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In spite of ambitious investments by the Chinese government in renewable energy sources, the country’s investment in coal power accelerated in recent years, raising concerns of massive overcapacity and undermining the central policy goal of promoting cleaner energy. In this paper, we ask why this happened, focusing on policies that incentivized excessive entry in the coal power sector and using a simple economic model to illustrate the policies’ effects. Using coal-power project approval records from 2013 to 2016, we find the approval rate of coal power was about 3 times higher after approval authority was decentralized, with larger effects in regions producing more coal. We estimate that local coal production accounts for an additional 54GW of approved coal power in 2015 (other things equal), which is about 1/4 of total approved capacity in that year.

The climate crisis is the biggest threat to the health, development, and wellbeing of the current and future generations. While there is extensive evidence on the direct impacts of climate change on human livelihood, there is little evidence on how children and young people are affected, and even less discussion and evidence on how the climate crisis could affect violence against children.In this commentary, we review selected research to assess the links between the climate crisis and violence against children.We employ a social-ecological perspective as an overarching framework to organize findings from the literature and call attention to increased violence against children as a specific, yet under-examined, direct and indirect consequence of the climate crisis.Using such a perspective, we examine how the climate crisis exacerbates the risk of violence against children at the continually intersecting and interacting levels of society, community, family, and the individual levels. We propose increased risk of armed conflict, forced displacement, poverty, income inequality, disruptions in critical health and social services, and mental health problems as key mechanisms linking the climate crisis and heightened risk of violence against children. Furthermore, we posit that the climate crisis serves as a threat multiplier, compounding existing vulnerabilities and inequities within populations and having harsher consequences in settings, communities, households, and for children already experiencing adversities.We conclude with a call for urgent efforts from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to further investigate the specific empirical links between the climate crisis and violence against children and to design, test, implement, fund, and scale evidence-based, rights-based, and child friendly prevention, support, and response strategies to address violence against children.

The Lower Silurian Longmaxi Formation is an organic-rich (black) mudrock that is widely considered to be a potential shale gas reservoir in the southern Sichuan Basin (the Yangtze plate) in Southwest China. A case study is presented to characterise the shale gas reservoir using a workflow to evaluate its characteristics. A typical characterisation of a gas shale reservoir was determined using basset sample analysis (geochemical, petrographical, mineralogical, and petrophysical) through a series of tests. The results show that the Lower Silurian Longmaxi Formation shale reservoir is characterised by organic geochemistry and mineralogical, petrophysical and gas adsorption. Analysis of the data demonstrates that the reservoir properties of the rock in this region are rich and that the bottom group of the Longmaxi Formation has the greatest potential for gas production due to higher thermal maturity, total organic carbon (TOC) enrichment, better porosity and improved fracture potential. These results will provide a basis for further evaluation of the hydrocarbon potential of the Longmaxi Formation shale in the Sichuan Basin and for identifying areas with exploration potential.

This study examines the long-term effects of coal and geothermal consumption on carbon emission while controlling for globalization and economic growth toward carbon neutrality in newly industrialized countries, including Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia, and Thailand for the period of 1990-2008. We compare the resulting relationships from various estimation techniques, such as fixed-effect ordinary least squares, dynamic ordinary least squares, fully modified ordinary least squares, and method of moment quantile regression. Overall, this study determines that the consumption of coal and geothermal energy is a significant determinant with a causal effect on carbon emission. The rise in coal energy consumption significantly increases carbon emission across all quantiles (0.1-0.90), whereas the rise in geothermal energy consumption reduces it across all quantiles (0.1-0.90). This relationship is also consistent across all quantiles (0.1-0.9). Policy suggestions are proposed on the basis of these findings.

Recently, the international trade of various bioenergy commodities has grown rapidly, yet this growth is also hampered by some barriers. The aim of this paper is to obtain an overview of what market actors currently perceive as major opportunities and barriers for the development of international bioenergy trade. The work focuses on three bioenergy commodities: bioethanol, biodiesel and wood pellets. Data were collected through an internet-based questionnaire. The majority of the 141 respondents had an industrial background. Geographically, two-thirds were from (mainly Western) Europe, with other minor contributions from all other continents. Results show that import tariffs and the implementation of sustainability certification systems are perceived as (potentially) major barriers for the trade of bioethanol and biodiesel, while logistics are seen mainly as an obstacle for wood pellets. Development of technical standards was deemed more as an opportunity than a barrier for all commodities. Most important drivers were high fossil fuel prices and climate change mitigation policies. Concluding, to overcome some of the barriers, specific actions will be required by market parties and policy makers. Import tariffs for biofuels could be reduced or abolished, linked to multinational trade agreements and harmonization (including provisions on technical standards and sustainability requirements).

