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Abstract Biodiesel has gained the forefront of our focus on renewable transportation fuels. This article provides a comprehensive review on the sources used as feedstock and their classification based on generation or type (edible, non-edible, waste resources and animal fats) along with a variety of classical and modern oil extraction techniques. The technical aspects of the various biodiesel production methods currently implemented to the best of our knowledge are discussed here, which include in-situ biodiesel production, both catalysed (homogeneous and heterogeneous systems) and uncatalysed classical production approaches, with emphasis on how each of these approaches are affected by their reaction parameters. The review also highlights the observed drawbacks of each process with a view to assessing the implementation of supercritical and superheated technologies as an alternative, economically feasible advancement. Supercritical process (SCP) has shown great prospect in the obtainment of high quality biodiesel from a wide range of high to low grade feedstock with minimal impacts on the presence of water or FFAs (free fatty acids). From available literature it is shown that these do not affect the process significantly, and various other supercritical fluids such as methyl acetate, tert-butyl methyl ether (MTBE) and dimethyl carbonate can also be used to avoid glycerol formation. The process however, suffers from high initial implementation cost being the most prominent drawback, among others like thermal degradation of the fuel. Another promising technique, the superheated vapour technology (SHV) has emerged as an alternative, with limited literature proving the superiority of either of these processes to be inconclusive. In future works, researchers need to look into various aspects such as developing a spiral reactor for heat recovery, using software based optimization for eliminating redundant experiments analysing production cost for industrial scale-up and improving the fuel’s oxidative stability by adding antioxidants for convenient long-term storage and use.

Abstract Concentrating solar power (CSP) plant with parabolic trough collector (PTC) using synthetic or organic oil based heat transfer fluid is the most established and commercially attractive technology. In this paper, extensive energy and economic analysis of PTC based CSP plants, without storage, are reported. Effects of turbine inlet pressure, turbine inlet temperature, design radiation, plant size, and various modifications of Rankine cycle on overall efficiency as well as levelized cost of energy are studied. Furthermore, the variation in optimal turbine inlet pressure with turbine inlet temperature, design radiation, plant size, and various modifications of Rankine cycle are also analyzed. Energy and cost optimal turbine inlet pressures for 1 MWe plant (with basic Rankine cycle) are about 4.5–7.5 MPa and 3.5–7.5 MPa, respectively. The optimum pressure is observed to be a weak function of design solar radiation. The overall efficiency increases and levelized cost of energy decreases with increase in turbine inlet temperature, plant size and various modifications of the Rankine cycle.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of rural energy transition in cooking options in India. Although India is aiming to achieve a double-digit economic growth, a large share of rural households still rely on firewood for cooking which not only has serious repercussions of increasing indoor pollution but also has a concomitant adverse effect on women and child morbidity and mortality. However, transition to clean energy options like improved cookstoves for these households may not be necessarily linear. It is often driven or resisted by latent factors such as caste, trust, social capital, information flow, social positioning of clusters that are deeply embedded in the social and cultural norms and values specific to local rural contexts. This has been shown in the present case study that pertains to eight villages in the remote and deprived Purnea district of Bihar and the need for internalizing them in the macro energy policymaking has been established in the paper. Design/methodology/approach The paper applies a macro foundation research that is complemented by micro foundation tools of fuzzy cognitive mapping-based mental model framework to achieve the purpose of the study. Focused-group discussions and interviews are also conducted to establish the narrative of the paper. Findings Caste, socio-political position, asset structure, remoteness, culture and technology access affect rural households’ decision making capability that is related to shifting from using the traditionalmeans of firewood and biomass based traditional cookstoves for cooking to adopting improved clean cooking stoves which will enable the transition toward the use of clean rural energy in the eight villages in Bihar chosen for this study. Research limitations/implications The findings of the paper have larger implications for the broader macro energy policymaking in the country by taking into account the non-linear, latent factors of village contexts. Practical implications The research will help energy policymakers in decision-making and will guide the implementation process of national- and state-level policies on rural energy transition in India. Social implications The findings of the paper will help the smoother implementation of national- and state-level rural energy transition policies for cooking, creating developmental dividends for rural Indian households. Originality/value The research is new with regard to the application of non-deterministic fuzzy cognitive mapping-based mental model approach to contribute to the country’s national- and state-level rural energy transition policies.

Summary Superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) is known to be an excellent high-efficient energy storage device. This article is focussed on various potential applications of the SMES technology in electrical power and energy systems. SMES device founds various applications, such as in microgrids, plug-in hybrid electrical vehicles, renewable energy sources that include wind energy and photovoltaic systems, low-voltage direct current power system, medium-voltage direct current and alternating current power systems, fuel cell technologies and battery energy storage systems. An extensive bibliography is presented on these applications of SMES. Also, some conclusive remarks in terms of future perspective are presented. Also, the present ongoing developments and constructions are also discussed. This study provides a basic guideline to investigate further technological development and new applications of SMES, and thus benefits the readers, researchers, engineers and academicians who deal with the research works in the area of SMES. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Achieving carbon-neutrality has become a global agenda following the ratification of the Paris Agreement. For the developing countries, in particular, attaining a low-carbon economy is particularly important since these economies are predominantly fossil-fuel dependent, to which Bangladesh is no exception. Therefore, this study specifically aimed at evaluating the environmental impacts associated with energy consumption and other key macroeconomic variables in the context of Bangladesh over the 1975-2016 period. As opposed to the conventional practice of using carbon dioxide emissions to proxy environmental quality, this study makes a novel attempt to use the carbon footprints to measure environmental welfare in Bangldesh. The outcomes from this study are expected to facilitate the carbon-neutrality objective of Bangladesh and, therefore, enable the nation to comply with its commitments concerning the attainment of the targets enlisted under the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals declarations. The econometric analysis involved the application of methods that are suitable for handling the structural break issues in the data. The overall findings from empirical exercises reveal that aggregate energy consumption, fossil fuel consumption, and natural gas consumption boost the carbon footprint figures of Bangladesh. In contrast, nonfossil fuel consumption and hydroelectricity consumption are witnessed to abate the carbon footprint levels. Besides, economic growth and international trade are also evidenced to further increase the carbon footprints. Hence, these findings suggest that a clean energy transition within the Bangladesh economy can be the panacea to the nation's persitently aggravating environmental hardships. Furthermore, the causality analysis confirmed the presence of unidirectional causalities stemming from total energy consumption, fossil fuel consumption, natural gas consumption, hydroelectricity consumption, economic growth, and international trade to the carbon footprints. On the other hand, nonfossil fuel consumption is found to be bidirectionally associated with carbon footprints. In line with these aforementioned findings, several key policy suggestions are put forward regarding the facilitation of the carbon-neutrality agenda in Bangladesh.

