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This study assesses the socio-economic impacts in terms of value added, imports and employment of sugarcane-derived bioethanol production in Northeast (NE) Brazil. An extended inter-regional Input–Output (IO) model has been developed and is used to analyse three scenarios, all projected for 2020: a business-as-usual scenario (BaU) which projects current practices, and two scenarios that consider more efficient agricultural practices and processing efficiency (scenario A) and in addition an expansion of the sector into new areas (scenario B). By 2020 in all scenarios, value added and imports increase compared to the current situation. The value added by the sugarcane–ethanol sector in the NE region is 2.8 billion US$ in the BaU scenario, almost 4 billion US$ in scenario A, and 9.4 billion US$ in scenario B. The imports in the region will grow with 4% (BaU scenario), 38% (scenario A) and 262% (scenario B). This study shows that the large reduction of employment (114,000 jobs) due to the replacement of manual harvesting by mechanical harvesting can be offset by additional production and indirect effects. The total employment in the region by 2020 grows with 10% in scenario A (around 12,500 jobs) and 126% in scenario B (around 160,000 jobs). The indirect effects of sugarcane production in the NE are large in the rest of Brazil due to the import of inputs from these regions. The use of an extended inter-regional IO model can quantify direct and indirect socio-economic effects at regional level and can provide insight in the linkages between regions. The application of the model to NE Brazil has demonstrated significant positive socio-economic impacts that can be achieved when developing and expanding the sugarcane–ethanol sector in the region under the conditions studied here, not only for the NE region itself but also for the economy of the rest of Brazil.

Xiyu Ren is a DPhil candidate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, the School of Geography and the Environment, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School of the University of Oxford. Her research interests lie in energy and environmental economics, particularly in energy modeling, electricity market design, times-series analysis, and environmental policies. Iacopo Savelli is a postdoctoral researcher in applied economics at the GREEN Centre, Bocconi University. He is the PI of the peer-reviewed project “Decarbonising the energy system by incentivising energy storage in the right places,” investigating the role of grid-scale energy storage in decarbonizing the energy system. Previously, he was a postdoc at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Oxford working on energy market design. He holds a PhD in engineering, an MS in finance, and a BS in economics. He taught selected energy economics topics at the University of Oxford and the University of Siena. Thomas Morstyn is associate professor in power systems with the Department of Engineering Science of the University of Oxford, where he leads a research group focused on power system control and energy market design. He is also a tutorial fellow at Hertford College and an honorary fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He is an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and co-chairs the IEEE Power & Energy Society Taskforce on Quantum Computing for Power System Operations. His research focuses on the design of control systems and markets to enable the large-scale integration of distributed power system flexibility.

The adoption of energy efficiency measures can significantly reduce industrial energy use. This study estimates the future industrial energy consumption under two energy demand scenarios: (1) a reference scenario that follows business as usual trends and (2) a low energy demand scenario that takes into account the implementation of energy efficiency improvement measures. These scenarios cover energy demand in the period 2009-2050 for ten world regions. The reference scenario is based on the International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook (2011 edition) up to 2035 and is extrapolated by Gross Domestic Product projections for the period 2035-2050. According to the reference scenario, the industrial energy use will increase from 105 EJ in 2009 to 185 EJ in 2050 (excluding fuel use as a feedstock). It is estimated that, with the adoption of energy efficient technologies and increased recycling, the growth in industrial energy use in 2050 can be limited to 140 EJ, an annual energy use increase of 0.7 % compared with the 2009 case. The 2050 industrial energy use in the low energy demand scenario is estimated to be 24 % lower than the 2050 energy use in the reference scenario. The results of this study highlight the importance of industrial energy efficiency by providing insights of the energy savings potentials in different regions of the world.

