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The assessment of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and air pollutants emitted to and removed from the atmosphere ranks high on international political and scientific agendas. Growing international concern and cooperation regarding the climate change problem have increased the need to consider the uncertainty in inventories of GHG emissions. The approaches to address uncertainty discussed in this special issue reflect attempts to improve national inventories, not only for their own sake but also from a wider, system analytic perspective. They seek to strengthen the usefulness of national emission inventories under a compliance and/or global monitoring and reporting framework. The papers in this special issue demonstrate the benefits of including inventory uncertainty in policy analyses. The issues raised by the authors and featured in their papers, along with the role that uncertainty analysis plays in many of their arguments, highlight the challenges and the importance of dealing with uncertainty. While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly stresses the value of conducting uncertainty analyses and offers guidance on executing them, the arguments made here in favor of performing these studies go well beyond any suggestions made by the IPCC to date. Improving and conducting uncertainty analyses are needed to develop a clear understanding and informed policy. Uncertainty matters and is key to many issues related to inventorying and reducing emissions. Considering uncertainty helps to avoid situations that can create a false sense of certainty or lead to invalid views of subsystems. Dealing proactively with uncertainty allows for the generation of useful knowledge that the international community should have to hand while strengthening the 2015 Paris Agreement, which had been agreed at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, considering uncertainty does not come free. Proper treatment of uncertainty is demanding because it forces us to take the step from “simple to complex” and to grasp a holistic system view. Only, thereafter, can we consider potential simplifications. That is, comprehensive treatment of uncertainty does not necessarily offer quick or easy solutions for policymakers. This special issue brings together 13 papers that resulted from the 2015 (4th) International Workshop on Uncertainty in Atmospheric Emissions, in Cracow, Poland. While they deal with many different aspects of the uncertainty in emission estimates, they are guided by the same principal question: “What GHGs shall be verified at what spatio-temporal scale to support conducive legislation at local and national scales, while ensuring effective governance at the global scale?” This question is at the heart of mitigation and adaptation. It requires an understanding of the entire system of GHG sources and sinks, their spatial characteristics and the temporal scales at which they react and interact, the uncertainty (accuracy and/or precision) with which fluxes can be measured, and last but not least, the consequences that follow from all of the aforementioned aspects, for policy actors to frame compliance and/or global monitoring and reporting agreements. This bigger system context serves as a reference for the papers in the special issue, irrespective of their spatio-temporal focus, and is used as a guide for the reader.

It is important for a modern consumer of thermal energy to know and be able to reduce the consumption of thermal energy, for which purpose an energy audit should be conducted. Today, three types of energy audit of residential buildings are used in Ukraine. The first one is development of the energy performance certificate of the building. The obtained energy performance certificate will give an idea of the level of thermal losses of the building and identify the main areas where measures to reduce the consumption of energy resources should be taken. The second method involves carrying out experimental studies to determine the class of air permeability of enclosing structures, which also makes it possible to assess the level of heat losses of the building and the condition of the ventilation system of the building. The third type of energy audit involves carrying out thermal imaging of the building envelope for the subsequent analysis of infrared images. A methodological approach has been developed for processing multiple infrared images. An energy inspection of a residential house has been conducted on the basis of which an energy performance certificate was compiled. The premises of the residential building have been tested for air permeability. Considering the main types of energy audit, its advantages and disadvantages have been determined both for the consumer and for the employees who conduct the audit.  

Abstract One factor that significantly limits blade service life and reliability in GT-100 power turbines is sulphide-oxide metal corrosion of guide and rotating blades. Application of coatings is the most efficient method to prevent corrosion failure. An electron beam physical vapour deposition CoCrAlY coating is used for high and low pressure turbine first-stage rotating blades made from E1 893 alloy. Studies of CoCrAlY-coated blades after different service periods (from 390 to 5900 h) showed that this coating most efficiently protects rotating blades in turbines which operate in northern regions of the country. Because of low temperature hot corrosion leakage, corrosion failure is observed in turbines operating in southern regions of the country. In order to improve corrosion resistance, a ceramic coating has been developed. These coatings increase the endurance of equipment and make it possible to save energy.

