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The data consists of annual measurements of standing aboveground plant biomass, annual aboveground net primary productivity and annual soil respiration between 1998 and 2012. Data were collected from seven European shrublands that were subject to the climate manipulations drought and warming. Sites were located in the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands (NL), Denmark ( two sites, DK-B and DK-M), Hungary (HU), Spain (SP) and Italy (IT). All field sites consisted of untreated control plots, plots where the plant canopy air is artificially warmed during night time hours, and plots where rainfall is excluded from the plots at least during the plants growing season. Standing aboveground plant biomass (grams biomass per square metre) was measured in two undisturbed areas within the plots using the pin-point method (UK, DK-M, DK-B), or along a transect (IT, SP, HU, NL). Aboveground net primary productivity was calculated from measurements of standing aboveground plant biomass estimates and litterfall measurements. Soil respiration was measured in pre-installed opaque soil collars bi-weekly, monthly, or in measurement campaigns (SP only). The datasets provided are the basis for the data analysis presented in Reinsch et al. (2017) Shrubland primary production and soil respiration diverge along European climate gradient. Scientific Reports 7:43952 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep43952 Standing biomass was measured using the non-destructive pin-point method to assess aboveground biomass. Measurements were conducted at the state of peak biomass specific for each site. Litterfall was measured annually using litterfall traps. Litter collected in the traps was dried and the weight was measured. Aboveground biomass productivity was estimated as the difference between the measured standing biomass in year x minus the standing biomass measured the previous year. Soil respiration was measured bi-weekly or monthly, or in campaigns (Spain only). It was measured on permanently installed soil collars in treatment plots. The Gaussen Index of Aridity (an index that combines information on rainfall and temperature) was calculated using mean annual precipitation, mean annual temperature. The reduction in precipitation and increase in temperature for each site was used to calculate the Gaussen Index for the climate treatments for each site. Data of standing biomass and soil respiration was provided by the site responsible. Data from all sites were collated into one data file for data analysis. A summary data set was combined with information on the Gaussen Index of Aridity Data were then exported from these Excel spreadsheet to .csv files for ingestion into the EIDC.

Abstract Biomass is an important renewable energy source that holds large potential as feedstock for the production of different energy carriers in a context of sustainable development, peak oil and climate change. In developing countries, biomass already supplies the bulk of energy services and future use is expected to increase with more efficient applications, such as the production of biogas and liquid biofuels for cooking, transportation and the generation of power. The aim of this study is to establish the amount of Ghana's energy demand that can be satisfied by using the country's crop residues, animal manure, logging residues and municipal waste. The study finds that the technical potential of bioenergy from these sources is 96 PJ in 2700 Mm3 of biogas or 52 PJ in 2300 ML of cellulosic ethanol. The biogas potential is sufficient to replace more than a quarter of Ghana's present woodfuel use. If instead converted to cellulosic ethanol, the estimated potential is seven times the estimated 336 ML of biofuels needed to achieve the projected 10% biofuels blends at the national level in 2020. Utilizing the calculated potentials involves a large challenge in terms of infrastructure requirements, quantified to hundreds of thousands of small-scale plants.

Abstract In this article, we investigate the intergenerational transmission of sustainable consumption practices. Whereas previous studies have used self-reported attitudes and behaviour, this study uses data on actual energy consumption for space-heating and hot water combined with extensive panel data from Danish administrative registers. The paper shows significant intergenerational correlations between the energy consumption patterns of adults and their mothers, also when controlling for the energy consumption of the mother-in-law, where possible. Furthermore, it shows that the intergenerational correlation is slightly stronger for adults with lower income levels. These results suggest that energy consumption practices are shared and reproduced within the family. Following theories of practice, the intergenerational similarities in energy consumption practices refer to bodily learned practices that are indirectly transmitted and negotiated through family relations. In this way, these findings also contribute to a better understanding of how practical understanding regarding how to perform practices is transmitted within more ordinary aspects of consumption that play a less obvious role in distinction. To ensure more sustainable consumption practices in the future, this paper points to the importance of the role of family relations and the transmission of embodied practices.

