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Castor bean (Ricinus communis L.), is a plant belonging to the Euphorbiaceae family and one of the most interesting oil seed crops to develop and study in the Mediterranean basin. The main trait that enhances castor cultivation is its oil content, which is really high, around 40-55% depending on the genotype and area of cultivation. Today’s panorama and policies are pushing towards the exploitation of this crop because it is expected to be a valid alternative to fossil fuels for the production of biofuels, such as biodiesel, and for the valorization and use of abandoned and degraded land. Field experiment was conducted for analyzing the oil yield and oil content of four dwarf hybrids of castor, compared to a local genotype, selected by the University of Catania, Italy. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of different sowing dates on the oil content and oil yield of castor seeds. The analysis was conducted on primary and secondary raceme. The oil content was higher in the dwarf hybrids for the primary racemes, whereas for the secondary raceme the most productive one, in terms of oil content was GT. By analyzing also the oil yield (resulted from the multiplication of the oil content by the oil yield), the most productive genotype for the oil yield on average was G4, whereas SW3 was the sowing date with the highest value. Nevertheless, the combination genotype x sowing date had higher result for G3 SW3. Among the parameters studied, the genotype G2 shown a low level of tolerance to the low temperatures. Proceedings of the 31st European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 5-8 June 2023, Bologna, Italy, pp. 296-299

A new concept of a system for Combined Heat and Power generation is presented. The concept is based on hybrid use of two renewable energy sources, direct solar (thermodynamic solar) and biomass (indirect solar energy). Biomass combustion is conducted using a fluidized bed combustor. A second source of energy, given by the direct irradiation of the bed with a concentrated solar radiation, is integrated in the same system, using the fluidized bed as solar receiver. A Stirling engine converts heat into mechanical power. A Scheffler type mirror is adopted to allow irradiation of the system in a fixed focal point. Advantages of the proposed solution are illustrated and some preliminary results on the performance of the system, obtained with a simple model, are presented. The principal improvements with respect to existing systems of similar size and primary energy source are illustrated. The most important are the enhanced heat transfer processes that are realized with the help of the fluidized bed, and the possibility of continuous cogeneration during the day. Different working conditions are considered to estimate the contribution given by the burning of fuel, in presence as well as in absence of sun irradiation (as during the night). The distribution of energy shares among the different flux contributes is reported versus the amount of biomass burned per unit time. The results clearly demonstrate the advantage of coupling, in the same system, two sources for heat generation, thus maintaining the option of producing electricity without the supply of biomass fuel.

An accurate evaluation of solar energy production in power grids is a crucial aspect for the optimal exploitation of the available resources and for the effective integration of photovoltaic (PV) generators. This is especially advantageous in a smart grid context where a higher penetration of renewable energy sources is expected combined with distributed intelligence and information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures. In this paper the nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous input (NARX) is used to perform hourly solar radiation forecasting, according to a multi-step ahead approach. Temperature has been considered as the exogenous variable in the analysis. The NARX topology selection is supported by a combined use of two techniques: 1. a genetic algorithm (GA)-based optimization technique for the determination of the best weight set and 2. a method that determines the optimal network architecture by pruning it according to the Optimal Brain Surgeon (OBS) strategy. The considered variables are observed at hourly scale in a seven year dataset and the forecasting is done for several time horizons in the range from 8 to 24 hours-ahead. 29th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2574-2579

Schools4energy is a laboratory of sustainable experimentation for the implementation of good practices that aims to promote conscious and virtuous energy behaviours and energy efficiency in the schools. The activities, developed in the framework of the INTERREG MED PrioritEE project, involve the students, the teachers and the staff personnel of Primary and Lower Secondary Schools of the Municipality of Potenza. The Schools4energy laboratory is made up of three integrated modules (School race, Artists for energy, Energy at stake) based on different methodologies (analytical methods, co-creation and gamification) in order to increase the interest and the involvement of students and enhance their preferences and talents. The proposed activities pursue multiple objectives: to increase students’ knowledge and skills on energy, to raise awareness on energy consumption, to encourage energy consumption reduction, to promote behavioural changes.