This paper determines the energy consumption ratio and overall bio-energy production costs of microalgae cultivation, harvesting and conversion to secondary energy carriers, thus helping to clarify future perspectives of micro-algae production for energy purposes. A limitation growth model is developed, which determines the productivity of micro-algae for different climate profiles. Total direct and indirect energy consumption ratios for the production of heat, fuels and electricity derived from micro-algae are calculated. Overall direct energy consumption ratio for raceway ponds is 0.06 for the optimal case, indirect energy consumption ratio for that case is 0.74. Direct energy consumption ratio in horizontal tubular systems is 0.32 for the optimal case, indirect energy consumption ratio for that case is 117. The implementation of different improvement options could reduce the indirect energy consumption ratio by fifty percent for both raceway ponds and horizontal tubular systems in the optimistic scenario. Prominent elements of the energy consumption ratios are carbon dioxide supply for raceway ponds and circulation power consumption for horizontal tubular systems. The lower end of fuel production cost calculated for raceway ponds is 136 €2010/GJ and 153 €2010/GJ for horizontal tubular systems (non-renewable gasoline and diesel is about 5–20 €/GJ). Considering possible improvement options overall bio-energy production costs could be reduced by one-fourth. Current results suggest that micro-algae cultivation is not suitable for dedicated bio-energy production in considered cultivation, harvesting and conversion options. Coproduction of bio-energy with high-value products are more viable, but is not considered in this research. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Additional efforts will be needed by European countries to improve the energy efficiency, as with current trends the 20% objective will be missed. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) manufacturing sector is a promising field, as SMEs are less energy-efficient than larger enterprises. Several studies investigated the barriers to the diffusion of technologies and practices for industrial energy efficiency, but little attention has been paid to understand the factors affecting the perception of such barriers by SMEs. In this multiple case-study, we have investigated 20 Primary Metal manufacturing SMEs in Northern Italy. Economic and information barriers are perceived as the major issues. Interestingly, firm's size, innovativeness of the market in which enterprises operate, as well as product and process innovation are factors affecting barriers to energy efficiency. Differences have been observed within SMEs, especially for information and competence-related barriers. In particular, a more innovative external context in which enterprises operate and a greater production process complexity seem to reduce barriers. Moreover, more product innovative enterprises seem to have a lower perception of behavioral and technology-related barriers. The results of this exploratory investigation provide useful suggestions for policy design and further research on industrial energy efficiency.

The chemical sector is the largest industrial energy user, but detailed analysis of its energy use developments lags behind other energy-intensive sectors. A cost-driven forecasting model for basic chemicals production is developed, accounting for regional production costs, demand growth and stock turnover. The model determines the global production capacity placement, implementation of energy-efficient Best Practice Technology (BPT) and global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the period 2010–2030. Subsequently, the effects of energy and climate policies on these parameters are quantified. About 60% of new basic chemical production capacity is projected to be placed in non-OECD regions by 2030 due to low energy prices. While global production increases by 80% between 2010 and 2030, the OECD's production capacity share decreases from 40% to 20% and global emissions increase by 50%. Energy pricing and climate policies are found to reduce 2030 CO2 emissions by 5–15% relative to the baseline developments by increasing BPT implementation. Maximum BPT implementation results in a 25% reduction. Further emission reductions require measures beyond energy-efficient technologies. The model is useful to estimate general trends related to basic chemicals production, but improved data from the chemical sector is required to expand the analysis to additional technologies and chemicals.

With the rapid increasing of wind power generation in the power system, the coordinated dispatch of active and reactive power for each wind turbine (WT) in the wind farm (WF) becomes the critical issue for the safe and stable of power grid. Considering the time-varying characteristic of the WF, this can be regarded as a decision-making problem under uncertainty. To this end, this study formulates the active and reactive power dispatch problem of WF as a Markov decision process (MDP) allowing for the system uncertainty, e. g. wind speed, reactive power demand and wake effect. Then, an agent is trained via deep reinforcement learning algorithm (DRL) to solve the MDP to obtain the optimal dispatch policy with the minimizing levelized production cost (LPC) target. Finally, the proposed method is tested on an 80 MW WF and some benchmark methods are utilized to act as comparison examples. Simulation results show that, compared with other methods, the proposed dispatch strategy can provide more appropriate active and reactive reference for each wind turbine to extend lifetime of WF, resulting in less LPC.

