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Since the great east Japan earthquake, photovoltaic (PV) and wind generator (WG) are introduced actively as a solution regarding shortage of electrical power with the stopping of nuclear power plants. Renewable energy source such as PV generator and WG contribute for prevention of global warming because these energy dose not use fossil fuels and it can reduce carbon dioxide emissions. However, it is difficult to predict renewable energy facility output because this output depends on weather conditions. It may reduce power quality. As a countermeasure of the fluctuation of power output, battery energy storage system (BESS) is introduced into power system. BESS is very effective facility because it can compensate the surplus and shortage power by charging and discharging. However, it is necessary to investigate the high cost for installation of large BESS. Thus, the fuel cell and the hydrogen generation apparatus are installed in the proposed scheduling method. The fuel cell can absorb surplus power, and surplus power is converted into hydrogen and it is accumulated by hydrogen storage device. Furthermore, it is possible to generate power easily by using the hydrogen which is stored in the fuel cell, when the shortage power occurs. As a consequence, the high-efficiency operation plan is determined to reduce the operation cost which had been accomplished, by introducing the fuel cell and the hydrogen generation apparatus.

Abstract This paper characterized the wood pellet and torrefied wood pellet fuel as compared to coal for 100 MW co-firing power generation plant. There were five experiments to characterise the chemical and physical properties of coal, wood pellet and torrefied wood pellet namely moisture analysis, Thermo gravimetric Analyser (TGA), Bomb Calorimeter, Organic Elemental Analyser and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The moisture analysis result from moisture analyser and TGA shows that the moisture content of torrefied wood pellet is lower than wood pellet at 6.760% and 3.629%. Moreover, the volatile matter, hydrogen and nitrogen content of torrefied wood pellet is lower than wood pellet at 65.20%, 5.993% and 0.4078% correspondingly. The calorific value, fixed carbon content, ash and sulphur also increase in torrefied wood pellet at 20.68 MJ/kg, 28.85%, 2.321% and 0.1656% respectively. In general, torrefaction improve the fuel properties of wood pellet similar to coal. The 100 MW direct co-firing power plant provides less capital investment, operation and maintenance cost for low rate co-firing ratio. However, there is economic challenges for high rate co-firing substation of torrefied wood pellets.

The conceptualization of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) framework represented a major leap in scenario development in the context of global environmental change and sustainability, providing significant advances from the previous scenario frameworks-especially the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. It is highly likely that the SSP concept, along with its scenario narratives and their respective results, including land-use change projections, will play a substantial role in the forthcoming Sixth Assessment Report by the IPCC. Here, we offer some insights that could make the SSPs' projected future changes in global land use more comprehensive and also help improve the interpretability of such projections. For example, instead of focusing on the quantity of each land-use class at various time points which results only in a net change when change is detected between time points, we recommend that the projected gross gains and gross losses in each land-use class across all scenarios should also be considered. Overall, the insights presented could also help pave the way for stronger collaboration between the SSP-climate science community and the land system science community; such collaboration is much needed in addressing the challenges of global environmental change towards a climate-resilient sustainable development pathway.

In deregulated power systems, it is very important to make electricity demand more flexible in order to secure market-based system operation from power system operator's point of view. Also, as one of energy conservation technologies in Japanese residential houses, home-cogeneration systems such as gas engine-type and polymer electrolyte fuel cell-type (PEFC) is highly expected because exhausted heat of gas-engine or PEFC can be utilized for hot water demand. This paper assumes a new cooperation framework between cogeneration's owners and power system operator in order to attain more secure power system operation. In the cooperation framework, from cogeneration owner's point of view, the authors evaluate an influence of the integrated control of gas engine-type cogeneration systems on economic factor and energy conservation for cogeneration's owner.