Abstract The aim of the present research is to evaluate future primary energy consumption in the Italian thermoelectric sector. Despite its importance in the European context, researches addressing the primary energy consumption in the Italian power sector are not available in the literature. Therefore, to bridge this gap, a detailed representation of the power generation sector is proposed by modeling each individual thermal power station by considering its main features (i.e. maximum power, minimum stable level, efficiency, etc.), in order to estimate the future energy balances and the trend of power prices. An evolution of the generation fleet is designed according to available information from different sources and a simulation based on plant by plant competition is performed up to the year 2022. The impact of different fuel and carbon price scenarios is analyzed in terms of primary energy consumption. The analysis has shown that a high level of CO 2 prices does not foster the coal to gas transition, but it causes a relevant increase of power prices. In fact in the best case, it is detected that in 2022, for a carbon price of 30 €/t and a “base” price scenario for fossil fuels, there is a decrease of coal consumption of ∼5.6% and an increase of power price of +19% with respect to the base carbon prices. Therefore, it follows that final users are penalized, because they are expected to pay much higher electricity bills to obtain a modest reduction of coal consumption and carbon emissions.

Purpose While sustainable growth extends the use of resources, it is crucial to explore green growth (GG) that ensures growth sustainability through the adoption of renewable energy. Thus, this study is motivated to investigate the influence of renewable energy on GG in 19 emerging countries spanning a decade and a half (2000–2020). This study aims to provide a quantitative examination of how renewable energy contributes to sustainable economic growth. Design/methodology/approach This study uses advanced dynamic common correlated effect techniques to assess the long-term effectiveness of renewable energy on GG. Additionally, it uses Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality tests to identify synchronicity between the respective variables. Findings The findings of this study reveal that the adoption and utilisation of renewable energy effectively promote GG in emerging economies. However, in contrast, the significantly greater negative influence of trade openness on GG compared to renewable energy highlights the inadequacy and limited impact of cleaner energy alone. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, existing literature predominantly focuses on investigating the relationship between renewable energy and economic growth, with only a limited number of studies exploring the impact on GG. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study would be the first to analyse this relationship in these emerging countries. Furthermore, previous estimation frameworks used in prior studies often overlook the crucial factor of cross-sectional dependence (CSD) among countries. Therefore, this study addresses this issue using a contemporary econometric approach that deals not only with CSD but other biases, like endogeneity, autocorrelation, small sample bias, etc.

Abstract Fossil based resources are a major contributor to energy and chemicals to modern-day development. The negative environmental impacts of fossil-based resources accompanied by its fast depletion has alerted the scientific community and governments to find an alternative source. Biobased biorefineries are dependent on the natural organic biomass for the generation of biofuel and biochemicals. The present review is a comprehensive account of biobased biorefineries focusing on substrates, processes that include existing conventional and advanced biotechnologies approaches for its successful implementations on a large scale. The environmental, life cycle, socio-economic sustainability, and policy decision of biobased refineries are also discussed. Further, it can be the potential future alternative to fulfill the dream of a biobased circular economy. The review suggests that biomass being abundantly available and has great potential to be used for the generation of biofuel and biochemicals due to the technological advances available in the area. The integration of biobased refineries steps into existing petrochemical refineries structure can facilitate sustainable development replacing fossil-based products without the need of developing new infrastructures. The concept of utilization of biomass in the biobased refineries can act as a model system for the future circular bioeconomy.

Abstract Biodiesel offers to be one of the renewable fuel that is in great demand due to hike in price and exploitation of various conventional resources. Biodiesel has gained wide attention as it emits less carbon monoxide and other pollutants. Biodiesel is known as mono-alkyl esters of long fatty acid, produced by transesterification in the presence of triglycerides and alcohol. The choice of catalyst and feedstock are the most important criteria for effective production of biodiesel. Catalyst and raw material selection play a significant role in the cost of biodiesel production. The heterogeneous catalyst offers a wide option for the catalytic selection because of its high selectivity and reusability characteristics. Recent advances in the field of catalytic technology for biodiesel production using nanosized catalyst is because of high stability over the repeated use. Nanocatalyst solves various bottleneck problem associated in the production of biodiesel. The present review is focused on various technologies and challenges linked to the production process, including some important aspects of feedstock selection. Thus the present review is maily focused on various catalytic technology used for biodiesel production using different production methods and potential feedstocks.