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While the shale revolution was largely a US’ affair, it affects the global energy system. In this paper, we look at the effects of this spectacular increase in natural gas, and oil, extraction capacity can have on the mix of primary energy sources, on energy prices, and through that on internal political stability of rentier states. We use two exploratory simulation models to investigate the consequences of the combination of both complexity and uncertainty in relation to the global energy system and state stability. Our simulations show that shale developments could be seen as part of a long term hog-cycle, with a short term drop in oil prices if unconventional supply substitutes demand for oil. These lower oil prices may lead to instability in rentier states neighbouring the EU, especially when dependence on oil and gas income is high, youth bulges are present, or buffers like sovereign wealth funds are too limited to bridge the negative economic effects of temporary low oil prices.

The current energy transition imposes a rapid implementation of energy storage systems with high energy density and eminent regeneration and cycling efficiency. Metal hydrides are potential candidates for generalized energy storage, when coupled with fuel cell units and/or batteries. An overview of ongoing research is reported and discussed in this review work on the light of application as hydrogen and heat storage matrices, as well as thin films for hydrogen optical sensors. These include a selection of single-metal hydrides, Ti-V(Fe) based intermetallics, multi-principal element alloys (high-entropy alloys), and a series of novel synthetically accessible metal borohydrides. Metal hydride materials can be as well of important usefulness for MH-based electrodes with high capacity (e.g. MgH2 ~ 2000 mAh g-1) and solid-state electrolytes displaying high ionic conductivity suitable, respectively, for Li-ion and Li/Mg battery technologies. To boost further research and development directions some characterization techniques dedicated to the study of M-H interactions, their equilibrium reactions, and additional quantification of hydrogen concentration in thin film and bulk hydrides are presented at the end of this manuscript.

AbstractThe dynamic economic behavior in most integrated assessment models linking economic growth to climate change involves a differential equation solved by Jacob Bernoulli in 1695. Using the dynamic integrated climate economy (DICE) model and freezing exogenous variables at initial values, this dynamic is shown to produce implausible projections on a 60‐year time frame. If world capital started at US$1, after 60 years the world economy would be indistinguishable from one starting with 10 times the current capitalization. Such behavior points to uncertainty at the level of the fundamental dynamics, and suggests that discussions of discounting, utility, damage functions, and ethics should be conducted within a more general modeling vocabulary. Lotka Volterra dynamics is proposed as an alternative with greater prime facie plausibility. With near universality, economists assume that economic growth will go on forever. Lotka Volterra dynamics alert us to the possibility of collapse. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2013; 9: 2–6. © 2012 SETAC

In het project Erfgoed onthult; Trekvaarten binnen het waterverband is gekeken naar de toekomstwaarde van trekvaarten voor klimaatadaptatie. Het project richt zich specifiek op het gebied tussen de steden Leiden, Den Haag, Delft, Rotterdam en Gouda met de trekvaarten de Vliet, de Schie, de Gouwe en de Oude Rijn. Tot het jaar 900 was dit gebied grotendeels een veenmoeras. Daarna is het ontwaterd voor de landbouw. Dit leidde tot economische groei en de opkomst van de steden in de dertiende eeuw. Een neveneffect van ontwatering was bodemdaling. Bovendien werd er veel veen afgegraven voor de energievoorziening van de steden. Om het gebied droog te houden, zijn er in de middeleeuwen afwateringskanalen gegraven, zoals de Vliet en de Schie. Deze zijn in de 17e eeuw aangepast om als trekvaart tussen de steden dienst te kunnen doen. In de toekomst zullen de waterproblemen in het gebied toenemen. Naar verwachting zullen in 2100 extreme regenbuien nog extremer worden en zullen er vaker lange periodes zonder regen zijn. Tegelijkertijd zijn er plannen om veel nieuwe huizen te bouwen. Dit alles kan leiden tot veel meer wateroverlast en grotere droogteproblemen. In dit project is gekeken of extra tijdelijke waterberging een oplossing kan bieden voor deze problemen. Dat is zo, maar dan is er wel 34 miljoen m3 aan extra berging nodig. Voorgesteld wordt om in de verschillende polders 7,5 miljoen m3 aan nieuwe waterberging aan te leggen, vooral voor de opvang van piekbuien, en daarnaast ten oosten van Zoetermeer een Bentmeer aan te leggen met 26,5 miljoen m3 waterberging als extra bron van zoetwater tijdens droogtes. Uitgaande van twee meter verschil tussen het hoogste en het laagste waterpeil, zal het Bentmeer een oppervlakte moeten krijgen van 13,3 km2. Dit biedt uitgelezen kansen voor recreatie en natuurontwikkeling. Om het water het Bentmeer in en uit te krijgen, zal een verbinding aangelegd moeten worden met de Rotte in het zuiden en de Oude Rijn in het noorden. Hierdoor zou een oude scheepvaartverbinding tussen de Rotte en ...

