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Abstract Although the “resource curse” hypothesis has been supported by many empirical studies focusing on the transnational and regional levels, there has always been a point of contention about the proper method of estimating and selecting natural resource indicators in literature. This paper proposes a mixed estimation method for panel data of 10 typical oil and gas resource-based cities in China from 1998 to 2015. The results show that resource industry agglomeration can mirror the distribution and dependence on the resource industry by location rather than by merely measuring the influence of the relative scale of resource extraction on economic growth. Using resource industry agglomeration as the main explanatory variable for regional economic growth verifies the resource curse hypothesis and shows the nonlinear characteristics of the negative correlation between resources and economic growth. Despite mostly similar indicator parameter estimates, marked differences exist in measured effects for material capital investments and technological innovation investments. The result of using resource industry agglomeration as the main explanatory variable is basically consistent with the economic theory and is more in line with observed reality than the alternative indicator. The research conclusions can provide evidence and data for index selection in the studies on the mediating effect of resource curse transmission and international comparison.

Abstract Global environmental change is driven by food production. Biogas from food waste is a better source of clean energy. Ghana’s energy strategy targets a 10% increase in renewable energy and modern biomass in the national electricity generation mix. Studies on the assessment of electricity generation potential and economic feasibility of biogas to electricity projects in Ghana’s major cities are scarcely available. This study assesses the electricity generation potential of biogas from food waste through anaerobic digestion technology. The municipal solid waste generation potential of Accra and Kumasi was estimated from 2020 to 2039. The potential theoretical methane yield from food waste was calculated using Buswell’s equation. The study analyzed anaerobic digestion projects’ economic feasibility using the total life cycle cost, net present value, investment payback period, levelized cost of energy, and internal rate of return methods. A sensitivity analysis based on two scenarios (optimistic and pessimistic) was performed to analyze the influence of changes in the composition of food waste, per capita waste generation rate, population growth rate, per capita GDP growth rate, discount rate, capacity factor, electricity generation efficiency, waste collection efficiency, and methane production potential on the economic feasibility of the projects. The main findings indicate that the amount of waste generation in Accra during the project life cycle is 899,000 t/y to 3,359,000 t/y, while that of Kumasi is 915,000 t/y to 3,159,000 t/y. The power generation potential of the project in Accra ranges from 80.43 to 300.49 GWh/y, and in Kumasi ranges from 60.63 to 209.31 GWh/y. Economically, the project is feasible in Accra and Kumasi. The net present value of the project in Accra and Kumasi is $217,800,000 and $156,100,000. The sensitivity analysis shows that the project is infeasible in all the cities with a discount rate exceeding 20%. When the discount rate exceeds 20%, the project becomes highly infeasible in Accra compared to Kumasi. This study will offer itself as scientific guidance for investment in biogas to electricity projects in Ghana’s cities.

Environmental quality indicators are crucial for responsive and cost-effective policies. The objective of the study is to examine the relationship between environmental quality indicators and financial development in Malaysia. For this purpose, the number of environmental quality indicators has been used, i.e., air pollution measured by carbon dioxide emissions, population density per square kilometer of land area, agricultural production measured by cereal production and livestock production, and energy resources considered by energy use and fossil fuel energy consumption, which placed an impact on the financial development of the country. The study used four main financial indicators, i.e., broad money supply (M2), domestic credit provided by the financial sector (DCFS), domestic credit to the private sector (DCPC), and inflation (CPI), which each financial indicator separately estimated with the environmental quality indicators, over a period of 1975-2013. The study used the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to minimize the simultaneity from the model. The results show that carbon dioxide emissions exert the positive correlation with the M2, DCFC, and DCPC, while there is a negative correlation with the CPI. However, these results have been evaporated from the GMM estimates, where carbon emissions have no significant relationship with any of the four financial indicators in Malaysia. The GMM results show that population density has a negative relationship with the all four financial indicators; however, in case of M2, this relationship is insignificant to explain their result. Cereal production has a positive relationship with the DCPC, while there is a negative relationship with the CPI. Livestock production exerts the positive relationship with the all four financial indicators; however, this relationship with the CPI has a more elastic relationship, while the remaining relationship is less elastic with the three financial indicators in a country. Energy resources comprise energy use and fossil fuel energy consumption, both have distinct results with the financial indicators, as energy demand have a positive and significant relationship with the DCFC, DCPC, and CPI, while fossil fuel energy consumption have a negative relationship with these three financial indicators. The results of the study are of value to both environmentalists and policy makers.

Abstract The financial system needs to develop in order for natural resource exports to have a positive effect on economic growth. Yet, an advanced financial system is crucial for transferring the revenues from oil exports to productive investments. If the level of development of the financial system remains under a certain threshold, the effect of natural resource exports on economic growth is too low. In this vein, the determination of the level and the deepness of financial development that has a positive impact on the growth of natural resource exports should be clarified. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the impact of natural resource exports on economic growth and the level of financial deepening by using the data of the selected Next-11 countries for the period of 1996–2016. Nonlinear panel data methodology is used in the study. Based on the empirical results, for the first regime, where the rate of financial deepening is under 45%, the increase in oil exports does not have a statistically significant effect on ecenomic growth. For the second regime, where financial deepening is over 45%, one unit increase in oil exports causes a 7% increase in economic growth.