euenergy policy objectives are directed at three highly interdependent areas: energy supply security, competitiveness and decarbonization to prevent climate change. In this paper, we focus on the issue of energy supply security. Security of energy supply for the immediate and medium-term future is a necessary condition in the current context of the global political economy for the survival of the Union and its component member states. Since the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, energy policy no longer comes onto the agenda of the European Commission through the backdoor of the common market, environment and competitiveness. The Treaty created a new legal basis for the internal energy market. However, securing external supplies as well as deciding the energy mix, remain matters of national prerogative, though within the constraints of other parts of eu’s legislation in force. Without a common defense policy, the highly import dependent Union and its members face external instability in the energy rich Arab Middle East and North Africa.Concern about energy security has been triggered by declining European energy production as well as the strain on global demand exerted by newly industrializing economies such as China and India and the Middle East, as well as the political instability in this reserve-rich part of the world. This paper explores the following two topics [1] the current situation and past trends in production, supply, demand and trade in energy in the eu, against the background of major changes in the last half decade and [2] threats to the security of the supply of oil and natural gas from import regions.Fossil fuel import dependence in the eu is expected to continue to increase in the coming two decades. As global trends show, and despite new fields in the Caspian region and the Eastern Mediterranean, conventional fossil oil and gas resources remain concentrated in fewer geopolitically unstable regions and countries (i.e. the Middle East and North Africa (mena) and the Caspian Region (cr) including Russia), while global demand for fossil energy is expected to substantially increase also within the energy rich Gulf countries. This combination directly impacts eu energy supply security. It should be noted that the trend towards higher levels of import dependence was not interrupted when the era of low energy prices, between 1980 and 2003, came to an end.Within the eu itself, domestic resistance to the development of unconventional resources is an obstacle to investment in unconventional sources in this part of the high-income world. This should therefore not put at risk investments in either renewables or alternative sources at home or conventional resources mainly in the Arab-Middle East.The situation is exacerbated by the spread of instability in the Arab-Middle Eastern countries. There are three domestic and geopolitical concerns to be taken into consideration:(1) In the Arab-Middle East, threats to eu energy supply security originate in the domestic regime of these countries. Almost all Arab resource-rich countries belong to a type ofpatrimonial, rentier-type of state-society relation. These regimes rely on rents from the exploitation of energy resources and the way in which rents are distributed.Regimes of this type are being challenged. Their economies show uneven economic development, centralized power structures, corruption and poverty at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The discrimination of females is a major obstacle to the development of the service sector. At present, even the monarchies fear the spread of violent conflict.Offshoots of these consequences have proven to cause civil unrest, exemplified by what optimists have called the ‘Arab Spring.’(2) The second concern is the domestic and global impact of Sovereign Wealth Funds (swfs) managed by Arab patrimonial rentier states. swfs have proven to be an asset in both developing and developed economies due to their ability to buffer the ‘Dutch Disease,’ and to encourage industrialization, economic diversification and eventually the development of civil society. In patrimonial states, however, swfs are affected by corruption and the diversion of funds away from long-term socioeconomic development to luxury consumption by political elites. In fact, Arab swfs underpin the persistence of the Arab patrimonial rentier state system.(3) Finally, the post-Cold War, me and cea geopolitical landscape is shifting. The emergence of China and other Asian economies has increased their presence in the Middle East due to a growing need for energy and the expansion of Asian markets. The recent discovery of energy resources in the us has led to speculation that there will be less us presence in the region. There would be a serious risk to eu energy security if emerging Asian economies were to increase their presence in the Middle East as us interests recede.