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Abstract The high temperature coolant of nuclear power plants (NPPs) has been investigated for the hydrogen production, which could be a major role of a green energy promotion. An accident of the high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGR) is modeled for the stabilized hydrogen production using nuclear energy. For the clean energy resource pursuit in preventing the climate change, the hydrogen is one of very attractive energy sources. The non-operational data could be produced by the fuzzy set theory which is one of non-linear complex algorithms. So, the result can show the possibility of the event happening instead of the exact solutions. The random numbers are generated for membership numbers of the fuzzy function. The event manipulation is done by new membership numbers for the propagations. The final result is 1.0 in 8 times during 100 months. So, the frequency is 0.08, or 8% of successful long-term cooling by conduction.

In recent years, marine auxiliary diesel engine has been widely used to produce electricity in the large ocean-going ship. One of the main technical challenges for ocean-going ship is to reduce pollutant emissions from marine auxiliary diesel engine and to meet the criteria of disposal on ships pollutants of IMO (International Maritime Organization). Different technical changes have been introduced in marine auxiliary diesel engine to apply clean fuels to reduce pollutant emissions. The ultralow sulfur light fuel will be applied in diesel engine for emission reductions in China. This study is aimed to investigate the impact of fuel (ultralow sulfur light fuel) on the combustion characteristic, NOx and green house gas emissions in a marine auxiliary diesel engine, under the 50%-90% engine speeds and the 25%-100% engine torques. The experimental results show that, in the marine auxiliary diesel engine, the cylinder pressure and peak heat release rate increase slightly with the increase of engine torques, while the ignition advances and combustion duration become longer. With the increases of the engine speed and torque, the fuel consumption decreases significantly, while the temperature of the exhaust manifold increases. The NOx emissions increase significantly with the increases of the engine speed and torque. The NO emission increases with the increases of the engine speed and torque, while the NO2 emission decreases. Meanwhile, the ratio of NO2 and NO is about 1:1 when the diesel engine operated in the low speed and load, while the ratio increases significantly with the increases of engine speed and torque, due to the increase of the cylinder temperature in the diffusive combustion mode. Moreover, the CO2 emission increases with the increases of engine speed and torque by the use of ultralow sulfur light fuel.

Abstract Agricultural practice is facing multiple challenges under volatile commodity markets, inevitable climate change, mounting pest pressure and various other environment-related constraints. The objective of this research is to present a dynamic optimization model of crop rotations and farm management and show its suitability for economic analysis over a 30 year time period. In this model, we include management practices such as fertilization, fungicide treatment and liming, and apply it in a region in Southwestern Finland. Results show that (i) growing pest pressure favours the cultivation of wheat-oats and wheat-oilseeds combinations, while (ii) market prices largely determine the crops in the rotation plan and the specific management practices adopted. The flexibility of our model can also be utilized in evaluating the value of other management options such as new cultivars under different projections of future climate and market conditions.

Abstract This article focuses on the results obtained by the enforcement of a original greenhouse gas emissions policy, issued in recent years in several municipalities in Northern Italy. The Municipality of Reggio Emilia was one of the firsts in Italy to develop and adopt a voluntary building energy-consumption certification method called Ecoabita, aiming to promote energy efficiency in buildings over its jurisdiction. Several reasons make this project innovative: first, the certification method has been processed through and verified by a quality international agency, secondly the procedure is assisting financial-incentive policies both on mandatory (European Directive 2002/91/CE) and voluntary basis (Municipality Protocol Ecoabita), finally it allows to obtain eligible credits for avoided emissions that can be negotiated on the CO2 exchange market. With specific reference to Reggio Emilia case, acknowledged the amount of actions, that are normally scheduled in the municipality throughout a year, it has been evaluated the benefit, in terms of environmental improvement, descended from the protocol, also projecting their trend in future years up to 2020 as well, demonstrating the scheduled interventions are fundamental in sought of the achievement of the Kyoto and Copenhagen commitments. The entire procedure has been developed in accordance to the parameters given by UNFCCC for these kinds of analyses and has been recently confirmed to be one of the most accurate international accounting procedure by a survey developed by the scientific committee of the European Project LIFE-LAKS.