Abstract It is demonstrated that the fuel deposit has a significant influence on the NOx and particular matter (PM) emissions, especially with the consideration of the more and more strict emission regulations issued by the governments, which results in that the near-nozzle spray has been received the increased attention, recently. In this study, the near-nozzle spray characteristics at the initial and end stages were investigated by a high-resolution camera with a laser as the light source. At the initial stage, microscopic behaviors of the near-nozzle spray were observed at upstream, midstream and downstream, respectively. Moreover, the injection frequency was changed to check the effect on the near-nozzle spray morphology. Next, the micro spray length, width and angle were obtained from the processed images. While, at the end stage, the near-nozzle spray evolutions were observed and characterized at 0.5, 0.3, 0.2 and 0.1 ms before the end of injection (BEOI), the end of injection (EOI), 0.05, 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2 ms after the end of injection (AEOI), respectively. Furthermore, the droplet area, spray area without droplets, droplet number and averaged diameter were calculated. Results show that three structures of the near-nozzle spray at the initial stage can be classified as mushroom, steeple and cylinder shapes. And the injection frequency has an influence on their formations owing to the residual fuel and sucked air AEOI. Moreover, although more droplets can be identified at the end stage with time, it does not indicate the better atomization. On the contrary, these droplets AEOI are responsible for the injector deposit in the real engine.

How environmental regulations affect the transfer of pollution-intensive industries is the core issue of balanced regional development and pollution reduction in China. This paper analyses the theoretical mechanism of the impact of environmental regulation on industrial transfer based on the distinction between formal environmental regulation and informal environmental regulation. To this aim, the paper selects panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2018 and uses the fixed effect econometric model to test the impact of environmental regulation on the transfer of pollution-intensive industries, then uses a threshold regression model to study the threshold characteristics and spatial heterogeneity of environmental regulation on pollution-intensive industrial transfer. The results show a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between formal environmental regulation and the transfer of pollution-intensive industries. The increase of formal environmental regulation intensity affects restraining and then promoting the transfer out of pollution-intensive industries. The promoting effect also shows the characteristics of first increasing and then decreasing, verifying that there are threshold characteristics and spatial heterogeneity. Overall, informal environmental regulation promotes the transfer of pollution-intensive industries and shows the informal regulation’s economic effect. The paper then puts forward the corresponding policy suggestions, including utilizing clean energy-saving technologies in the industrial sector, which is incredibly significant to realize the coordinated development of environmental protection and economy.

AbstractUnder Kyoto Protocol Regime, no obligation is imposed on decreasing domestic Green House Gas (GHG) emission in the field of agriculture in Japan. Clean Development Mechanism(CDM), however, could make Japanese GHG reduction technology and capital be transferred to Asian countries, CER (Certified Emission Reduction) could be transferred to Japan and then farmers in Asian countries could get profit which fluctuate on the GHG prices, mainly influenced by global market..GHG emissions (CO2-equivalent) from poultry and swine industry in the ASEAN 8 countries (Viet Nam, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos) increased by around 8% from 12.76 million tons/year to 13.82 million tons/year during 1997-2002. Around 10% of GHG from poultry and swine farming in the 8 countries was emitted from enteric fermentation and the residual 90% was emitted from manure management during 1997-2002. Reduction scenario on GHG from swine farm was made by conversion of liquid/slurry system into drylot one, in the adoption of manure management technology into broiler farm with the thermal drying of broiler manure. GHG reduction from poultry and swine industry in the 8 countries could be supposed to be around 10% with the adoption of this reduction scenario. GHG from poultry and swine industry in this region converted in accordance with Dec 08 contracts at ECX. Financial size that developing countries could expect as economic benefit depends on the project size of Clean Developing Mechanism (CDM) to each farming system in this region. CDM depends on the fluctuation of GHG price mainly on the benchmark in Europe.

ABSTRACTWe performed an Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis to assess the intraseasonal variability of 5–60 day band-pass filtered Antarctic sea-ice concentration in austral winter using a 20-year daily dataset from 1995 to 2014. Zonal wave number 3 dominated in the Antarctic, especially so across the west Antarctic. Results showed the coexistence of stationary and propagating wave components. A spectral analysis of the first two principal components (PCs) showed a similar structure for periods up to 15 days but generally more power in PC1 at longer periods. Regression analysis upon atmospheric fields using the first two PCs of sea-ice concentration showed a coherent wave number 3 pattern. The spatial phase delay between the sea-ice and mean sea-level pressure patterns suggests that meridional flow and associated temperature advection are important for modulating the sea-ice field. EOF analyses carried out separately for El Niño, La Niña and neutral years, and for Southern Annular Mode positive, negative and neutral periods, suggest that the spatial patterns of wave number 3 shift between subsets. The results also indicate that El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Southern Annular Mode affect stationary wave interactions between sea-ice and atmospheric fields on intraseasonal timescales.