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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.

China is confronted with an unprecedented water crisis regarding its quantity and quality. In this study, we quantified the dynamics of China?s embodied water use and chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharge from 2010 to 2015. The analysis was conducted with the latest available water use data across sectors in primary, secondary and tertiary industries and input?output models. The results showed that (1) China?s water crisis was alleviated under urbanisation. Urban consumption occupied the largest percentages (over 30%) of embodied water use and COD discharge, but embodied water intensities in urban consumption were far lower than those in rural consumption. (2) The ?new normal? phase witnessed the optimisation of China?s water use structures. Embodied water use in light-manufacturing and tertiary sectors increased while those in heavy-manufacturing sectors (except chemicals and transport equipment) dropped. (3) Transformation of China?s international market brought positive effects on its domestic water use. China?s water use (116?80 billion tonnes (Bts))(9) and COD discharge (3.95?2.22 million tonnes (Mts)) embodied in export tremendously decreased while its total export values (11?25 trillion CNY) soared. Furthermore, embodied water use and COD discharge in relatively low-end sectors, such as textile, started to transfer from international to domestic markets when a part of China?s production activities had been relocated to other developing countries.

The Chinese government has grown increasingly invested in ecology in recent years. This paper discusses eco-efficiency using data envelopment analysis on 48 cities in Bohai Rim with special focus on the role of industrial structure upgrades. Based on the values from a super undesirable slack-based model, this study investigates eco-efficiency from temporal and spatial perspectives to reveal gaps among Bohai cities but an overall improvement in regional eco-efficiency. Moreover, this study adopts the Global and Local Moran's I to identify positive spatial autocorrelations and shows that most cites in Bohai Rim have high-high, low-low aggregation characteristics. Plus, the economic effects of per capita GDP, industrial structure upgrades on eco-efficiency are determined according to a spatial Durbin model. There appear to be negative spillover effects of industrial structure upgrades on surrounding cities, which reflects an industry transfer phenomenon related to eco-efficiency.

Abstract How to increase clean energy utilization is a key issue in household energy consumption analysis aimed at alleviating air pollution and improving the health of residents. Clean energy substitution is a complex decision process between related stakeholders, and is affected by a combination of factors such as geographical location and household income. To evaluate the potential of clean energy promotion to contribute to better policy decisions and measures, an agent-based household energy consumption model is established to capture the group habits of different stakeholders and the impact mechanism of critical influential factors. Multi-layered structures including various types of households and energy consumption devices are modeled. The experimental results of several scenario analyses show that increased income, improved technology and subsidies from local governments can influence clean energy substitution in the household in various ways. These findings provide a better understanding of the energy cleaning process and decision-making support for governments.

China has built the world’s largest power transmission infrastructure by consuming massive volumes of greenhouse gas- (GHG-) intensive products such as steel. A quantitative analysis of the carbon implications of expanding the transmission infrastructure would shed light on the trade-offs among three connected dimensions of sustainable development, namely, climate change mitigation, energy access and infrastructure development. By collecting a high-resolution inventory, we developed an assessment framework of, and analysed, the GHG emissions caused by China’s power transmission infrastructure construction during 1990–2017. We show that cumulative embodied GHG emissions have dramatically increased by more than 7.3 times those in 1990, reaching 0.89 GtCO2-equivalent in 2017. Over the same period, the gaps between the well-developed eastern and less-developed western regions in China have gradually narrowed. Voltage class, transmission-line length and terrain were important factors that influenced embodied GHG emissions. We discuss measures for the mitigation of GHG emissions from power transmission development that can inform global low-carbon infrastructure transitions. Expanding energy infrastructure has been vital to China’s development plans, but has had negative consequences. This study finds that in 2017 the level of embodied greenhouse gas emissions from the expansion of China’s power transmission infrastructure increased by more than 7.3 times that in 1990.

