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A promising technology for renewable energy is energy piles used to heat and cool buildings. In this research, the effects of bio-cementation via microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) using mixed calcium and magnesium sources and the addition of fibres on the thermal conductivity of soil were investigated. Firstly, silica sand specimens were treated with cementation solutions containing different ratios of calcium chloride and magnesium chloride to achieve maximum thermal conductivity improvement. Three treatment cycles were provided, and the corresponding thermal conductivity was measured after each cycle. It was found that using 100% calcium chloride resulted in the highest thermal conductivity. This cementation solution was then used to treat bio-cemented soil samples containing fibres, including polyethylene, steel and glass fibres. The fibre contents used included 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5% of the dry sand mass. The results show that the glass fibre samples yielded the highest thermal conductivity after three treatment cycles, and SEM imaging was used to support the findings. This research suggests that using MICP as a soil improvement technique can also improve the thermal conductivity of soil surrounding energy piles, which has high potential to effectively improve the efficiency of energy piles.

Abstract The increasing energy demand in developing countries has jeopardised energy security, necessitating the employment of solar energy to augment conventional energy sources. It is important to assess the annual performance parameters of solar power plants to understand its place in energy generation. This study analyses the performance and economic viability of a large-scale solar power park located in India. A 50 MWp Solar Photovoltaic Power Park (SPPP) located at Sakunala, in the State of Andhra Pradesh, is one of the largest solar power park in India, and the site receives an average solar radiation of 5.5–6.0 kWh/m2/day. The design, performance analysis, economic feasibility, and greenhouse gas mitigation of the 50 MWp SPPP is presented. The energy yields, performance ratio (PR), capacity utilization factor (CUF), and losses are assessed based on the IEC 61724 standards for two consecutive years (2018–2019 and 2019–2020). The performance results obtained are compared with the PVsyst simulation results. The PR, CUF, and energy yields are estimated as 0.779, 0.24, and 107,326.4 MWh in 2018–2019 and 0.691, 0.22, and 96,707.336 MWh in the year 2019–2020, respectively. The PVsyst simulator evaluates the PR, CUF, and energy yields as 0.80, 0.24, and 106,022 MWh, respectively. Further, the effect of power curtailment policies on solar PV projects is also discussed and the effect of curtailment policy on the economy of the solar power park in terms of payback period and emissions are analysed. The performance of the SPPP is also compared with those of other PV plants installed all over the world.

Chromium (Cr) exposure during gestation causes malformations in animal experiments. In this multicenter case-control study, we initially involved 130 orofacial clefts (OFCs) and 260 controls to assess the association between Cr concentration and risk for OFCs. Then, umbilical cord serum (49 vs. 119) and cord tissue (84 vs. 142) were used to validate the association between Cr and OFCs. We found that maternal serum Cr concentrations in OFC cases were significantly higher than those in controls. Compared with the lowest tertile of maternal serum Cr concentration, the highest tertile of Cr increased the risk for OFCs [OR = 2.14 (1.14-4.05)]. In the validation cohort of umbilical cord serum and tissue, higher concentrations of Cr were associated with increased risks for OFCs in a dose-dependent manner (all Ps for trends <0.05). Cr concentrations in maternal serum and cord serum showed a positive correlation. The Cr concentration in cord serum was inversely correlated with egg and milk consumption frequencies, and the Cr concentration in cord tissue was positively associated with indoor coal burning. In conclusion, prenatal Cr exposure is a risk factor for OFCs, and indoor coal burning during pregnancy may be one of the sources of Cr exposure.

AbstractThe concept of a ‘just transition’ to a low‐carbon economy is firmly embedded in mainstream global discourses about mitigating climate change. Drawing on Karl Polanyi's political economy elaborated inThe Great Transformation, we interrogate the idea of a just transition and place it within its historical context. We address a major contradiction at the core of global energy transition debates: the rapid shift to low‐carbon energy‐systems will require increased extraction of minerals and metals. In doing so, we argue that extractive industries are energy and carbon‐intensive, and will enlarge and intensify social and ecological injustice. Our findings reveal the importance of understanding how the idea of a just transition is used, and by who, and the type of justice that underpins this concept. We demonstrate the need to ground just transition policies and programmes in a notion of justice as fairness.

Abstract Background : To design an effective workflow scheduling optimization of web servers that will bring good trade-offs to meet the workflow task delay prerequisite and performance requirement. Methods: This study presents a delayaware and performance-efficient energy optimization (DAPEEO) technique for workflow execution in a heterogeneous environment (i.e., edge-cloud environment). This technique provides a workflow execution model which meets the application delay prerequisite and performance requirement. Findings: Our model has been designed to reduce the energy consumption, increase throughput, reduce computational cost and computational time to provide a delay-aware and performance-efficient workflow model for the web servers in hybrid cloud computing. Our model Delay Aware and Performance Efficient Workflow Scheduling of Web Servers in Hybrid Cloud Computing Environment (DAPEEO) has reduced the energy consumption by 4.217%, increased the throughput by 19.51%, and reduce the computational cost by 62.38% when compared with the existing Deadline-Constrained Cost Optimization for Hybrid Clouds (DCOH) models. Furthermore, the average energy consumption showed a reduction of 40.993% and 90.384% when compared with the DCOH and Self-Configuring and Self-Healing of Cloud-based Resources (RADAR) workload model respectively. Experiment outcome shows the DAPEEO technique achieves much superior energy efficiency, throughput and computation cost reduction when compared with the existing workflow execution model. Novelty: Existing model failed to balance reducing cost, and meeting workflow execution deadlines under a heterogeneous environment. On the other side, the DAPEEO is efficient in bringing trade-offs in reducing energy dissipation and meeting task deadlines with reduced cost under the edge-cloud computing model. Keywords: Cloud Computing; EdgeCloud; DAPEEO; Energy Efficiency; Throughput; Cost

<p>This paper presents cuckoo search algorithm (CSA) for solving non-convex economic load dispatch (ELD) problems of fossil fuel fired generators considering transmission losses and valve point loading effect. CSA is a new meta-heuristic optimisation technique inspired from the obligate brood parasitism of some cuckoo species by laying their eggs in the nests of other host birds of other species. The strength of the proposed meta-heuristic optimization technique CSA has been tested and validated on the standard IEEE 14-bus, 26-bus and 30-bus system with several heuristic load patterns. The results have indicated that the proposed approach is able to obtain significant economic load dispatch solutions than those of Firefly Algorithm (FFA) and other soft computing techniques reported in the literature.</p>