This Master Thesis research is carried out to investigate the most efficient re-mountable timber car park in terms of feasibility and structural performance. Applying the re-mountability principle with a sustainable material like timber is important to help the construction industry tackle environmental problems like global warming. Specifically, re-mountability is important because it ensures a second use of the car park without applying environmentally affecting processes, like redesigning or repairing the gained elements, and without creating waste. In summary, the research question is: What is the most suitable design for a timber re-mountable car park, including global structure and details based on structural performance and feasibility? The first part of this research is determining the most suitable floor system. This is important because of the large floor span in a timber car park and the reduced stiffness of timber compared to concrete and steel. Information is gathered by investigating car park and floor system references and the boundary conditions from regulations, material behaviour, transportation, etc. Next, a preliminary design is made for the four largest potential floor systems. Based on this preliminary design combined with the earlier gained knowledge, the most suitable floor system is chosen in a multi-criteria analysis. A spruce CLT floor system of 140 mm thick combined with 360 mm x 1040 mm glulam beams becomes the most suitable alternative. A Triflex coating is necessary on top to ensure sufficient moisture resistance and re-mountability of the floor system. The fire resistance does not affect the floor system design because the serviceability limit state is governing. Then, the second part of this research uses the known floor system to design the re-mountable connections in a final design phase. Using the knowledge gained from the references and boundary conditions, a bolted connection is the most suitable re-mountable connection type. However, a console is most suitable for the ...

Lattice Boltzmann simulations were carried out to investigate the noise mitigation mechanisms of a 3-D printed porous trailing-edge insert, elucidating the link between noise reduction and material permeability. The porous insert is based on a unit cell resembling a lattice of diamond atoms. It replaces the last 20 % chord of a NACA 0018 at zero angle-of-attack. A partially blocked insert is considered by adding a solid partition between 84 % and 96 % of the aerofoil chord. The regular porous insert achieves a substantial noise reduction at low frequencies, although a slight noise increase is found at high frequencies. The partially blocked porous insert exhibits a lower noise reduction level, but the noise emission at mid-to-high frequency is slightly affected. The segment of the porous insert near the tip plays a dominant role in promoting noise mitigation, whereas the solid-porous junction contributes, in addition to the rough surface, towards the high-frequency excess noise. The current study demonstrates the existence of an entrance length associated with the porous material geometry, which is linked to the pressure release process that is responsible for promoting noise mitigation. This process is characterised by the aerodynamic interaction between pressure fluctuations across the porous medium, which is found at locations where the porous insert thickness is less than twice the entrance length. Present results also suggest that the noise attenuation level is related to both the chordwise extent of the porous insert and the streamwise turbulent length scale. The porous inserts also cause a slight drag increase compared to their solid counterpart.

Urbanization makes cities more vulnerable in the face of climate change risks. Understanding urban growth under climate change can help planners optimize land allocation and development strategies that are resilient to the impacts of climate change. However, the complexity and uncertainty of climate change hinder the urban growth projections and make it hard to form local climate adaptation plans. Therefore, this research aims to develop a methodology to incorporate climate uncertainties into land-use models to explore plausible futures. The literature review results indicate the lack of a methodology to quantitatively link climate change effects with land-use models and to systematically explore the full parameter space of the climate uncertainties. Hence, our main research question becomes “How can an integrated land-use modelling methodology be developed to help systematically explore the impacts of climate uncertainties on urban growth?” This research question is answered by integrating Metronamica, a cellular-automata-based land-use modelling framework with Exploratory Modelling. The Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA) is selected as the case city to demonstrate the proposed methodology, and the research scope focuses on flooding, a typical and important climate impact. Specifically, we include the flooding probability maps into the “suitability” section under Metronamica, based on the principle that the higher the flooding risk of an area, the lower the suitability value. These flooding suitability values are deemed as uncertain in our research and they are not given fixed values but certain uncertainty ranges. The flooding factors and their defined uncertainty ranges are added to a model established for the case city. Then this model is connected with the Exploratory Modelling Analysis (EMA) workbench and generates 2000 experiments by the random samplings and combinations of the uncertainties. In the result analysis step, we use clustering algorithms to select 34 representative maps, followed by the ...

Gasification is considered to be a promising way to use biomass with high efficiency in combined heatand power production, for the production of second generation biofuels and in the chemical industry.Especially allothermal fluidized bed steam gasification produces a medium calorific, nitrogen free gassuitable for a variety of downstream processes. In general the raw product gas has to be cleaned fromcondensable hydrocarbons (tar) and conditioned (e.g. adjustment of the H2/CO-ratio) before downstreamuse. The operating conditions of the gasification reactor have a large impact on the quality of the productgas. Hence first steps to a product gas low in tar content can be undertaken directly in the reactor. In thisstudy the capability of influencing the tar content and gas composition by changing temperature (750?840 C), steam to biomass (S/B) ratio (0.8?1.2) and pressure (0.1?0.25 MPa) in an allothermal bubblingfluidized bed steam gasifier is investigated. It is found that rising temperature reduces the total tar contentand affects especially heterocyclic and light aromatic compounds. At atmospheric pressure the naphthalenecontent increases slightly with increasing temperature in contrary to pressurized gasificationwhere naphthalene decreases significantly with increasing temperature. An increase in the S/B ratio leadsto a decreasing total tar content, this tar reduction according to a higher steam content is higher at highertemperatures. Increasing pressure leads to increasing total tar content mainly due to naphthalene, theeffect is most distinct for low S/B ratios.