Purpose. In modern conditions of energy consumption growth and a rapid increase in energy prices the actual problem is the development and implementation of energy efficiency programs and resource-saving conversion in to a source to provide the needs of industry and municipal power. The paper aims to solve the urgent problem of energy saving and efficient use of fuel-energy ones and heat supply system optimization on the basis of Uman National University of Horticulture (UNUH). Methodology. The work investigated the process of heating and hot water supply in the course of 2007-2015 years. Implementation of current problems of energy saving is grounded on the scientific-practical and efficient assurance of fuel and energy usage. At the same time energy-saving technologies are viewed as a priority direction of the energy sector development, reduction of man-induced impact on the environment and as a way of improving the competitiveness of the national economy. Findings. Statistical data acquisition and analyzing of gas flow and outside air temperature for nine years was carried out. On the basis of this analysis, the problem was identified and specific targets for its solutions were set. Originality. Scientific novelty lies in solving the problem of energy saving and efficient use of fuel resources in Ukraine through the use of a systematic approach, the methodology development of efficient use of different fuels and optimization of local heating operation, applying contemporary automation and control systems. Firstly it was in detail analyzed and conducted the comprehensive assessment of various factors influence on energy conservation. It takes into account the human factor, professionalism and responsibility of the operators of boilers and their superiors, as well as the relevant control services. Practical value. For UNUH campus hybrid use of solid fuel and gas boilers was carried out. Decentralization of the university heating system has been conducted through the restoration of 350 individual heating systems in residential buildings, remote departments and campus dormitories. The conclusions propose the list of activities upon the real economy of fuel and energy resources, and measures to overcome the economic and political crisis in the country.

The dynamic process of movement of vehicles in cities is associated with interaction with objects of the road environment. Road conditions, traffic and pedestrians require certain actions from the driver to ensure road safe-ty. Under such circumstances, the reliability and safety of road traffic in human-machine systems mainly depends on the functional state of the driver (provided that the technical component, the subsystem is “car”) and his ability to respond to changes in the traffic situation when obstacles arise (conflict situations). The development of states of tension and fatigue of the driver is associated with an increase in energy costs, which leads to a natural in-crease in the heart rate, respiration and other parameters indicating changes in the energy balance of the driver's body. Eye Tracking technology has been applied to detect attention. Energy costs were determined using a method that takes into account the frequency of the driver's external respiration when driving on the road and in the background. As a result, a model of change in the attention of drivers with driving experience and a model of en-ergy consumption when driving in the evening twilight at a certain level of illumination were obtained. To determine the influence of conflict situations during movement in the evening twilight on the indicator of attention and energy consumption of the driver, a study was carried out in real conditions on city streets. A group of drivers with experience of 3-5 years and 10-16 years performed arrivals in the evening twilight on passenger cars "C" class. Experimental studies of the indicator of drivers' attention and functional state in conditions of evening twilight were carried out on different categories of city streets. The study involved drivers between the ages of 20 and 40. The obtained dependences of the change in the driver's functional state on illumination showed that at low illumination levels in the evening twilight, a rapid increase in the driver's functional state shifts. Thus, the energy consumption of the driver while driving depends on the types of conflict situations and the level of illumination. It was found that for drivers with less than 5 years of driving experience, shifts in functional state were more im-portant than other drivers. Also, such drivers had lower attention indicators compared to experienced drivers with more than 10 years of driving experience. It was found that when the illumination changes at dusk, the energy consumption increases on average to 3.3 kcal / min for drivers with less than 5 years of experience, and for drivers with more than 10 years of experience, it increases by 2.4 kcal / min on average. Keywords: driver, conflict situations, attention, energy costs.

The paper proves the economic feasibility of using a local autonomous source of energy supply, which is formed from electrical equipment of other functional purposes based on an asynchronous machine with capacitive self-excitation. To assess the technical and economic indicators of the effectiveness of introducing a local autonomous source of energy supply, the discounted method is adopted, where an indicator of savings from possible losses due to the exclusion of labor resources from production is used as an additional influence factor.

Using the method of computer modelling, considered in this paper is optimization of a passive air system design for cooling the powerful LED luminaire based on heat pipes and cooling rings. Thermal and mass characteristics of the cooling system have been studied for various design parameters: distance between rings, thickness of ring materials and thermal loads. It has been shown that, to provide a minimal case temperature of LED source, the optimal distance between cooling rings should be 6 mm, but in this case the mass of cooling system is not least. To reduce the luminaire mass, it is reasonable to choose the distance between the cooling rings equal to 8 mm. Then the temperature of light source increases by only 1.8 °С, or by 2.2%, while the mass of cooling system reduces by 1357 g, or by 20.5%. At the same time, lowering the ring thickness from 2 down to 0.8 mm can in addition reduce this mass by 2700 g, or by 48.6%. However, when doing so the temperature of LED source case is increased by 5.9 °С. The offered cooling system based on heat pipes is capable to provide the thermal resistance 0.131 С/W when scattering the thermal power 500 W under the maximum temperature of LED source crystal 135.5 С. Recommendations for application of the developed cooling system have been formulated.

Mathematical model for operation quality assessment of electric grid with renewable sources of energy is suggested, the given model takes into consideration balance reliability and voltage quality. The assessment of renewable sources of electric energy impact on functional preparedness of distributed electric grid to provide reliable and quality energy supply was performed, applying the developed model.