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In this study, we investigated the influence of overall financial development and its components on energy consumption using the panel data of 120 countries and the generalized method of moments (GMM). By dividing the sample into developed and developing countries, we further examined the national differences of the impact of financial development on energy consumption. The empirical results indicate that the overall financial development significantly positively impacts energy consumption from a worldwide perspective, and its two components (financial institution and the financial market) have the same effect. The analysis of national differences indicates that the financial development also positively impacts energy consumption in developing countries but with no obvious effect in developed countries. The results also suggest that financial development cannot be used to restrain the increase in energy consumption from the global perspective, and policymakers in developing countries must balance the relationship between the development of the financial sector and energy consumption.

As a relatively mature technology, biomass molded fuel (BMF) is widely used in distributed and centralized heating in China and has received considerable government attention. Although many BFM incentive policies have been developed, decreased domestic traditional fuel prices in China have caused BMF to lose its economic viability and new policy recommendations are needed to stimulate this industry. The present study built a regionalized net present value (NPV) model based on real production process simulation to test the impacts of each policy factor. The calculations showed that BMF production costs vary remarkably between regions, with the cost of agricultural briquette fuel (ABF) ranging from 86 US dollar per metric ton (USD/t) to 110 (USD/t), while that of woody pellet fuel (WPF) varies from 122 USD/t to 154 USD/t. The largest part of BMF’s cost composition is feedstock, which accounts for up 50%–60% of the total; accordingly a feedstock subsidy is the most effective policy factor, but in consideration of policy implementation, it would be better to use a production subsidy. For ABF, the optimal product subsidy varies from 26 USD/t to 57 USD/t among different regions of China, while for WPF, the range is 36 USD/t to 75 USD/t. Based on the data, a regional BMF development strategy is also proposed in this study.

This study aims to explore the application of fractional order chaotic system (FOCS), based on the T-S fuzzy model, in the design of secure communication (SC) and this SC system’s role in the construction of efficiency evaluation system for dispatching operation of energy saving and power generation under a low carbon economy (LCE). First, the definition of fractional order differential equations and the stability theory of FOCS are discussed. T-S fuzzy control is introduced to analyse the stability of FOCS. Then, based on the adaptive synchronisation theory, the combined FOCS is designed for SC, and the performance of the system constructed here is analysed in a MATLAB environment. Next, an evaluation index system of the dispatching operation effect of energy saving and power generation under LCE is constructed. The confidential communication system constructed here is used to transmit the index data. The particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm is then used to optimise the back propagation neural network (BPNN) model. The BPNN algorithm based on PSO (PSO-BPNN) is obtained, and the evaluation model is constructed. After training this model, it is applied to the evaluation of the dispatching operation effect for energy saving and power generation in 10 provinces in China. The simulation results show that the FOCS based on the T-S fuzzy model can acquire the criterion of system stability. Furthermore, the constructed SC system can effectively undertake the secure transmission of square and sine waves. The performance of the PSO-BPNN model seems to be better than other algorithms. After analysing the data on energy saving and power generation from 10 provinces in China using this model, the comprehensive evaluation value of province 5 is found to be the highest and good (0.802), while that of province 4 is the lowest and general (0.600). Summarising, the FOCS based on T-S fuzzy model constructed here is applied to the design of SC. This can improve the confidentiality of data transmission and reduce the transmission error. Moreover, the BPNN evaluation model based on PSO can effectively achieve the evaluation of the dispatching operation effect of energy saving and power generation under LCE.

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.

Abstract The Chinese government has taken measures to realize energy-savings and emission reductions, such as promoting innovations, adjusting the industrial structure, balancing regional development, and reforming markets. The aim of this paper is to assess the effects of these measures on China's CO2 emissions by using a newly proposed decomposition approach, which identified eight new factors related to the above realistic measures, i.e., energy saving and production technologies, industrial energy and production efficiencies, regional energy and production efficiencies, and pure energy and production efficiencies. The main findings indicate benefits from considerable technological progress in energy-saving and production during 2000–2016 period, and two technological factors contributed the most to emissions abatement and cumulatively reduced 5372.43 Mt and 1291.72 Mt CO2 emissions. The efforts of industrial restructuring promoted energy and production efficiency improvement, which further facilitated emission reduction. In contrast, the pure energy and production efficiency changes cumulatively led to 1080.26 Mt and 1135.85 Mt CO2 emissions growth during the whole sample period, suggesting that severe resource misallocation problems may exist in both the energy market and output market. Additionally, the Chinese government failed to narrow the technology gap between developed regions and underdeveloped regions, further restricting emission reduction.

A promising route to transition wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) from energy-consuming to net energy-positive is to retrofit existing facilities with process modifications, residual biosolid upcycling, and effluent thermal energy recovery. This study assesses the economics and life cycle environmental impacts of three proposed retrofits of WWTFs that consider thermochemical conversion technologies, namely, hydrothermal liquefaction, slow pyrolysis, and fast pyrolysis, along with advanced bioreactors. The results are in turn compared to the reference design, showing the retrofitting design with hydrothermal liquefaction, and an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket has the highest net present value (NPV) of $177.36MM over a 20-year plant lifetime despite 15% higher annual production costs than the reference design. According to the ReCiPe method, chlorination is identified as the major contributor for most impact categories in all cases. There are several uncertainties embedded in the techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment, including the discount rate, capital investment, sewer rate, and prices of main products; among which, the price of biochar presents the widest variation from $50 to $1900/t. Sensitivity analyses reveal that the variation of discount rates causes the most significant changes in NPVs. The impact of the biochar price is more pronounced in the slow pyrolysis-based pathway compared to the fast pyrolysis since biochar is the main product of slow pyrolysis.

The increasing depletion of natural resources, combined with a wider set of pressures on the environment, has, in recent years, highlighted the need for a more efficient use of energy and a development process that involves alternative energy sources. Energy efficiency has received much attention as a solution, implying both monetary and emissions savings. However, the latter may be partially offset by the income and demand effects of the former, both in more efficient sectors and in spreading to the wider economy. This is the problem of rebound effects. Taking Spain as a case study, and introducing an energy-related CGE model that develops the inclusion of renewables, this paper evaluates a combination of efficiency initiatives to deliver both reduced energy use by households and a more sustainable supply of energy. Our findings suggest that a package aimed at improving efficiency in household electricity and petroleum use, combined with a more competitive supply of energy from renewable sources, may be the only way to get reductions in all energy use, and thus benefit the economy. Specifically, we consider how this package may lead to positive economic impacts and associated rebound effects, where the latter are focused on a greener energy supply.

We analyze past and anticipated future trends in crop yields, per capita consumption, and population to estimate agricultural land requirements globally by 2050 and 2100. Assuming “business as usual,” higher-income countries are expected to show little or no net growth in cropland by the end of the century, even in the face of moderate climate change. In contrast, in lower-income countries, we project that land requirements will grow dramatically, and climate change will likely double this expansion. Although economic growth is often considered to work in opposition to conservation, accelerating economic development in lower-income countries, which would help alleviate poverty and increase standards of living, would also greatly reduce potential cropland expansion in lower-income countries, even with climate change, owing to slower population growth and improved crop yields that more than offset increased per capita consumption. Combining economic development in low-income countries with reduced consumption in high-income countries could dramatically shrink global cropland requirements by the year 2100 even with moderate climate change. Such a remarkable reduction in cropland area would have enormous benefits for both biodiversity and global climate change.  All of the data files are analyzed using R.