• Energy Research
• 2016-2025close

Considered essential for countries' development, energy demand is growing worldwide. Unlike conventional sources, the use of renewable energy sources has multiple benefits, including increased energy security, sustainable economic growth, and pollution reduction, in particular greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, there is a considerable difference in the share of renewable energy sources in national energy portfolios. This dissertation contains a series of studies to provide an outlook on the existing renewable energy deployment literature and empirically identify the factors of wind energy generation capacity and wind energy policy diffusion in the U.S. The dissertation begins with a systematic literature review to identify drivers and barriers which could help in understanding the diverging paths of renewable energy deployment for countries. In the analysis, economic, environmental, and social factors are found to be drivers, whereas political, regulatory, technical potential and technological factors are not classified as either a driver or a barrier (i.e., undetermined). Each main category contains several subcategories, among which only national income is found to have a positive impact, whereas all other subcategories are considered undetermined. No significant barriers to the deployment of renewable energy sources are found over the analyzed period. Wind energy deployment within the states related to environmental and economic factors was seldom discussed in the literature. The second study of the dissertation is thus focused on the wind energy deployment in the United States. Wind energy is among the most promising clean energy sources and the United States has led the world in per capita newly installed generation capacity since 2000. In the second study, using a fixed-effects panel data regression analysis, the significance of a number of economic and environmental factors are investigated for 39 states from 2000 to 2015. The results suggested that the increase in economic factors is related to a ...

Heat, cooling, and ventilation units are major energy consumers for commercial buildings, consuming as much as 50% of a building’s total annual power usage. Management of an air handling system’s energy is a key factor of reducing the energy costs and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that are associated with the demand when ventilating and conditioning the air in a building. One issue is that buildings are frequently over ventilated as a full assessment of the air handling unit (AHU) data is not evaluated by building operators. There are multiple variables that account for energy consumption of the AHU which need to be monitored by building operators. In order to assess the demand, it is required that the CO2 levels of the occupied zones be measured, and the outdoor air ventilation rate be adjusted based on real-time CO2. The concept of an energy management system and its characteristics are defined in respect to use with an AHU system. The prototype system used for the research is demonstrated and key data analyzed using real-time data collection. The goal of the research is to assess the number of CO2 sensors needed to accurately measure the demand-based needs for ventilation and provide review of the data required to monitor the AHU energy. Findings indicate that no more than one CO2 sensor would be required for a large lecture hall.

Technological innovation systems theory (TIS) provides a useful framework within which to consider energy transitions. The "seven functions" framework allows researchers to examine the progress of emergence of new technologies, but has not hitherto been tested for completeness and validity with stakeholders in an energy transition. The emergence of offshore wind over the last twenty years in the UK has been a significant part of the UK's energy decarbonisation transition and has provided the industrial roots for this research. The research has critically evaluated the "seven functions" model of TIS with stakeholders in the offshore renewable energy sector in the UK, with the aim of assessing whether each of the seven functions is necessary and whether together they are sufficient to explain the development of a TIS. This thesis has reviewed the literature to find that no canonical inventory of seven functions exists and it therefore develops one. Using interviews with more than thirty influential participants in the offshore renewables sector - including project and technology developers, policy makers, supply chain, support organisations and other stakeholders - the thesis examines whether the seven functions provide a "necessary and sufficient" framework, to characterise the emergence of offshore wind and marine renewables (tidal stream and wave) in the UK since 2000. The research supports the seven existing functions and finds evidence for a new function, which is defined as "relative value potential" (RVP). RVP considers the potential or actual value offered by an emergent technology, to consider whether it can demonstrate a roadmap to achieving an unsupported viability. TIS is far from unique in theories for understanding socio-technical transitions. This thesis also finds that the proposed new function offers some scope for a reconciliation of TIS and another leading theory in this space – Multi-Level Perspective. The thesis concludes by eliciting learnings from the emergence of offshore wind for the ...

Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission, 1958-60; discussion on test moratorium; recollections of Eisenhower as president

This report, prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), presents long-term projections of energy supply, demand and prices through 2040, based on results from EIA's National Energy Modeling System (NEMS).

This paper dwells upon the fundamental approaches and requirements to assessing the effectiveness of adopting production machinery in oil and gas operations. Optimizing the operation of a well is a fundamental problem in mechanized oil and gas production. What makes the problem so difficult to solve is the multitude of variables affecting the cost-effectiveness of the process. For instance, mean time to repair and mean time between failures are difficult to predict whilst specific energy consumption can be objectively estimated by instrumental monitoring that helps with calculations intended to determine the cost-effectiveness of various operations on a specific well. Notably, recent growth in electricity prices forced all major oil companies to seek more energy-efficient production. Given that oil and petroleum products account for >46% of the world's energy, and how power usage is distributed among different components of the oil production process with mechanized production accounting for 56%, designing novel energy-efficient equipment is imperative in the market economy. Funding information. The publication has been prepared with support of the RUDN University Program 5–100.

Abstract— Requirements for increasing the environmental friendliness of electricity and heat production to reduce the emission footprint are increasing the demands on the used fuels. For the replacement of conventional fuels in the process of combined production of electricity and heat, it is possible to use synthetic gases, which are created during processes of thermal recovery of biomass and waste. The presented article discusses the possibilities of using synthesis gas obtained by thermal recovery of waste in a plasma reactor in cogeneration units. For the experiment, different ratios of mixtures of natural gas and synthesis gas were used to reduce the consumption of fossil fuel without significantly reducing the performance of the cogeneration unit. The primary combustibles in the synthesis gas were hydrogen and carbon monoxide, the calorific value of which differs from that of methane, causing changes in fuel consumption to maintain the required unit performance. For the full possibility of using synthesis gas as a replacement in cogeneration units, further research is necessary both in the field of its use in combustion engines and in the field of its acquisition and primary purification.

abstract: The residential building sector accounts for more than 26% of the global energy consumption and 17% of global CO2 emissions. Due to the low cost of electricity in Kuwait and increase of population, Kuwaiti electricity consumption tripled during the past 30 years and is expected to increase by 20% by 2027. In this dissertation, a framework is developed to assess energy savings techniques to help policy-makers make educated decisions. The Kuwait residential energy outlook is studied by modeling the baseline energy consumption and the diffusion of energy conservation measures (ECMs) to identify the impacts on household energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The energy resources and power generation in Kuwait were studied. The characteristics of the residential buildings along with energy codes of practice were investigated and four building archetypes were developed. Moreover, a baseline of end-use electricity consumption and demand was developed. Furthermore, the baseline energy consumption and demand were projected till 2040. It was found that by 2040, energy consumption would double with most of the usage being from AC. While with lighting, there is a negligible increase in consumption due to a projected shift towards more efficient lighting. Peak demand loads are expected to increase by an average growth rate of 2.9% per year. Moreover, the diffusion of different ECMs in the residential sector was modeled through four diffusion scenarios to estimate ECM adoption rates. ECMs’ impact on CO2 emissions and energy consumption of residential buildings in Kuwait was evaluated and the cost of conserved energy (CCE) and annual energy savings for each measure was calculated. AC ECMs exhibited the highest cumulative savings, whereas lighting ECMs showed an immediate energy impact. None of the ECMs in the study were cost effective due to the high subsidy rate (95%), therefore, the impact of ECMs at different subsidy and rebate rates was studied. At 75% subsidized utility price and 40% rebate only on appliances, most of ECMs will be cost effective with high energy savings. Moreover, by imposing charges of $35/ton of CO2, most ECMs will be cost effective. ; Dissertation/Thesis ; Doctoral Dissertation Mechanical Engineering 2019