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With the fast growth of the global economy, energy supply and demand have a strong impact on social, economic, and environmental aspects. As a consequence, this has pushed the decision-makers to formulate objectives, guiding economic policies toward sustainable goals. The process is known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have been proposed by the United Nations. This being said, the energy sector is a vital domain with a vast potential for improvments in terms of technologies and ligistalations. Solar energy is among the most efficient solutions proposed to reduce the economic and environmental footprints of energy. In this frame, the current paper aims to localize solar energy within SDGs and analyze the contribution of the solar energy towards the achievement of the SDGs. Moreover, the current work highlights the contributions of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (MBR) Solar Park in the United Arab Emirates to achieving the SDGs. Indeed, the MBR Solar Park concept offers valuable insights of environmental impacts by deploying clean and affordable energy sources in place of conventional fossil fuel power plants that are still heavily used in the region. The MBR Solar Park operation has already mitigated 6.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and this number will likely rise when all phases are installed and operational. Moreover, it has been shown that MBR Solar Park achieve several SDGs such SDG 8: decent work and economic growth, SDG 9: industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG 11: sustainable cities and communities, and SDG 15: life on land.

Cylindrical graphite microbial fuel cell (MFC) configuration designed by eliminating distinct casing and membrane was evaluated for bioelectrogenesis and treatment of real-field wastewaters. Both petroleum refinery wastewater (PRW) and Labanah whey wastewater (LW) were used as substrates, and investigated for electricity generation and organic removal under batch mode operation. PRW showed higher bioelectricity generation (current and power generation of 3.35mA and 1.12mW at 100Ω) compared to LW (3.2mA and 1.02mW). On the contrary, higher substrate degradation efficiency was achieved using LW (72.76%) compared to PRW (45.06%). Superior function of MFC operation in terms of volumetric power density (PRW, 28.27W/m3; LW, 23.23W/m3) suggesting the feasibility of using these wastewaters for bioelectricity generation. Large sources of wastewater that generating in the Middle-East countries have potential to produce renewable energy from the treatment, which helps for the sustainable wastewater management and simultaneous renewable energy production.

This article seeks to examine accountants' perceptions of carbon taxes in addressing climate change. Specifically, it aims at (i) a better understanding of accountants opinions on carbon taxes; (ii) how energy companies have adapted their business operations since introducing carbon tax. The article's primary sources of data are (1) a 2018 survey distributed to 45 accounting professionals in Scotland, which specialise in energy finance and a formal interview with a regional finance director of a multinational energy company. The results show how the accountants are in favour the carbon tax due to its positive environmental impact, however, do not agree with the associated rising utility costs. Though, carbon tax, from an energy business' perspective, is viewed negatively due to its effects on the end users of energy. This study contributes to the current research by demonstrating the role of accounting society in boosting public awareness of climate change. The findings of this study will help regulators and policy makers in the UK to evaluate the adequacy of current carbon tax reforms and to promote the public awareness of climate change to reduce carbon emissions.

Sustaining agricultural demands is a typical problem, particularly in locations afflicted by the scarcity of fresh water, poor farming soil, and hot weather. The main goal of this study is to perform a thermodynamic analysis of an integrated multigeneration system containing a direct contact membrane distillation crystallization system that recovers beneficial hydroponic farming nutrients from seawater using renewable energy resources. A parametric study is carried out to determine the impacts of various factors on the system, such as changing the rate of mass flow rate, recovery ratio, and salinity. This study proposes a novel sustainable multigeneration system for seawater desalination and ions recovery using the direct contact membrane distillation crystallization system to provide the hydroponic solution and greenhouse ventilation using the dual evaporator vapor compression refrigeration system. With overall exergy efficiency and energy efficiency of 41.40%, and 39.80%, respectively, the system requires about 1182.69 kW and 5314.6 kW of electrical and thermal power in total, respectively, to desalinate 5 kg/s of seawater and recover 170 mg/s of Sulfate (SO4), 81.28 mg/s of Magnesium (Mg), 25.48 mg/s of Calcium (Ca), and 24.16 mg/s of Potassium (K), yielding about 4.4 kg/s of a hydroponic solution, and ventilating 25 greenhouses with a volume of 600 m3 of single greenhouse.

This publication was made possible by the NPRP grant (NPRP8-370-2-154) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of author(s).

In hot climatic conditions, the temperature inside a greenhouse is much higher than the ambient temperature and requires significant cooling to maintain the temperature in the optimal range. This study proposes a novel concept for a self‐sustaining greenhouse, which integrates evacuated tube collectors, a multistage flash desalination system, vapor absorption cooling system, and photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) system to produce freshwater, cooling, and electricity. The PV/T system uses spectrum selective nanofluid that is circulated over the roof of the greenhouse and absorbs solar radiation having wavelengths greater than 1400 nm to reduce cooling load inside the greenhouse and optimize the spectrum use. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated using energy and exergy analysis. The energy efficiencies of the evacuated tube collector, desalination unit, and PV/T system are obtained as 45.85%, 46.16%, and 51.25%, respectively. The absorption cooling system achieves an energetic coefficient of performance of 0.83. The overall energy and exergy efficiencies of the proposed system are found to be 30% and 5.88%, respectively. The application of spectrum selective nanofluid on the roof of the greenhouse yields about 26% reduction in the cooling load of the greenhouse.

AbstractStudies have shown that occupant satisfaction is a compelling factor affecting building energy consumption. Occupants' behavior has a direct relationship to their satisfaction, and it is cl...

Chronic, low intensity herbivory by invertebrates, termed background herbivory, has been understudied in tundra, yet its impacts are likely to increase in a warmer Arctic. The magnitude of these changes is however hard to predict as we know little about the drivers of current levels of invertebrate herbivory in tundra. We assessed the intensity of invertebrate herbivory on a common tundra plant, the dwarf birch (Betula glandulosa-nana complex), and investigated its relationship to latitude and climate across the tundra biome. Leaf damage by defoliating, mining and gall-forming invertebrates was measured in samples collected from 192 sites at 56 locations. Our results indicate that invertebrate herbivory is nearly ubiquitous across the tundra biome but occurs at low intensity. On average, invertebrates damaged 11.2% of the leaves and removed 1.4% of total leaf area. The damage was mainly caused by external leaf feeders, and most damaged leaves were only slightly affected (12% leaf area lost). Foliar damage was consistently positively correlated with mid-summer (July) temperature and, to a lesser extent, precipitation in the year of data collection, irrespective of latitude. Our models predict that, on average, foliar losses to invertebrates on dwarf birch are likely to increase by 6--7% over the current levels with a 1 textdegreeC increase in summer temperatures. Our results show that invertebrate herbivory on dwarf birch is small in magnitude but given its prevalence and dependence on climatic variables, background invertebrate herbivory should be included in predictions of climate change impacts on tundra ecosystems.