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Even with the benefits of sustainability and climate change reporting, there is limited information on how municipalities are reporting on performance for external stakeholders in comparison with private sector organizations. The purpose of this research was to gain an understanding of the current state of sustainability and climate change reporting at the local level and to investigate the extent to which municipalities across Ontario, Canada, report. We used content analysis to identify the presence or non-presence of information on the websites of 38 municipalities and analyzed the results using descriptive statistics. Our analysis showed that the sample municipalities were not widely reporting on sustainability or climate change performance. Also, we identified a gap between the number of plans and reports produced by sample municipalities, with the latter being less common, indicating a need for an improved evaluation of plan implementation. Further, we found that a provincial regulation that required municipalities to make their energy conservation and demand management plans public did not guarantee publication of the plan on a municipality’s website. This study contributes to the growing field of sustainability and climate change planning and reporting by local governments and offers empirical evidence specific to Ontario, Canada.

In the ever-evolving landscape of modern wireless communication systems, the escalating demand for seamless connectivity has propelled the imperative for avant garde, versatile, and high-performance antennas to unprecedented heights [...]

This work presents a new method to evaluate generation reserve margins in systems with renewable sources. In assessing the adequacy of generation reserve amounts, besides failures in generating units, their capacity intermittencies, unavailability, and capacity limits of the transmission system are duly considered. Risk indices are evaluated using quasi-sequential Monte Carlo simulation techniques. The cross-entropy method is used to treat rare events and also to identify critical equipment for operation in each scenario. The proposed method is applied to the original IEEE RTS system and to a modified configuration with insertion of wind power plants. A subsystem of the Brazilian interconnected network is also used to illustrate the practicality of the proposed method.

This paper evaluates the performance of a recently patented rotationally asymmetrical dielectric totally internally reflective concentrator (RADTIRC) under diffuse radiation. The RADTIRC has a geometrical concentration gain of 4.969 and two half acceptance angles of ± 30° and ± 40° along the x-axis and z-axis respectively. Simulation and experimental work have been carried out to determine the optical concentration gain under diffuse radiation. It was found that the RADTIRC has an optical concentration gain of 1.94 under diffuse irradiance. The experimental results for the single concentrator showed an optoelectronic gain of 2.13, giving a difference of 9.8% due to factors such as the presence of direct radiation during experiments, the increase in diffuse radiation due to the reflection from surrounded buildings as well as from the ground reflection.

Abstract Bitumen is too viscous to be produced by conventional recovery methods and significant amounts are too deep to be recovered by mining, necessitating enhanced in-situ oil recovery techniques. The majority of operating and planned in-situ bitumen projects employ thermal techniques to lower the bitumen's viscosity, allowing it to be produced. The viscosity characteristics of the bitumen consequently have a significant effect on production rates and recovery. Bitumen viscosity and chemical composition variation with depth within a single reservoir column has been reported for many heavy oil and oil sand reservoirs in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and elsewhere in the world. This study investigates, through reservoir simulation, the effects of viscosity variation with depth on the SAGD process and the resulting produced oil characteristics. Oil characteristics, including chemical component and viscosity profiles were built into a variety of reservoir simulation models. The simulation results indicate that the produced oil viscosity and component concentration vary as the steam chamber develops. The trend of the produced oil characteristics is related to the original in-situ profiles of and the reservoir flow barriers. In conjunction with oil rate, surface heave, or other available data, the produced oil characteristics may be used to suggest steam chamber development and the presence of barriers or baffles. The presented approach has potential to become a useful technique for SAGD steam chamber growth monitoring and production optimization.

The utilization of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has increased rapidly due to their ability to perform a variety of tasks, including industrial inspection. Conducting testing with actual flights within industrial facilities proves to be both expensive and hazardous, posing risks to the system, the facilities, and their personnel. This paper presents an innovative and reliable methodology for developing such applications, ensuring safety and efficiency throughout the process. It involves a staged transition from simulation to reality, wherein various components are validated at each stage. This iterative approach facilitates error identification and resolution, enabling subsequent real flights to be conducted with enhanced safety after validating the remainder of the system. Furthermore, this article showcases two use cases: wind turbine inspection and photovoltaic plant inspection. By implementing the suggested methodology, these applications were successfully developed in an efficient and secure manner.

This paper discusses the comprehensive integrity assessment of feeders fabricated from normalized pipe and elbow piping items subject to Flow Accelerated Corrosion (FAC) during in-service conditions. The arguments are based on the improved mechanistic understanding of FAC; review of international piping rupture events; examinations of removed feeders; burst-pressure tests of prototypical and ex-service feeder piping sections, the minimum acceptable wall thickness for feeder piping; and station feeder life cycle management plans. It is concluded that rupture of feeder pipe due to FAC is a very low probability event.

Abstract The article introduces the process of deep energy retrofit carried out on a residential building in the UK, using a ‘TCosy’ approach in which the existing building is completely surrounded by a new thermal envelope. It reports on the entire process, from establishing the characteristics of the existing building, carrying out design simulations, documenting the off- site manufacture and on-site installation, and carrying out instrumental monitoring, occupant studies and performance evaluation. Multi-objective optimisation is used throughout the process, for establishing the characteristics of the building before the retrofit, conducting the design simulations, and evaluating the success of the completed retrofit. Building physics parameters before and after retrofit are evaluated in an innovative way through simulation of dynamic heating tests with calibrated models, and the method can be used as quality control measure in future retrofit programmes. New insights are provided into retrofit economics in the context of occupants’ health and wellbeing improvements. The wide scope of the lessons learnt can be instrumental in the creation of continuing professional development programmes, university courses, and public education that raises awareness and demand. These lessons can also be valuable for development of new funding schemes that address the outstanding challenges and the need for updating technical reference material, informing policy and building regulations.