Cholecalciferol, vitamin D3, was found to isomerize to 5,6-trans-vitamin-D3 with a quantum yield of 0.15 ± 0.01 in air-saturated 7/3 tert-butyl alcohol/water (v/v) at 25 °C, increasing to 0.32 ± 0.02 in the absence of oxygen, through quenching of triplet excited state flavin mononucleotide, FMN, rather than becoming oxidized. The quenching was found by laser flash photolysis to have a rate constant of 1.4 × 10(8) L mol(-1) s(-1) in 7/3 tert-butyl alcohol/water (v/v) at 25 °C, assigned to energy transfer from (3)FMN* to form a reactive vit.D3 diradical. vit.D3 forms a 1/1 precomplex with FMN by hydrophobic stacking with ΔH° = -36 ± 7 kJ mol(-1) and ΔS° = -4 ± 3 J mol(-1) K(-1), as shown by single photon counting fluorescence spectroscopy and steady-state fluorescence spectroscopy. Both ground-state precomplex formation and excited-state energy transfer seem important for vit.D3 protection against flavin-sensitized photooxidation of nutrients in food and biological systems.

Significance Bioethanol produced from waste biomass from crops has the potential to provide a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based transportation fuel that does not compete with human food supply. The main obstacle to this approach is the resistance of this biomass to digestion. Thus, expensive energetic pretreatment and high enzyme inputs are needed to increase digestion. In this study, we screened a population of randomly mutated plants for digestibility with the aim of identifying novel factors that impact on this trait. We found a number of mutants with high digestibility and no impairments in growth or fitness. These mutants show a range of alterations in cell-wall composition, and we have mapped and characterized the mutant with the highest increase in digestibility.

Abstract In later years the potential contribution of forest bioenergy to mitigate climate change has been increasingly questioned due to temporal displacement between CO 2 emissions when forest biomass is used for energy and subsequent sequestration of carbon in new biomass. Also disturbance of natural decay of dead biomass when used for energy affect the carbon dynamics of forest ecosystems. These perturbations of forest ecosystems are summarized under the concept of carbon debt and its payback time. Narrative reviews demonstrate that the payback time of apparently comparable forest bioenergy supply scenarios vary by up to 200 years allowing amble room for confusion and dispute about the climate benefits of forest bioenergy. This meta-analysis confirm that the outcome of carbon debt studies lie in the assumptions and find that methodological rather than ecosystem and management related assumptions determine the findings. The study implies that at the current development of carbon debt methodologies and their lack of consensus the concept in it-self is inadequate for informing and guiding policy development. At the management level the carbon debt concept may provide valuable information directing management principles in a more climate benign directions.

This letter proposes a new merit order for the dispatch of stochastic production in forward markets (e.g., day-ahead markets). The proposed merit order considers not only the marginal cost of the stochastic generating unit, which is often very low or zero, but also the projected cost of balancing its energy deviations during the real-time operation of the power system. We show, through an illustrative example, that the proposed merit order leads to increased market efficiency as the penetration of stochastic generation in the electricity market grows.

An analysis of scientific publications on solar energy was conducted to determine whether public interest in the subject is mirrored by more intense research in the area. To this end, the research published by Spain and Germany, the two EU countries with the highest installed photovoltaic capacity, was analyzed based on Web of Science data. The results show that: solar output has risen substantially; solar research has a greater impact (measured in terms of citations) than publications on other renewables such as wind power; scientific production on solar energy is high in Germany and Spain, which together account for 51% of the total in the EU-27; the pattern of topics researched in the two countries is very similar; and their international collaboration is more intense than the world average and higher than in countries such as the USA, China or Japan. Collaboration between them is likewise intense. The main conclusion is the divergence in Germany and Spain between solar energy demand/output growth, being exponential, and the growth of research papers on the subject, which is linear.