• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• Restricted close
• 13. Climate action close
• 11. Sustainability close
• Aurora Universities Network close

Abstract The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) marked a milestone in the course of international efforts on global climate action. As part of the COP21 side events, on December 4th the Lima Paris Action Agenda presented a half-day of presentations and round table discussions titled Focus on Private Finance. The event was supported by the Secretary-General of the United Nation, Caisse des Depots, and the I4CE Institute for Climate Economics. This conference report summarizes the findings of the session and the messages delivered by finance industry representatives. Significant investment in low carbon assets is required to maintain global temperature increases below 2 °C. The two resounding themes throughout the session were that in order to attract capital for low carbon investments fossil fuel subsidies must end and a higher carbon price is needed to incentivise investment. Furthermore, accounting and regulatory bodies need to implement more stringent disclosure and reporting requirements so that climate risk is properly understood by investors. There is significant appetite for investment in the low carbon sector which is demonstrated by the growth in the green bond market. Financial institutions have a role to play in aggregating, structuring and de-risking investments to facilitate private finance investment. Policy makers also need to improve the investment environment by creating consistent and stable long term policies which will give investors' confidence.

Abstract The sustainable indicators are characterized by a low degree of aggregation and a high amount of information. An indicator must show a synthetic representation of a real environmental, by using a value or a parameter, so that they can be easily used by policy makers. It is necessary to connect, therefore, the various systems in an appropriately integrated sustainable system. The indicators need to be aggregated based on the structure of the data. Each indicator must to be defined through a weight with reference to another weighted indicator. In this paper is illustrated the calculation of the assigned weights that uses a procedure based on fuzzy logic and to define a model that allows us to estimate the sustainability of a city. The final result is, therefore, a combination of values assigned by expert opinion for the various criteria, processed using fuzzy logic to obtain a weight with significant objectivity and as it is possible to estimate the sustainability of the city through the weights.

[object Object]

Abstract In recent years, distributed energy systems (DESs) have been recognized as a promising option for sustainable development of future energy systems, and their application has increased rapidly with supportive policies and financial incentives. With growing concerns on global warming and depletion of fossil fuels, design optimization of DESs through economic assessments for short-run benefits only is not sufficient, while application of exergy principles can improve the efficiency in energy resource use for long-run sustainability of energy supply. The innovation of this paper is to investigate exergy in DES design to attain rational use of energy resources including renewables by considering energy qualities of supply and demand. By using low-temperature sources for low-quality thermal demand, the waste of high-quality energy can be reduced, and the overall exergy efficiency can be increased. The goal of the design optimization problem is to determine types, numbers and sizes of energy devices in DESs to reduce the total annual cost and increase the overall exergy efficiency. Based on a pre-established DES superstructure with multiple energy devices such as combined heat and power and PV, a multi-objective linear problem is formulated. In modeling of energy devices, the novelty is that the entire available size ranges and the variation of their efficiencies, capital and operation and maintenance costs with sizes are considered. The operation of energy devices is modeled based on previous work on DES operation optimization. By minimizing a weighted sum of the total annual cost and primary exergy input, the problem is solved by branch-and-cut. Numerical results show that the Pareto frontier provides good balancing solutions for planners based on economic and sustainability priorities. The total annual cost and primary exergy input of DESs with optimized configurations are reduced by 21–36% as compared with conventional energy supply systems, where grid power is used for the electricity demand, and gas-fired boilers and electric chillers fed by grid power for thermal demand. A sensitivity analysis is also carried out to analyze the influence of energy prices and energy demand variation on the optimized DES configurations.

Abstract The European Energy Efficiency Building Directive 2002/91/CE, as well as other acts and funding programs, strongly promotes the adoption of passive strategies for buildings, in order to achieve indoor thermal comfort conditions above all in summer, so reducing or avoiding the use of air conditioning systems. In this paper, the energy performances achievable using an earth-to-air heat exchanger for an air-conditioned building have been evaluated for both winter and summer. By means of dynamic building energy performance simulation codes, the energy requirements of the systems have been analysed for different Italian climates, as a function of the main boundary conditions (such as the typology of soil, tube material, tube length and depth, velocity of the air crossing the tube, ventilation airflow rates, control modes). The earth-to-air heat exchanger has shown the highest efficiency for cold climates both in winter and summer. The possible coupling of this technology with other passive strategies has been also examined. Then, a technical-economic analysis has been carried out: this technology is economically acceptable (simple payback of 5–9 years) only in the cases of easy and cheap moving earth works; moreover, metallic tubes are not suitable. Finally, considering in summer a not fully air-conditioned building, only provided with diurnal ventilation coupled to an earth-to-air heat exchanger plus night-time ventilation, the possible indoor thermal comfort conditions have been evaluated.

