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Nowadays, heating using wood, briquettes, or pellets is a curious replacement to fossil fuels such as coal, oil, or gas. Unfortunately, the combustion of biofuels, especially in low-power boilers with unstable operating conditions, releases a lot of gas pollutants (e.g., carbon monoxide (CO), nitric oxide (NO), and various organic compounds) that are usually generated due to the incomplete product combustion. The combustion of biofuel in grate boilers with top-down ignition is a new approach, popular in society (mainly used for coal fuels), which improves the combustion process and reduces the amount of pollutants emitted. This study evaluated the impact of ignition techniques on the emission level of gas pollutants during the combustion of wood logs, briquettes, and pellets of pine in grate-based charging boilers. The combination of top ignition mode with pinewood logs allowed us to achieve a reduction of 6% in CO and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission into the atmosphere. However, the combination of top-down ignition mode with pellets and briquettes produced, in fully operational conditions, 1- to 18-fold higher levels of CO and SO2 respectively, than bottom-up ignition, after an initial period of low level CO and SO2 emissions. During the tests (mainly with ignition from top), substantial emissions of NO were observed of up to 400 mg·m−3 at 10% O2. Therefore, further research is required to decrease emission related to the content of nitrogen in biomass. In this respect, research of impact on the combustion temperature of such emissions is needed.

Abstract This article focuses on the results obtained by the enforcement of a original greenhouse gas emissions policy, issued in recent years in several municipalities in Northern Italy. The Municipality of Reggio Emilia was one of the firsts in Italy to develop and adopt a voluntary building energy-consumption certification method called Ecoabita, aiming to promote energy efficiency in buildings over its jurisdiction. Several reasons make this project innovative: first, the certification method has been processed through and verified by a quality international agency, secondly the procedure is assisting financial-incentive policies both on mandatory (European Directive 2002/91/CE) and voluntary basis (Municipality Protocol Ecoabita), finally it allows to obtain eligible credits for avoided emissions that can be negotiated on the CO2 exchange market. With specific reference to Reggio Emilia case, acknowledged the amount of actions, that are normally scheduled in the municipality throughout a year, it has been evaluated the benefit, in terms of environmental improvement, descended from the protocol, also projecting their trend in future years up to 2020 as well, demonstrating the scheduled interventions are fundamental in sought of the achievement of the Kyoto and Copenhagen commitments. The entire procedure has been developed in accordance to the parameters given by UNFCCC for these kinds of analyses and has been recently confirmed to be one of the most accurate international accounting procedure by a survey developed by the scientific committee of the European Project LIFE-LAKS.

Sustainability has emerged, arguably, as the premiere mission of contemporary architecture. Green assessment tools abound, consultancy services flourish, buildings are marketed on the basis of sustainability performance, and government, media, and corporations seem preoccupied with assessing the quality of the built environment through a green lens. Yet for all the effort, and indeed for all the progress made, fundamental issues resistant to the structural change that is essential for genuine sustainability remain. This paper reviews the state of play of sustainability across the urban landscape. It considers the road travelled so far, and points out some of the major challenges that lie ahead.

As part of the Copenhagen Accord, individual countries have submitted greenhouse gas reduction proposals for the year 2020. This paper analyses the implications for emission reductions, the carbon price, and abatement costs of these submissions. The submissions of the Annex I (industrialised) countries are estimated to lead to a total reduction target of 12-18% below 1990 levels. The submissions of the seven major emerging economies are estimated to lead to an 11-14% reduction below baseline emissions, depending on international (financial) support. Global abatement costs in 2020 are estimated at about USD 60-100 billion, assuming that at least two-thirds of Annex I emission reduction targets need to be achieved domestically. The largest share of these costs are incurred by Annex I countries, although the costs as share of GDP are similar for Annex I as a group and the seven emerging economies as a group, even when assuming substantial international transfers from Annex I countries to the emerging economies to finance their abatement costs. If the restriction of achieving two-thirds of the emission reduction target domestically is abandoned, it would more than double the international carbon price and at the same time reduce global abatement costs by almost 25%.

