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Cost-effective CO2 capture and storage (CCS) is critical for the rapid global decarbonization effort recommended by climate science. The increase in levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of plants with CCS is primarily associated to the large energy penalty involved in CO2 capture. This study therefore evaluates three high-efficiency CCS concepts based on integrated gasification combined cycles (IGCC): (1) gas switching combustion (GSC), (2) GSC with added natural gas firing (GSC-AF) to increase the turbine inlet temperature, and (3) oxygen production pre-combustion (OPPC) that replaces the air separation unit (ASU) with more efficient gas switching oxygen production (GSOP) reactors. Relative to a supercritical pulverized coal benchmark, these options returned CO2 avoidance costs of 37.8, 22.4 and 37.5 €/ton (including CO2 transport and storage), respectively. Thus, despite the higher fuel cost and emissions associated with added natural gas firing, the GSC-AF configuration emerged as the most promising solution. This advantage is maintained even at CO2 prices of 100 €/ton, after which hydrogen firing can be used to avoid further CO2 cost escalations. The GSC-AF case also shows lower sensitivity to uncertain economic parameters such as discount rate and capacity factor, outperforms other clean energy benchmarks, offers flexibility benefits for balancing wind and solar power, and can achieve significant further performance gains from the use of more advanced gas turbine technology. Based on all these insights, the GSC-AF configuration is identified as a promising solution for further development.

Considering the necessity of achieving economic development by keeping the quality of the environment, the aim of this paper is to study the impact of economic growth on GHG emissions in a sample of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (V4 countries, Bulgaria and Romania) in the period of 1996–2019. In the context of dynamic ARDL panel and environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), the relationship between GHG and GDP is N-shaped. A U-shaped relationship was obtained in the renewable Kuznets curve (RKC). Energy consumption, domestic credit to the private sector, and labor productivity contribute to pollution, while renewable energy consumption reduces the GHG emissions. However, more efforts are required for promoting renewable energy in the analyzed countries.

Disturbances from wind, bark beetles, and wildfires have increased in Europe's forests throughout the 20th century 1. Climatic changes were identified as a main driver behind this increase 2, yet how the expected continuation of climate change will affect Europe's forest disturbance regime remains unresolved. Increasing disturbances could strongly impact the forest carbon budget 3,4, and are hypothesized to contribute to the recently observed carbon sink saturation in Europe's forests 5. Here we show that forest disturbance damage in Europe has continued to increase in the first decade of the 21st century. Based on an ensemble of climate change scenarios we find that damage from wind, bark beetles, and forest fires is likely to increase further in coming decades, and estimate the rate of increase to +0.91·106 m3 of timber per year until 2030. We show that this intensification can offset the effect of management strategies aiming to increase the forest carbon sink, and calculate the disturbance-related reduction of the carbon storage potential in Europe's forests to be 503.4 Tg C in 2021-2030. Our results highlight the considerable carbon cycle feedbacks of changing disturbance regimes, and underline that future forest policy and management will require a stronger focus on disturbance risk and resilience.

Abstract A clear-sky solar irradiance model is certainly a basic tool in the estimation of solar resources. With all the abundance of such models, there is plenty of room for searching a clear-sky solar irradiance model with general applicability, i.e. to be able to provide high-accurate estimates in most places around the world. This paper reports an upgraded version (further referred to as SIMv.2) of our parametric clear-sky solar irradiance model SIMv.1, aiming to improve the accuracy of estimates in arid environment. The new elements of SIMv.2, such as new equations for aerosol absorption and downward fraction, have been introduced targeting a better capture of the peculiarities of the solar radiation extinction by aerosols. Overall, the results of testing SIMv.2 at twelve stations located in regions with temperate, arid and tropical climate show that SIMv.2 performs much better than SIMv.1, an improvement in nRMSE of 37.1% for global solar irradiance and of 24.7% for the diffuse component being noticed. The comparison with other fourteen clear-sky solar irradiance models at five stations located in arid climate places SIMv.2 in the class of the best performing models. The limitation of the SIMv.2 performance in extreme weather conditions is discussed in two cases.

Earthworm distribution in global soils Earthworms are key components of soil ecological communities, performing vital functions in decomposition and nutrient cycling through ecosystems. Using data from more than 7000 sites, Phillips et al. developed global maps of the distribution of earthworm diversity, abundance, and biomass (see the Perspective by Fierer). The patterns differ from those typically found in aboveground taxa; there are peaks of diversity and abundance in the mid-latitude regions and peaks of biomass in the tropics. Climate variables strongly influence these patterns, and changes are likely to have cascading effects on other soil organisms and wider ecosystem functions. Science , this issue p. 480 ; see also p. 425

The Network Code on Requirements for Generators, known also as RfG, is the most recent document approved by the European Commission that recommends the technical conditions for connection and operation of all types of generators in the ENTSO-E zone. Although RfG was published in the Official EU Journal in 2016, each EU member country is responsible to adopt it in the form that best suits to its characteristics. Therefore, the latest achievements in deployment of storage and renewables technologies should be also considered. Moreover, the new concepts included in the EU winter package (2016) for empowering the citizen and encouraging prosumer's self-consumption, resilience and efficiency requires careful analysis of the document. This paper aims at identifying some shortcomings of the proposed document, based on latest technology advancements and societal aspirations, and proposes a new approach that allows synchronizing the new network codes with the smart grids paradigm shift.