Abstract Worldwide, many estuaries have the potential to harness tidal stream energy via the conversion of current velocities into a consumable energy source. However, the effects of future sea level rise on the tidal stream energy resource within different estuary types are largely unknown. To address this knowledge gap, 978 idealised hydrodynamic simulations were carried out to first identify estuary types and the location of hotspots within them that are promising for tidal energy exploitation in present-day conditions, and then provide insights into the altered tidal stream energy of different estuary types under various future sea level rise and river inflow scenarios. The results indicate that, under sea level rise, the tidal stream energy of prismatic estuaries reduces more than that of converging estuaries. This implies that estuaries that are currently worth exploiting for tidal power may cease to be in the future due to accelerating sea level rise. Further, as sea level rise may bring about geomorphic adjustments, the spatial energy patterns within an estuary may shift and optimal energy sites may be eliminated or displaced. These climate change effects pose a serious challenge for the management of tidal energy generation in future. In this context, the findings of this study are of practical significance for decision-makers in designing long-term strategies for the development of tidal energy installations in estuaries under rising mean sea levels.

As a valid means to improve building sustainability, envelope and energy consuming systems’ (e.g. HVAC, BMS) commissioning should be performed continually during the whole building lifecycle. ICT-supported lifecycle commissioning of integrated systems is experiencing a rapid growth through international cooperation in Research and Development (R&D). Therefore, the author formulates the following hypothesis for his research: New properties should be constructed matching high energy standards. Furthermore, there is a need to maintain existing buildings regularly to prevent their degradation. If energy consumption of buildings is to be reduced and acceptable comfort levels are to be maintained, then Continual Commissioning (CC) methodologies should be deployed. However, all currently identified CC practices are based on specific skills and tools available to their developers, and without common methodological structure applicable to every system or facility under commissioning. This gap should be covered with formulation of the progressive, flexible and scalable concept called “Modular Continual Commissioning” (mCC). Practical application of this concept will help to save labour, time and costs required for building integrated systems’ operation and commissioning. It is expected that the results of this thesis will be generally applicable and can be used for the further development of Continual Commissioning (CC) processes in various facilities and will improve buildings’ comfort and efficiency.

Anaerobic nitrogen removal technologies offer advantages in terms of energy and cost savings over conventional nitrification-denitrification systems. A mathematical model was constructed to evaluate the influence of process operation on the coexistence of nitrite dependent anaerobic methane oxidizing bacteria (n-damo) and anaerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria (anammox) in a single granule. The nitrite and methane affinity constants of n-damo bacteria were measured experimentally. The biomass yield of n-damo bacteria was derived from experimental data and a thermodynamic state analysis. Through simulations, it was found that the possible survival of n-damo besides anammox bacteria was sensitive to the nitrite/ammonium influent ratio. If ammonium was supplied in excess, n-damo bacteria were outcompeted. At low biomass concentration, n-damo bacteria lost the competition against anammox bacteria. When the biomass loading closely matched the biomass concentration needed for full nutrient removal, strong substrate competition occurred resulting in oscillating removal rates. The simulation results further reveal that smaller granules enabled higher simultaneous ammonium and methane removal efficiencies. The implementation of simultaneous anaerobic methane and ammonium removal will decrease greenhouse gas emissions, but an economic analysis showed that adding anaerobic methane removal to a partial nitritation/anammox process may increase the aeration costs with over 20%. Finally, some considerations were given regarding the practical implementation of the process.

Commercial bakery products in the United States such as breads, rolls, frozen cakes, pies, pastries, cookies, and crackers consume over $870 million of energy annually. Energy efficiency measures can reduce the energy costs of significant energy processes and increase earnings predictability. This article summarizes key energy efficiency measures relevant to industrial baking. Case study data from bakeries and related facilities worldwide are used to identify savings and cost metrics associated with efficiency measures. While the focus of this paper is on U.S. bakeries, findings can be generalized to bakeries internationally. A discussion of energy management systems is provided and how energy efficiency measures savings can be sustained. Energy and plant managers at bakeries can use this information to cost-effectively reduce energy consumption while utilities and policy makers can apply the findings to energy efficiency program design.