Today's nuclear technology has principally been based on the use of fissile U-235 and Pu-239. While the natural thorium isotope Th-232 can finally be transformed to a fissile U-233 nucleus following a thermal neutron capture reaction, the existence of thorium in the nature and its potential use in the nuclear technology were not unfortunately into account with a sufficient importance. This was probably because of the geological availability of natural resources of thorium and uranium. Global distributions of thorium and uranium reserves clearly indicate that in general some developed countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia have considerable uranium reserves and contrarily only some developing countries such as Brazil, Turkey, India, Egypt have considerable thorium reserves as being totally about 70 % of the global reserve. All technical parameters obtained from the studies on thorium fuel cycle during the last 50 years indicate that thorium fuel cycle can be used in most of reactor types already operated. In addition, accelerated-driven hybrid systems promise to use the thorium based nuclear fuels. So, thorium will probably be a nuclear material much more valuable than uranium in the future. For this reason, all developing countries having thorium reserves should focus their technological attentions to the evaluation of their national thorium resources like in the case of India. In this paper a brief story on the studies of thorium and its potential use in the future energy production technology have been summarized.

Abstract The vast output of household waste has become a terrible environmental problem with the rapid growth of social development and population in China. Several pilot cities have introduced related policies to regulate urban residents in sorting household waste. Although existing research has concentrated on sorting waste intentions and behaviours amongst urban residents, especially in pilot cities or other large cities, waste produced in non-city areas should not be neglected. Accordingly, this study identified the determinants influencing waste sorting intentions and behaviours of residents in rural or urban–rural integration areas by incorporating the theory of planned behaviour and norm-activation model. A total of 241 residents completed valid questionnaires, and the collected data were empirically analysed through covariance-based structural equation modelling. Results implied that behavioural attitude and perceived behavioural control were the most significant predictors of sorting waste intention and behaviour. Meanwhile, personal moral norms and subjective norms also presented positive effects on behavioural intention. Awareness of consequence had a significant influence on personal moral norm rather than behavioural intention. After empirical analysis, this study proposed several managerial implications regarding waste problems in rural and urban–rural integration areas in China.

The declaration of 2014-2024 as the Decade of Sustainable Energy for All has catalyzed actions towards achieving universal electricity access. The high costs of building electric infrastructure are a major impediment to improved access, making stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) systems an attractive solution in remote areas. Here, we analyze the cost-effective electrification solution for Kenya comparing grid extension with stand-alone PV systems. We use micro-data from a national household survey to estimate electricity demand for households that are within reach of electricity infrastructure and to predict latent demand in unconnected households. These regional demands are used in a spatially explicit supply model to seek for a least cost electrification solution. Our results suggest that decentralized PV systems can make an important contribution in areas, with low demand and high connection costs. We find that up to 17% of the population can be reached cost-effectively by off-grid PV systems till 2020.

Local government's environmental expenditure (LGEE) is critical to ecological protection and environmental governance, and it has not played its due role. By constructing a theoretical model of the competitive effect of LGEE under the intervention of central government, this study used the spatial econometric model to analyze the competitive effect of LGEE based on the data of 30 provinces in China from 2007 to 2016. The main results show that (1) from the perspective of the national area, LGEE shows a U-shaped development model together with economic growth; (2) a significant positive spatial effect in interprovincial LGEE is observed in eastern region, indicating that local government tends to adopt the competitive strategy of mutual imitation. Local government will not reduce environmental expenditure as fiscal decentralization increases; (3) the coefficient of the spatial effect in LGEE is significantly negative in central and western regions, which is manifested as a competitive strategy of mutual substitution. The coefficient of fiscal decentralization is significantly negative, indicating that LGEE relies mainly on the transfer payments from central government, and the essence of interprovincial competition regarding environmental expenditure is the competition for the transfer payments from central government.

Abstract Recently, renewable energy projects, such as photovoltaic systems, have become interesting generation alternatives thanks to the incentive strategies developed by several countries. For the user of photovoltaic microgeneration, there is interest in the financial return of the investment, which is most often financed by public banks with a limited budget. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze variables related both to the point of view of the investor in microgeneration and to the public banks that subsidize them. However, defining the configuration of photovoltaic systems that guarantees the economic feasibility for those who invest without excessively burdening the public resource is a complex task and requires the analysis of different experts. To fill this gap, this paper proposes an innovative approach for evaluating photovoltaic projects based on Attribute Agreement Analysis. Experts on photovoltaic systems with different profiles and experience were asked about 16 scenarios, planned according to a factorial design with four factors: installed power capacity, PV cell type, debt ratio, and loan interest rate. The results demonstrated that the proposed approach fulfills the objective of simultaneously assessing the impact of investments in photovoltaic systems, considering the investors' and public banks’ viewpoints. In the case analyzed, although the evaluations are performed in a judicious way (Wwithin> 0.85), there is a low agreement between the experts (Woverall