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Abstract Sustainability is an important and difficult consideration for the stakeholders/decision-makers when planning a biofuel supply network. In this paper, a Mixed-Integer Non-linear Programming (MINLP) model was developed with the aim to help the stakeholders/decision-maker to select the most sustainable design. In the proposed model, the emergy sustainability index of the whole biodiesel supply networks in a life cycle perspective is employed as the measure of the sustainability, and multiple feedstocks, multiple transport modes, multiple regions for biodiesel production and multiple distribution centers can be considered. After describing the process and mathematic framework of the model, an illustrative case was studied and demonstrated that the proposed methodology is feasible for finding the most sustainable design and planning of biodiesel supply chains.

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

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 theissues 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.

Cassava pulp is a major by-product produced in a cassava starch factory, containing 50-60% of starch (dry basis). Therefore, in this study we are considering its potential as a raw material substrate for the production of methane. To ensure sufficient amounts of nutrients for the anaerobic digestion process, the potential of co-digestion of cassava pulp (CP) with pig manure (PM) was further examined. The effect of the co-substrate mixture ratio was carried out in a semi-continuously fed stirred tank reactor (CSTR) operated under mesophilic condition (37 C) and at a constant OLR of 3.5 kg VS m(-3) d(-1) and a HRT of 15 days. The results showed that co-digestion resulted in higher methane production and reduction of volatile solids (VS) but lower buffering capacity. Compared to the digestion of PM alone, the specific methane yield increased 41% higher when co-digested with CP in concentrations up to 60% of the incoming VS. This was probably due to an increase in available easily degradable carbohydrates as the CP ratio in feedstock increased. The highest methane yield and VS removal of 306 mL g(-1) VSadded and 61%, respectively, were achieved with good process stability (VFA:Alkalinity ratio < 0.1) when CP accounted for 60% of the feedstock VS. A further increase of CP of the feedstock led to a decrease in methane yield and solid reductions. This appeared to be caused by an extremely high C:N ratio of the feedstock resulting in a deficiency of ammonium nitrogen for microbial growth and buffering capacity.

Global energy consumption is increasing at a dramatic rate and will likely continue to do so. The major source of energy is still fossil fuel, which has resulted in the well-documented problem of global warming due to the emission of greenhouse gases from the burning of such fuel. Climate change and global warming are among the crucial and complex issues encountered by the world today, and they require an immediate solution. Technological innovation is the key to ensuring energy security without causing emissions and providing efficient cost-effective energy solutions. Power electronic technologies offer high reliability and renewable energy conversion efficiency, thus contributing to energy conservation, improving energy efficiency, and helping in the mitigation of harmful global emissions. This review focuses on various aspects of power electronic technologies and their importance in tackling carbon emission and global warming problems. The key topologies of power electronic converters are explained based on types, control difficulties, benefits, and drawbacks. Power electronic controllers utilized for energy conversion are comprehensively reviewed with regard to their structure, algorithm complexity, strengths and weaknesses, and mathematical modeling. The review focuses on power converters and controllers used in different applications and highlight their contributions to energy conservation, increasing the share of renewable energy sources, and mitigating emissions. Moreover, existing research gaps, issues, and challenges are identified. The insights provided by are expected to lead to the enhanced development of advanced power electronic converters and controllers for sustainable energy conversion. Such development can reduce carbon emissions and mitigate global warming.

Often the several stakeholders involved in the agricultural sector place a greater emphasis on the negative externalities from farming production rather than on the solutions and approaches to mitigate, namely impacts from pollution. The scientific literature, in certain circumstances, follows this tendency leaving a vast chasm of enormous potential left to be explored. It is important to contribute towards the reduction of this gap, highlighting the best management practices implemented across the agricultural sector around the world, specifically to make them more visible and give incentive to the several agents in adopting and spreading their use. In this way, the main objective is to stress the best management practices presented by the global scientific literature from the farming sector. To achieve this objective methodology based on bibliometric analysis-factor-analysis-literature survey approach was considered, applied to 150 documents obtained from the Web of Science (core collection) related with the following topics: best management practice; agricultural economics; air, soil and water pollution. As main insights, it is worth referring the best management practices to deal with problems from agricultural production, such as, for example, the use of agricultural residues as feedstock for renewable energies. With regard to sustainable development in the agricultural sector, concepts such as "sustainable remediation" have their place. On the other hand, the agricultural and environmental policies and the agricultural costs associated with the several farming practices also play a determinant role here. Finally, only fraction of the scientific documents analysed (16 papers) belong to the group of studies related to policies, showing that there are potential subjects to be addressed here in future studies related with these topics. The same happens for cost-benefit analyses (24 documents).

An augmented measurement uncertainty approach for CO2 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 CO2 emission determination are evaluated in detail, from which a general matrix scheme is developed that includes all factors and stages needed for total CO2 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 CO2 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 CO2 determination procedures, which indicate that the actual CO2 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 CO2 emission budget for the case plant complies with the official pre-determined uncertainty levels maxima in the EU guidelines.

Abstract Offshore cultivation of seaweed provides an innovative feedstock for biobased products supporting blue growth in northern Europe. This paper analyzes two alternative exploitation pathways: energy and protein production. The first pathway is based on anaerobic digestion of seaweed which is converted into biogas, for production of electricity and heat, and digestate, used as fertilizer; the second pathway uses seaweed hydrolysate as a substrate for cultivation of heterotrophic microalgae. As a result the seaweed sugars are consumed while new proteins are produced enhancing the total output. We performed a comparative Life Cycle Assessment of five scenarios identifying the critical features affecting resource efficiency and environmental performance of the systems with the aim of providing decision support for the design of future industrial scale production processes. The results show that all scenarios provide environmental benefits in terms of mitigation of climate change, with biogas production from dried Laminaria digitata being the most favorable scenario, quantified as −18.7*10 2 kg CO 2 eq./ha. This scenario presents also the lowest consumption of total cumulative energy demand, 1.7*10 4 MJ/ha, and even resulting in a net reduction of the fossil energy fraction, −1.9*10 4 MJ/ha compared to a situation without seaweed cultivation. All scenarios provide mitigation of marine eutrophication thanks to bioextraction of nitrogen and phosphorus during seaweed growth. The material consumption for seeded lines has 2–20 times higher impact on human toxicity (cancer) than the reduction achieved by energy and protein substitution. However, minor changes in cultivation design, i.e. use of stones instead of iron as ballast to weight the seeded lines, dramatically reduces human toxicity (cancer). Externalities from the use of digestate as fertilizer affect human toxicity (non-cancer) due to transfer of arsenic from aquatic environment to agricultural soil. However concentration of heavy metals in digestate does not exceed the limit established by Danish regulation. The assessment identifies seaweed productivity as the key parameter to further improve the performance of the production systems which are a promising service provider of environmental restoration and climate change mitigation.