While the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council have economically and politically been dominated by the exploitation of fossil fuels, recent years have seen an increasing adoption of renewable energy technologies, the reasons of which are not yet sufficiently understood. This paper argues that the recent adoption of renewable energy technologies in the Gulf and its striking variation can be explained by theories of policy transfer. In addition, we find some support for the alternative hypothesis of endogenous policy development regarding political leadership. Yet there is no support for the alternative hypothesis of a strong direct influence of the international climate regime. Furthermore, the policy transfer hypothesis and political leadership stand as coexisting influences on renewable energy adoption, rather than competing ones. Based on an extensive study of primary and secondary sources, local reports and country analyses of international organizations, and personal interviews with key experts, this paper lays out in detail how transfers of renewable energy policies take place in the Gulf; their drivers; and their impacts. We also discuss the factors that lead countries to lag behind, which can be helpful for prospective research on a more extensive utilization of renewable energy in the region and beyond.

AbstractEarthworms may promote the biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soil, but the mechanism through which they exert such influence is still unknown. To determine if the stimulation of PAH degradation by earthworms is related to changes in microbial communities, a microcosm experiment was conducted consisting of columns with natural uncontaminated soil covered with PAH‐contaminated dredge sediment. Columns without and with low and high Eisenia andrei densities were prepared. Organic matter and PAH content, microbial biomass, and dehydrogenase activity (DHA) were measured in soil and sediment over time. Biolog Ecoplate™ and polymerase chain reaction using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis were used to evaluate changes in metabolic and structural diversity of the microbial community, respectively. Earthworm activity promoted PAH degradation in soil, which was significant for biphenyl, benzo[a]pyrene, and benzo[e]pyrene. Microbial biomass and DHA activity generally did not change over the experiment. Earthworm activity did change microbial community structure, but this did not affect its functioning in terms of carbon substrate consumption. Results suggest no relationship between changes in the microbial community by earthworm activity and increased PAH disappearance. The role of shifts in soil microbial community structure induced by earthworms in PAH removal needs further investigation. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2012;31:794–803. © 2011 SETAC

Abstract This paper assesses the effects of a global emissions trading scheme (GETS) for international aviation and shipping as a way of reducing emissions of both greenhouse gases (GHG) and other atmospheric emissions that lead to air pollution. A prior assessment of such integration requires the coupling of energy–environment–economy (E3) global modelling of mitigation policies with the atmospheric modelling of pollution sources, mixing and deposition. We report the methodology and results of coupling of the E3MG model and the global atmospheric model, p-TOMCAT. We assess the effects of GETS on the concentrations of atmospheric gases and on the radiative forcing, comparing a GETS scenario to a reference BASE scenario with higher use of fossil fuels. The paper assesses the outcome of GETS for atmospheric composition and radiative forcing for 2050. GETS on international shipping and aviation reduces their CO 2 and non-CO 2 emissions up to 65%. As a consequence atmospheric concentrations are modified and the radiative forcing due to international transport is reduced by different amounts as a function of the pollutant studied (15% for CO 2 , 35% for methane and up to 50% for ozone).

This paper introduces the concept of payment probability as an important component of carbon risk (the financial risk associated with CO2 emissions under uncertain climate policy). In modeling power plant investment decisions, most existing literature uses the expected carbon price (e.g., the price of traded permits or carbon tax) as a proxy for carbon risk. In contrast, this paper identifies expected carbon payment as a more accurate measure of carbon risk as perceived by industry practitioners. This measure of carbon risk incorporates both expected price and the probability that this price would actually be faced in the case of a particular investment. This concept helps explain both the surge of activity in 2005–2006 and the subsequent decline in interest in coal-fired power plant development in the U.S. The data for this case study comes from an extensive online survey of 700 U.S. energy professionals completed in 2006, as well as interviews conducted with industry representatives from 2007 to 2009. By analyzing industry views on policy uncertainty and future carbon legislation, we gain a better understanding of investor attitudes toward carbon risk. This understanding will help policy makers design better incentives for investing in low-carbon technologies.