The advent of intelligent connected technology has greatly enriched the capabilities of vehicles in acquiring information. The integration of short-term information from limited sensing range and long-term information from cloud-based systems in vehicle motion planning and control has become a vital means to deeply explore the energy-saving potential of vehicles. In this study, a traffic-aware ecological cruising control (T-ECC) strategy based on a hierarchical framework for connected electric vehicles in uncertain traffic environments is proposed, leveraging the two distinct temporal-dimension information. In the upper layer that is dedicated for speed planning, a sustainable energy consumption strategy (SECS) is introduced for the first time. It finds the optimal economic speed by converting variations in kinetic energy into equivalent battery energy consumption based on long-term road information. In the lower layer, a synthetic rolling-horizon optimization control (SROC) is developed to handle real-time traffic uncertainties. This control approach jointly optimizes energy efficiency, battery life, driving safety, and comfort for vehicles under dynamically changing traffic conditions. Notably, a stochastic preceding vehicle model is presented to effectively capture the uncertainties in traffic during the driving process. Finally, the proposed T-ECC is validated through simulations in both virtual and real-world driving conditions. Results demonstrate that the proposed strategy significantly improves the energy efficiency of the vehicle.

Abstract Cities are the major contributors to energy consumption and CO2 emissions, as well as being leading innovators and implementers of policy measures in climate change mitigation. Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is an agglomeration of cities put forward by China to strengthen international cooperation among “Belt and Road” countries and promote low-carbon, inclusive, coordinated and sustainable development. Few studies have discussed the emission characteristics of GBA cities. This study, for the first time, compiles emission inventories of 11 GBA cities and their surroundings based on IPCC territorial emission accounting approach, which are consistent and comparable with the national and provincial inventories. Results show that (a) total emissions increased from 426 Mt in 2000 to 610 Mt in 2016, while emissions of GBA cities increased rapidly by 6.9% over 2000–2011 and peaked in 2014 (334 Mt); (b) raw coal and diesel oil are the top two emitters by energy type, while energy production sector and tertiary industry are the top two largest sectors; (c) GBA cities take the lead in low-carbon development, emitted 4% of total national emissions and contributed 13% of national GDP with less than a third of national emission intensities and less than three-quarters of national per capita emissions; (d) Macao, Shenzhen and Hong Kong have the top three lowest emission intensity in the country; (e) most of GBA cities are experiencing the shift from an industrial economy to a service economy, while Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Foshan and Huizhou reached their peak emissions and Guangzhou, Dongguan and Jiangmen remained decreasing emission tendencies; (g) for those coal-dominate or energy-production cities (i.e. Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Zhaoqing, Maoming, Yangjiang, Shanwei, Shaoguan and Zhanjiang) in mid-term industrialization, total emissions experienced soaring increases. The emission inventories provide robust, self-consistent, transparent and comparable data support for identifying spatial–temporal emission characteristics, developing low-carbon policies, monitoring mitigation progress in GBA cities as well as further emissions-related studies at a city-level. The low-carbon roadmaps designed for GBA cities and their surroundings also provide a benchmark for other developing countries/cities to adapting changing climate and achieve sustainable development.

When extreme weather events occur, people often turn to social media platforms to share information, opinions and experiences. One of the topics commonly discussed is the role climate change may or may not have played in influencing an event. Here, we examine Twitter posts that mentioned climate change in the context of three high-magnitude extreme weather events – Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy and Snowstorm Jonas – in order to assess how the framing of the topic and the attention paid to it can vary between events. We also examine the role that contextual factors can play in shaping climate change coverage on the platform. We find that criticism of climate change denial dominated during Irene, while political and ideological struggle frames dominated during Sandy. Discourse during Jonas was, in contrast, more divided between posts about the scientific links between climate change and the events, and posts contesting climate science in general. The focus on political and ideological struggle frames during Sandy reflects the event's occurrence at a time when the Occupy movement was active and the 2012 US Presidential Election was nearing. These factors, we suggest, could also contribute to climate change being a more prominent discussion point during Sandy than during Irene or Jonas. The Jonas frames, meanwhile, hint at lesser public understanding of how climate change may influence cold weather events when compared with tropical storms. Overall, our findings demonstrate how event characteristics and short-term socio-political context can play a critical role in determining the lenses through which climate change is viewed.