This paper presents an experimental study of indoor thermal environment near a full-scale glass facade with different types of shading devices under varying climatic conditions in winter. Interior glazing and shading temperature, operative temperature and radiant temperature asymmetry were measured for facade sections with roller shades and venetian blinds at different positions. Interior glass surface temperatures can be high during sunny days with low outdoor temperature. Shading systems significantly improved operative temperature and radiant temperature asymmetry during cold sunny days, depending on their properties and tilt angle. During cloudy days the impact was smaller, however the shading layers could still decrease the amount of heat loss through the facade. A transient building thermal model, which also calculates indoor environmental indices under the presence of solar radiation, was developed and compared with the experimental measurements. Part II of this paper uses this validated model with a transient, two-node thermal comfort model (including transmitted solar radiation) for assessment of indoor environmental conditions with different building envelope and shading properties, facade location and orientation.

The delayed harvest system for grass crops in which the harvest of the previous year's crop is undertaken after it has over-wintered in the field significantly improves the fuel quality for both combustion and gasification. The critical elements that cause fouling and corrosion problems in boilers are alkali and chlorine which are released during combustion. The concentrations of these are reduced by a factor of 2 to 6 by using the delayed harvest system rather than harvesting in the end of the growing season. The loss of some leaf material and leaching of alkali also contributes to an increase in the ash fusion temperature from 1070°C to 1400°C. This work is part of a project in progress involving 14 different field trials distributed all over Sweden. Results are presented demonstrating that ash content is influenced by the type of soil. The most extreme variations are between reed canary grass grown on high clay content soils and those produced on very humic soils, with ash contents of 10.1% and 2.2%, respectively.

Bioenergy is considered a sustainable substitute to fossil-fuel resources and the development of a prudent combination of renewable and innovative conversion technologies are essential for the valorization and effective conversion of biowaste to value-added commodities. Here, a negative pressure-induced carbonization process was proposed for the valorization of lignin-enriched biowaste precursor to bio-oil and environmental materials (biochar) at various temperatures. The high heating values (HHV) of the as-prepared biochars from the lignin enriched precursor under negative pressure (low-medium vacuum) were within 25.9-31.5 MJ/kg, which matched satisfactorily to the commercial charcoal. Whereas, the bio-oils produced from the lignin enriched precursor under vacuum conditions was a blend of complex aromatic and straight-chain hydro-carbons, including aldehyde, ketone, phenol, and furans, exhibiting ability as potential heating-oil with HHV within 21.2-28.2 MJ/kg. Moreover, the biochars produced under vacuum environments at higher temperature showed greater stability (22.5-35.9%) than those produced under N2 atmosphere.

Main advantage of electric vehicles (EV) compared to vehicles using fossil fuels is that does not produce air pollution. One day the existence of conventional vehicles will be replaced by EV. EV gets electricity supply from batteries. When using EV, one day the electrical energy in the batteries will run out. To recharge batteries, important components such as the Electrical Vehicle Charger (EVC) are needed. EVC provides the impact of voltage drop on the electric power system bus during the charging process. This voltage drop caused by the power supply from generators cannot meet the needs of loads, including chargers and batteries. To maintain the voltage so it remains at its safe operating voltage, the same bus with EVC is interconnected with renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources used in this study are four types of wind turbine power plants. Safe range of operating voltage in this research from 95% to 105%. This paper analyzes the change in voltage in the electric power system when the wind power plant fills EVC. The research methods section uses several scenarios. The aim is to determine the effect of each type of wind power plant on the bus voltage and EVC. Simulation results show that scenario 3 has the best results than the other scenarios. In scenario 3, voltage in bus 12 is 98,08%, voltage in bus 13 is 98,66%, and voltage in bus 14 is 98,42%. All three buses in safe limits of the operating voltage.

An ethanol-methyl- t-butyl ether (MTBE) fuel blend was used as a substitute for hydrated ethanol to improve the vehicle cold start and drivability characteristics during the warm-up period. The vehicle was tested in a cold box, reaching a lower ambient temperature limit of -6deg;C, which represents the most severe weather condition experienced in Brazil. Different concentrations of MTBE in ethanol were investigated. The results show satisfactory drivability characteristics for the tested conditions, comparable with those found in gasoline-fuelled vehicles, thus overcoming the existing cold start difficulties in production ethanol-fuelled vehicles.