One of the main problems that affects modern cities is connected to transport/mobility. Urban transport is currently based on car use; the transition to the use of more sustainable means of transport is happening slowly. Bicycles used as main way of transport, combined with walking, it’s a successful solution for many towns to really bring traffic and congestion down. For their high density and their short time travels, towns are the best places (in comparison to long time travels as merchandise transport) to reduce the green houses gasses emitted promoting walking, cycling and public transport. For this reason the European Union is directly founding different projects that boost urban cycling. Many examples presented in this paper where collected by an European project. This project sectioned best practices and excellences in cycling as the so called cycle cities: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Seville,…cities that have recognized the importance of cycling as a solution to traffic congestion. But how is it possible to transfer these experiences to others realities? The scope of this article is to show the sustainability of cycling according to socio-economic (social and economic sustainability) and environmental terms (environmental sustainability). For this reason is proposed a CBA (Cost and Benefits Analysis) methodology specific to evidence the advantages of investments in cycling made by public authorities or private companies both, to promote and realize ecological infrastructures. One of the main problems that affects modern cities is connected to transport/mobility. Urban transport is currently based on car use; the transition to the use of more sustainable means of transport is happening slowly. Bicycles used as main way of transport, combined with walking, it’s a successful solution for many towns to really bring traffic and congestion down. For their high density and their short time travels, towns are the best places (in comparison to long time travels as merchandise transport) to reduce the green houses gasses emitted promoting walking, cycling and public transport. For this reason the European Union is directly founding different projects that boost urban cycling. Many examples presented in this paper where collected by an European project. This project sectioned best practices and excellences in cycling as the so called cycle cities: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Seville,…cities that have recognized the importance of cycling as a solution to traffic congestion. But how is it possible to transfer these experiences to others realities? The scope of this article is to show the sustainability of cycling according to socio-economic (social and economic sustainability) and environmental terms (environmental sustainability). For this reason is proposed a CBA (Cost and Benefits Analysis) methodology specific to evidence the advantages of investments in cycling made by public authorities or private companies both, to promote and realize ecological infrastructures. Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Vol 8, N° 1 (2015): Cities, Energy and Climate Change

The aim of this study is to evaluate the potential environmental life-cycle impacts of olives produced in three management systems of olive tree integrated with natural grassland. This study compares three small farms using different farming systems (silvopastoral, organic and traditional) with an average Italian farm using life cycle assessment methodology. The most related to agriculture impact categories were assessed: Global Warming potential, acidification and eutrophication. All farms were are using small amount of fertilisers, low use of chemicals, and no pesticides. However among all agricultural practices, fertilization has the highest environmental impact followed by machinery use. In this case organic farming system is looking as the most promising one due to low organic fertiliser application.

The Joint Research Center (JRC) has set a series of thresholds to define marginal lands in terms of biophysical constraints. We focus on climate limitation given by the ratio between precipitations and potential evapotranspiration (P/PET). Indeed, the Mediterranean climates are characterized by long drought periods during summer, with low rainfall and high evapotranspiration, what limits plant CO2 assimilation and biomass production, particularly of spring-summer crops. The present study ascertained the potential and actual yield of African fodder cane (Saccharum spontaneum ssp. aegypticum), a perennial, herbaceous, rhizomatous perennial grass, native from North Africa and widespread in South Mediterranean regions. Saccharum was grown under different water regimes (I0 - rainfed, I50 – 50% ETm and I100 – 100% ETm restoration) for six successive growing seasons, namely from the 7th to the 12th. Throughout the experimental period, the dryness index greatly changed among the six growing seasons: three out of the six (2012, 2013 and 2014) were much lower than the threshold of 0.6 set in the JRC report, indicating severe drought seasons, two were quite similar to the threshold value (2015 and 2016), while the 2011, which was the wettest season overall, had a dryness index higher than the threshold. Actual biomass yield was mostly driven by meteorological conditions through the growing seasons. However, even in the driest seasons, Saccharum was able to maintain satisfactory biomass yield and good yield persistence. As compared to the potential yield (I100), the relative yield reduction over the six years was in the range of 31% in the most stress condition (I0), but the energy productivity and the water footprint improved by 62% and 32%, respectively, indicating a higher sustainability of the cropping system when irrigation water was not provided. When the irrigation level was raised to the 50% of the maximum evapotranspiration restoration (ETm), the relative yield, over the six growing seasons, reduced by 16.5%; the energy productivity and the water footprint improved of only 14 and 22%, respectively. This study underlines the importance for strategic selection of crops for a given environmental condition dominated by a specific biophysical constraint and the agronomic practices leading to increase the energy productivity while reducing the pressure on Mediterranean freshwater. Proceedings of the 28th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-9 July 2020, Virtual, pp. 34-40

The use of agricultural residues for energy production determines economic and environmental benefits for the agricultural sector. Among the lignocellulosic biomasses, the residues of agricultural crops such as prunings of olive trees, vines and hazels could be play a key role for the italian agricultural sector. The aim of this work is to evaluate the physical and chemical characteristics of these residues in order to obtain information on the potential use in energy transformation processes such as combustion, pyrolysis and gasification. The analysis of biomass character-ization includes the evaluation of moisture content, ash content, volatile matter, fixed carbon, total solid, lower and higher calorific value and elemental composition in terms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur content. The re-sults show that the moisture content is higher in vine and hazel prunings (18.50 % w/w and 11.80 % w/w) than in ol-ive tree prunings (9.80 % w/w). The ash content is below 3 % w/w for all residues and carbon content ranges from 47 % w/w to 50 % w/w. These results show that the agricultural lignocellulosic residues could be used as resource for combustion processes for production of heat and power or in pyro-gasification processes for production of syngas and biochar that represents a good soil improver. Proceedings of the 27th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 27-30 May 2019, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 290-293