Abstract Recharging infrastructure (RI) deployment plays a vital role in improving the public recharging availability for transport electrification. Decarbonizing transportation using low-emission electricity requires massive RI network. Even though the consumers are reluctant to purchase electric vehicles (EVs) until RIs are sufficiently placed, the investors are not willing to invest in RIs due to recharging demand uncertainties. Therefore, a scientific planning framework is needed to ensure the sustainable deployment of EV-RIs in complex networks. In this study, a lifecycle thinking-based multi-period infrastructure-planning framework is proposed to develop sustainable public EV-RIs in an urban context. This framework consists of a temporal model to find the dynamic EV-RI demands, a stochastic model to obtain travel distances, and a multi-objective optimization model to select the best desirable capacities and locations for potential EV-RIs. A case study of a typical medium-scale municipality in Canada was assessed using the proposed framework and validated using conventional infrastructure planning scenarios. The geo-processing data, regional travel behaviors, and recharging characteristics were used as model inputs. The results of the case study showed that the proposed framework can be used to estimate multi-period public recharging demands, minimize lifecycle costs, maximize service coverage and infrastructure utilization, and ensure reasonable paybacks compared to conventional planning approaches. Moreover, this framework can be used to compare different investment assistances, which are required in the early stages of the RI deployment process to encourage investors. Furthermore, government and private institutions can use this framework to identify recharging demands, permitting, and developing RIs in the long-run.

Abstract The residential sector accounts for most of energy-consumption in developing countries in the form of traditional energy. The use of commercial energy is nominal and confined mostly to urban areas where fuelwood is already monetized. A model, based on an end-use/process analysis approach, is developed on a spreadsheet, which is capable of simulating scenarios to address issues of increasing traditional energy-demand caused by population growth, sustainable supply capacity of the existing energy resources, potential for development of new and renewable energy resources, technology. This paper is divided into two parts: general energy issues and the modelling approach, and the application of this approach to Nepal in the context of fuelwood-supply sustainability.

Output data prepared for analysis of 25 diverse global cities by the Global Healthy and Sustainable City-Indicator Collaboration study, published in The Lancet Global Health Series on urban design, transport, and health. 2022. https://www.thelancet.com/series/urban-design-2022 Boeing, G. et al. (2022) ‘Using open data and open-source software to develop spatial indicators of urban design and transport features for achieving healthy and sustainable cities’, The Lancet Global Health, 10(6), pp. e907–e918. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00072-9. Data outputs were generated through use of the global-indicators software tool, designed for this study and available from: https://github.com/global-healthy-liveable-cities/global-indicators Further detail on the methods used is provided in the following publication: Liu, S., Higgs, C., Arundel, J., Boeing, G., Cerdera, N., Moctezuma, D., Cerin, E., Adlakha, D., Lowe, M. and Giles-Corti, B. (2021), A Generalized Framework for Measuring Pedestrian Accessibility around the World Using Open Data. Geogr Anal. https://doi.org/10.1111/gean.12290 The study made use of OpenStreetMap, Global Human Settlements and custom data, and is made available under the Open Database License: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/. Any rights in individual contents of the database are licensed under the Database Contents License: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/dbcl/1.0/

Improving access to safe drinking water can result in multi-dimensional impacts on people's livelihood. This has been aptly reflected in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as one of the major objectives. Despite the availability of diverse and complex set of technologies for water purification, pragmatic and cost-effective use of the same is impeding the use of available sources of water. Hence, in country like India simple low-energy technologies such as solar still are likely to succeed. Solar stills would suffice the basic minimum drinking water requirements of man. Solar stills use sunlight, to kill or inactivate many, if not all, of the pathogens found in water. This paper provides an integrated assessment of the suitability of domestic solar still as a viable safe water technology for India. Also an attempt has been made to critically assess the operational feasibility and costs incurred for using this technology in rural India.