide inside its definition. Achieving economic, social and environmental sustainability is the goal of the many countries that form part of United Nations. The members of the organization have even agreed a plan with 17 Sustainable Development Goals that must be accomplished before 2030. The sustainable development these countries follow is against the violence and destruction of the war between Russia and Ukraine. We will also see the effects that have already begun to appear. This study resumes all the effects that are consequence of the military activities that are taking place between Ukraine and Russia and that are having a great impact around the globe in all aspects. It is having disastrous effects on the environment and the United Nations members¿ economy. Moreover, there is also a life cost in addition to all the injured and the refugees that have had to emigrate in order to have more chances to survive. Analyzing the consequences of past wars and study the consequences they had in the three areas can help to foresee and anticipate to future impacts and provide quicker and more suitable solutions.

To more accurately treat severe accidents in fast reactors, a program has been set up to investigate new computational models and approaches. The product of this effort is a computer code, the Advanced Fluid Dynamics Model (AFDM). This paper describes some of the basic features of the numerical algorithm used in AFDM. Aspects receiving particular emphasis are the fractional-step method of time integration, the semi-implicit pressure iteration, the virtual mass inertial terms, the use of three velocity fields, higher order differencing, convection of interfacial area with source and sink terms, multicomponent diffusion processes in heat and mass transfer, the SESAME equation of state, and vectorized programming. A calculated comparison with an isothermal tetralin/ammonia experiment is performed. We conclude that significant improvements are possible in reliably calculating the progression of severe accidents with further development.

Over the last two decades, Portugal started innovating its renewable energy auction process. In 2019, it hosted a solar PV auctions, and claims stating that the design of this auction resulted in the world´s lowest winning bidding price (to date), which raised interest on the functioning of this auction. The auction contained two remunerations scheme: the general and guaranteed. In the general remuneration, producers bid for a positive cashflow in return to the contribution the system (CtS) they will offer. In the guaranteed remuneration, they bid corresponds to a discount from the reference price, in return to receiving a constant Fit-in-Tariff (FiT). In this study, an analysis of the results of the auction was performed; in particular representative cases studies the variables: Net Present Value (NPV), bid awarded, number of rounds, and capacity awarded. Furthermore, a financial model was built to heck the profitability of the government and producers in various scenarios of market performance. The results showed that the NPV of a project was shown to increase with bid value, number of rounds, and awarded capacity. Yet, there no significant correlation the latter two. These correlation indicated economies of scale and competitive advantage of producer with a higher Willingness-to-Pay (WTP). The results confirmed that producers who have placed bids through the general remuneration had more chances of winning a bidding round. On the other hand, producers who have won a bid through the guaranteed remuneration experienced more profits, unaffected by the market conditions. In a similar sense, the government did experience more profits under the general remuneration, also unaffected by the market conditions. In the cases where the profits were affected, the player (government or producer) benefited from increases in the market price of electricity. Although the financial model did envelop the market price project the government was following at the time of the auctions

Trabajo Fin de Grado leído en la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos en el curso académico 2023/2024. Directores/as: Vicente Garrido Rebolledo ; Climate change is a complex phenomenon that has multiple effects and that has been addressed from different perspectives. From a contextualisation of this phenomenon in the international relations, a research of its causes and its consequences and its evolution in the international agenda; there have been studied its implications for security concerning populations, internal displacement, migrations and conflict. The effects of climate change for security concerning those aspects, have been specifically studied in the case of Somalia.

This paper describes the modeling used in the Advanced Fluid Dynamics Model (AFDM), a computer code to investigate new approaches to simulating severe accidents in fast reactors. The AFDM code has 12 topologies describing what material contacts are possible depending on the presence or absence of a given material in a computational cell, the dominant liquid, and the continuous phase. Single-phase, bubbly, churn-turbulent, cellular, and dispersed flow are permitted for the pool situations modeled. Interfacial areas between the continuous and discontinuous phases are convected to allow some tracking of phenomenological histories. Interfacial areas also are modified by models of nucleation, dynamic forces, turbulence, flashing, coalescence, and mass transfer. Heat transfer generally is treated using engineering correlations. Liquid/vapor phase transitions are handled with a nonequililbrium heat-transfer-limited model, whereas melting and freezing processes are based on equilibrium considerations. The Los Alamos SESAME equation of state (EOS) has been inplemented using densities and temperatures as the independent variables. A summary description of the AFDM numerical algorithm is provided. The AFDM code currently is being debugged and checked out. Two sample three-field calculations also are presented. The first is a three-phase bubble column mixing experiment performed at Argonne National Laboratory; the second is a liquid-liquid mixing experiment performed at Kernforschungszentrum, Karlsruhe, that resulted in rapid vapor production. We conclude that only qualitative comparisons currently are possible for complex multiphase situations. Many further model developments can be pursued, but there are limits because of the lack of a comprehensive theory, the lack of detailed multicomponent experimental data, and the difficulties in keeping the resulting model complexities tractable.