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Abstract Anaerobic digestion of animal by-products was investigated in batch and semi-continuously fed, reactor experiments at 55 °C and for some experiments also at 37 °C. Separate or mixed by-products from pigs were tested. The methane potential measured by batch assays for meat- and bone flour, fat, blood, hair, meat, ribs, raw waste were: 225, 497, 487, 561, 582, 575, 359, 619 dm 3 kg −1 respectively, corresponding to 50–100% of the calculated theoretical methane potential. Dilution of the by-products had a positive effect on the specific methane yield with the highest dilutions giving the best results. High concentrations of long-chain fatty acids and ammonia in the by-products were found to inhibit the biogas process at concentrations higher than 5 g lipids dm −3 and 7 g N dm −3 respectively. Pretreatment (pasteurization: 70 °C, sterilization: 133 °C, and alkali hydrolysis (NaOH) had no effect on achieved methane yields. Mesophilic digestion was more stable than thermophilic digestion, and higher methane yield was noticed at high waste concentrations. The lower yield at thermophilic temperature and high waste concentration was due to ammonia inhibition. Co-digestion of 5% pork by-products mixed with pig manure at 37 °C showed 40% higher methane production compared to digestion of manure alone.

Abstract In this article, we investigate the intergenerational transmission of sustainable consumption practices. Whereas previous studies have used self-reported attitudes and behaviour, this study uses data on actual energy consumption for space-heating and hot water combined with extensive panel data from Danish administrative registers. The paper shows significant intergenerational correlations between the energy consumption patterns of adults and their mothers, also when controlling for the energy consumption of the mother-in-law, where possible. Furthermore, it shows that the intergenerational correlation is slightly stronger for adults with lower income levels. These results suggest that energy consumption practices are shared and reproduced within the family. Following theories of practice, the intergenerational similarities in energy consumption practices refer to bodily learned practices that are indirectly transmitted and negotiated through family relations. In this way, these findings also contribute to a better understanding of how practical understanding regarding how to perform practices is transmitted within more ordinary aspects of consumption that play a less obvious role in distinction. To ensure more sustainable consumption practices in the future, this paper points to the importance of the role of family relations and the transmission of embodied practices.

Climaps.eu is an online atlas providing data, visualizations and commentaries about climate adaptation debate. It contains 33 issue-maps and 5 issue-stories. Each of the maps focuses on one issue in the adaptation debate and provides.The atlas is addressed to climate experts (negotiators, NGOs and companies concerned by global warming, journalists…) and to citizens willing to engage with the issues of climate adaptation.It employs advanced digital methods to deploy the complexity of the issues related to climate adaptation and information design to make this complexity legible.

Renewable energy has been prioritized in Danish energy policy since the early 1980s. This has led to the current situation where Denmark is one of the leading countries in the world in the field of wind energy utilization. The background for this success is a story about how a society can manage the development and diffusion of sustainable technologies so that they are simultaneously socially acceptable and environmentally benign. Consequently, this article describes the relationship between the organization of wind power and the protection of nature. The aim is to analyse which kinds of public planning and policy can promote wind power and nature protection in a situation where a conflict exists between these two issues. The discussion acknowledges that it has been a serious problem to balance these contrasting considerations. However, it also suggests that the problems seem solvable if technology development, the social organization relating to the use of the technology and proper planning are brought together to work in a spirit of local involvement. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment

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.

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is one of the world’s most vulnerable deltas to climate change and sea level rise. Adequate understandings of future hydrological changes are crucial for effective water management and risk-proofing, however, this knowledge body is currently very limited. This study quantifies the responses of the VMD’s river flow regime to multiple stimuli, namely future upstream inflow variation, local climate change, and sea level rise. The one-dimensional hydrodynamic model MIKE 11 was used to simulate discharges and water levels across the delta. We developed four scenarios to represent changes in the upstream discharges, precipitation changes and sea level rise, covering the 2036–2065 period. We downscaled climate data and applied three bias-correction methods for five General Circulation Models (GCM), and two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The climate change projections show similar trends of increasing wet season precipitation and decreasing dry season precipitation. However, cross-scenario variations are sometimes large, depending on the individual GCMs, the RCPs and specific locations. The hydraulic simulation results indicate that, under discharge changes between −20% and +10%, combined with in-delta precipitation variations during the dry season, river discharges at the four representative stations could reduce substantially from −2.5% to −100.2%. During the wet season, the calculated river discharges show increase between 7.3% and 46.7% under four considered scenarios. Substantial changes in the VMD’s river flow regime could have potentially serious implications for water management, especially saltwater intrusion, and therefore calling for timely adaptation measures.

Abstract An augmented measurement uncertainty approach for CO 2 emissions from coal-fired power plants with a focus on the often forgotten contributions from sampling errors occurring over the entire fuel-to-emission pathway is presented. Current methods for CO 2 emission determination are evaluated in detail, from which a general matrix scheme is developed that includes all factors and stages needed for total CO 2 determination, which is applied to the monitoring plan of a representative medium-sized coal-fired power plant. In particular sampling involved significant potential errors, as identified and assessed by the Theory of Sampling (TOS), which also shows how these can be eliminated and/or minimised. Since coal-related CO 2 emission calculations not only require analytical results of the carbon content of coal itself but also of the by-products fly ash and bottom ash, sampling procedures of these three materials were also given full attention. A systematic error (bias) is present in the current sampling approach, which increases the present uncertainty estimate unnecessarily. For both primary sampling and analytical sample extraction steps, random variations, which hitherto only have been considered to a minor extent, have now also been fully quantified and included in the overall uncertainty. Elimination of all identified sampling errors lead to modified CO 2 determination procedures, which indicate that the actual CO 2 emission is approximately 20,000 t higher than the present estimate. Based on extensive empirical sampling experiments, a fully comprehensive uncertainty estimate procedure has been devised. Even though uncertainties increased (indeed one particular factor is substantially higher, the so-called “emission factor”), the revised CO 2 emission budget for the case plant complies with the official pre-determined uncertainty levels maxima in the EU guidelines.