• Energy Research
• Restricted close
• 11. Sustainability close
• 12. Responsible consumption close
• 3. Good health close
• ES close
• DE close
• EU close

The world, society and education are constantly evolving, and to respond to these changes, the main governmental institutions have been proposing different global strategies to focus efforts in the same direction. Currently, the United Nations and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have presented a series of indicators that could help to minimise the environmental, economic and social instability we are experiencing. In this sense, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been described as a fundamental factor. Specifically, in previous work, we argued that physical education (PE) could be a good tool to contribute to SDGs. Based on this, no research analysing the voices of Physical Education Teachers (PET) on how this contribution could be made has been identified in previous literature. Therefore, the objectives of this research are: (1) to analyse the voices and opinions of active PETs in terms of the knowledge they have about Sustainable Development (SD); (2) to determine their opinions about the contribution that PE could make to SDGs; and finally, (3) to identify the challenges and limitations of pedagogical action of SD in PE. For this purpose, a qualitative analysis through a semi-structured interview with 41 active PETs was carried out. The main findings will be presented and discussed around four themes: (a) agreement on the concept of sustainability; (b) PE can contribute to the achievement of SDGs; (c) ambiguity in applying SDGs to PE lessons; and (d) teachers’ constraints on how to implement SDGs in PE. It seems to indicate that PETs do not have a multidimensional vision of sustainable development. While they recognise the potential of PE to contribute to SDGs through awareness raising and student learning, they point to its pedagogical and formative constraints as the main barriers to being able to contribute. They pointed to a lack of knowledge on how to do so, guidelines on how to integrate ESD, lack of involvement, shortage of time or resources in school physical education.

Diesel engine exhausts from a common rail 3.0 L F1C diesel engine were analyzed at two different load conditions of the WLTC testing cycle downstream of both the diesel particulate filter (DPF) and selective catalytic reactor (SCR) to verify their effect on the characteristics of carbon particulate matter. An array of chemical, physical and spectroscopic techniques (gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), mobility analyzer, UV-Visible absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy) was applied for characterizing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), heavy aromatic compounds and soot, constituting the particulate matter (PM) sampled from the exhaust. The engine was operated in half load (HL) (188 Nm, representing the more common condition for engine in urban traffic) and full load (FL) (452 Nm, representing the best performance of the engine operation) conditions, at the same engine speed (2000 rpm). Soot formation was enhanced in HL condition, with respect to FL, but, just because of the much lower soot amount, the after-treatment systems in this last condition resulted to be less efficient in the soot abatement. Indeed, the abatement through DPF was about 40% lower in the FL condition with respect to HL condition, and any significant further concentration decrease was found after SCR, in both conditions. By contrast, PAH concentration after DPF abatement was found to be higher in the HL with respect to FL condition. A further PAH concentration decrease of about 30% was found after the SCR in the HL condition whereas in FL the reduction was only about 5-6%. Also the heavy aromatic compounds having molecular weight above the GC-MS detection limit (300 u), were mitigated by SCR. Therefore, SCR did not cause a further soot reduction, whereas it was effective in largely reducing PAH and heavy aromatics emissions, especially in the lower temperature condition featuring the half-load condition, when combustion efficiency is worse. Moreover, SCR system reduced the emission of small particles probably due to an enhanced agglomeration of particles, with beneficial effect on the harmfulness to human health.

The aim of this report is to demonstrate and evaluate the potential of tall wheatgrass (Elytrigia elongata) to avoid GHG emissions and obtain lower economic costs in marginal areas of Spain. Our research built scenarios based on experimental plots (2 and 3 years growth) in 3 locations of Spain with completely different climate conditions (provinces of Girona, Soria and Palencia). In our experiences, we achieved an adequate establishment and biomass production, and assumed a rank of biomass yields until the end of the life cycle that is usually accepted to be about 15 years in many other studies in United States, Argentina and Eastern Europe where tall wheatgrass is extensively cultivated in marginal areas for sheep livestock production. Using our experimental plots and statistical information for economic inputs costs, we built 5 different scenarios per region considering a large range of biomass yields of tall wheatgrass. The analysis included a comparison with annual grasses economic costs calculated for a wide range of biomass yields of a previous study. We estimated GHG emissions savings for tall wheatgrasses and used our previous study (which had GHG emissions savings as well). Savings were calculated replacing natural gas electricity with electricity from biomass combustion in real power plants in Spain. In a wide range of yields, the results suggest that marginal areas might present a better performance with tall wheatgrass compared to annual winter grasses (cereals whole plant cuttings), thus producing biomass yields with higher GHG savings and lower economic costs at the farm level. Proceedings of the 20th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 18-22 June 2012, Milan, Italy, pp. 217-229

In this study, air concentrations of BaP in two different seasons (winter 2015 and summer 2016) and BaP levels in ground vegetation from Tarragona County were used as control simulations performed with the WRF-CHIMERE air quality modelling system, in order to reproduce the incidence of that hazardous chemical in air and soils. The CTM was validated for the present climatology, showing a good ability to represent air and soil concentrations of BaP over the target domain (petrochemical, chemical, urban and background sites), particularly in the winter. Then, the variation of the BaP concentrations in air and soils were simulated for the time series 1996-2015 and for the climate change scenario RCP8.5 (2031-2050). While an increase is projected for the levels in air, particularly in chemical and remote sites where the variation can go up to 10%, in terms of soil deposition the findings are the opposite, with an evident decrease in soil BaP concentrations, particularly for background sites. Finally, a potential health effect of BaP for the local population (lung cancer) was assessed. Although according to the projections the EU threshold for BaP atmospheric incidence (1 ng m-3) will not be reached by 2050, there will be an increase in the life-time risk of lung cancer, particularly in the most populated areas within the simulation domain.

Wood biomass is turned into industrial fuel through chipping. The efficiency of chipping depends on many factors, including chipper knife wear. Chipper knife wear was determined through a long-term follow-up study, conducted at a waste wood recycling yard. Knife wear determined a sharp drop of productivity (>20%) and a severe decay in product quality. Dry sharpening with a grinder mitigated this effect, but it could not replace proper wet sharpening. Increasing the frequency of wet sharpening sessions determined a moderate increase of knife depreciation cost, but it could drastically enhance machine performance and reduce biomass processing cost. Since benefits largely exceed costs, increasing the frequency of wet sharpening sessions may be an effective measure for reducing overall chipping cost. If the main goal of a chipper operator is to increase productivity and/or decrease fuel consumption, then managing knife wear should be a primary target. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The transition to a low carbon future is starting to affect landscapes around the world. In order for this landscape transformation to be sustainable, renewable energy technologies should not cause critical trade-offs between the provision of energy and that of other ecosystem services such as food production. This literature review advances the body of knowledge on sustainable energy transition with special focus on ecosystem services-based approaches and methods. Two key issues emerge from this review: only one sixth of the published applications on the relation between renewable energy and landscape make use of the ecosystem service framework. Secondly, the applications that do address ecosystem services for landscape planning and design lack efficient methods and spatial reference systems that accommodate both cultural and regulating ecosystem services. Future research efforts should be directed to further advancing the spatial reference systems, the use of participatory mapping and landscape visualizations tools for cultural ecosystem services and the elaboration of landscape design principles.

Since 2007, a range of new modeling approaches and tools have been developed for sustainability impact assessment (SIA), but a lack of universal acceptance of SIA tools in applied policy making is observed. The current article gives an overview of experiences from several European and international projects, critically reviews the selected SIA tools and then discusses a number of reasons for the observed disconnect of the tools with the potential users. Largely based on the experiences of the presented SIA tools focusing land use policy advice, a decision tree is designed, which may facilitate an adequate, region and developmental phase specific selection of tool-box components for the development of SIA tools in future. Elements to ensure end-user participation are also integrated in the decision tree in order to increase the likelihood of the tool in applied land use policy advice. In addition, the Challenges in SIA tool development and use are further discussed.

Abstract In recent years, the overall energy consumption is increasing significantly and the energy consumption in the building sector represents over 30% of the global ones in developed countries. Thermal energy storage (TES) using phase change materials (PCM), which are materials able to store high amounts of energy as latent heat, is suggested as a possible solution to decrease the energy consumption. The authors of this paper developed materials able to encapsulate/stabilize PCM in addition to isolate an industrial residue from the steel recycling process: electrical arc furnace dust (EAFD). This waste is a hazardous dust, and when it is combined with a polymeric matrix produce dense sheet materials suitable for multilayered constructive systems. In this paper the physical, mechanical, thermal and acoustical characterization of two new materials with EAFD and PCM in a polymeric matrix for constructive system is presented. The results are compared with those obtained for one commercial dense sheet material available in the market, Texsound commercialized by TEXSA (Spain). The new dense sheet materials developed in this paper have similar acoustic properties compared to the results obtained for the commercial material and are competitive with it, even better because the new material incorporates PCM which increases the thermal inertia of final constructive system.