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The design that is being developed is a Water Monitoring System for Speed and Eramosa Rivers. This design consists of four sensors (turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen and water level) which monitor the Speed and Eramosa Rivers in Guelph, Ontario. The sensors input measurements to a microcontroller which processes the inputs. The software contained on the microcontroller will pass a warning message to a wireless modem which relays the problem to a base station if dangerous contamination levels are reached.

This study analyzes the relationship between drought processes and crop yields in Moldova, together with the effects of possible future climate change on crops. The severity of drought is analyzed over time in Moldova using the Standard Precipitation Index, the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, and their relationship with crop yields. In addition, rainfall variability and its relationship with crop yields are examined using spectral analysis and squared wavelet coherence. Observed station data (1950–2020 and 1850–2020), ERA5 reanalysis data (1950–2020), and climate model simulations (period 1970–2100) are used. Crop yield data (maize, sunflower, grape), data from experimental plots (wheat), and the Enhanced Vegetation Index from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellites were also used. Results show that although the severity of meteorological droughts has decreased in the last 170 years, the impact of precipitation deficits on different crop yields has increased, concurrent with a sharp increase in temperature, which negatively affected crop yields. Annual crops are now more vulnerable to natural rainfall variability and, in years characterized by rainfall deficits, the possibility of reductions in crop yield increases due to sharp increases in temperature. Projections reveal a pessimistic outlook in the absence of adaptation, highlighting the urgency of developing new agricultural management strategies.

The anaerobic bioavailability of two types of solid slaughterhouse waste (poultry and pig wastes) was studied after the application of thermal pretreatment. Both wastes were characterized by different proportions between fats, proteins and carbohydrates. The thermal pretreatments selected (70ºC for 60 min, and 133ºC and 3 bars for 20 min) were included in the European regulations 1774/2002 & 92/2005 for higienization purposes. These pretreatments had a remarkable effect on the solubilization of organic matter and on protein hydrolysis. No negative effects in methane or biogas yields were found in both pretreated wastes, but the bioavailibity of organic matter after the pretreatment depended on the composition of each waste, basically the presence of carbohydrates which could react with protein hydrolysis products (amino acids) giving slowly or not anaerobically biodegradable products (Maillard compounds).

The city of Leh was the capital of the Kingdom of Ladakh from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. Over time, due to wars, politics, and isolation, the capital city fell into a state of disrepair soon after the royal family was exiled. An explosion in tourism over the last few decades has seen a revival in the local community but most of the benefits including generated tourism revenue have been directed towards development outside the historical boundary of Leh. The residents of what is now known as Leh Old Town suffer from poverty, lack of basic infrastructures such as drainage, and limited access to water. Additionally, Leh Old Town was also placed under World’s Monument Watch in 2008 due to issues related to low-scale modern construction and urgent need of repair for 55% of the historic buildings. Climate change has also been cited as a cause of concern due to issues related to faster melting glaciers and flash floods due to the lack of a drainage system. The main aim of this practicum is to study and demonstrate the role that landscape architects can play in the rehabilitation of historical alpine settlements that have been adversely affected by anthropological factors such as politics, climate change, and over-tourism. It does so by highlighting the cultural and architectural heritage of the Old Town of Leh, known as Kharyog in Ladakhi, and demonstrating the use of indigenous construction materials and methods that have been superseded by modern materials imported from other parts of the country. It also aims to study how the positive effects of tourism can be distributed equally throughout a community to improve the quality of life for the residents of Leh Old Town.

About 45% applications from PV solar farm developers seeking connections to the distribution grids in Ontario were denied in 2011-13 as the short circuit current (SCC) capacity of several distribution substations had already been reached. PV solar system inverters typically contribute 1.2 p.u. to 1.8 p.u. fault current which was not considered acceptable by utility companies due to the need for very expensive protective breaker upgrades. Since then, this cause has become a major impediment in the growth of PV based renewable systems in Ontario. A novel predictive technique has been patented in our research group for management of short circuit current contribution from PV inverters to ensure effective deployment of solar farms. This thesis deals with the real time testing and validation of a short circuit current (SCC) controller based on the above technique. With this SCC controller, the PV inverter can be shut off within 1-2 milliseconds from the initiation of any fault in the grid that can cause the short circuit current to exceed the rated current of the inverter. Therefore, the power system does not see any short circuit current contribution from the PV inverter and no expensive upgrades in protective breakers are required in the system. The performance of the PV solar system with the short circuit current controller is simulated and tested using (i) industry grade electromagnetic transients software PSCAD/EMTDC (ii) real time simulation studies on the Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) (iii) physical implementation on dSPACE board to generate firing pulses for the inverter. The validation of controller is done on dSPACE board with actual PV inverter short circuit waveforms obtained from Southern California Edison Short Circuit Testing Lab. This novel technology is planned to be showcased on a physical 10 kW PV solar system in Bluewater Power Distribution Corporation, Sarnia, Ontario. This proposed technology is expected to remove the technical hurdles which caused the denials of connectivity to several PV solar farms, and effectively lead to greater connections of PV solar farms in Ontario and in similar jurisdictions, worldwide.

The smart energy system concept provides an integrated framework for the adoption of renewable energy resources and novel energy technologies, such as distributed battery energy storage systems and electric vehicles. In this effort, large-scale transition towards smart energy systems can significantly reduce the environmental emissions of energy production, while leveraging the compatible operation of numerous distributed grid components to improve upon the energy utility, reliability, and flexibility of existing power grids. Most importantly, transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy resources provides environmental benefits within both the building and transportation sectors, which must adapt to address both increasing pressure from international climate change-related policy-making, as well as to meet the increasing power demands of future generations. In the case of building operation, the transition towards future energy systems consequently result in the adoption of decentralized energy networks as well as various distributed energy generation, conversion, and storage technologies. As such, there is significant potential for existing systems to adopt more economic and efficient operating strategies, which may manifest in novel operational modes such as demand-response programs, islanded operation, and optimized energy vector dispatch within local systems. Furthermore, new planning and design considerations can provide economic, environmental, and energy efficiency benefits. While these potential benefits have been justified in existing literature, there is still a strong research need to quantify the impacts of optimal building operation within these criteria, under a smart energy system context. Meanwhile, the transportation sector may benefit from the smart energy network concept by leveraging electric mobility technologies and by transitioning vehicle charging demand onto the grid’s electricity network. In this transition, the emissions associated with fossil fuel consumption are displaced by ...

Emissions trading is a crucial policy tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a cost-effective way. The world’s largest existing emissions trading scheme is the European Union’s cap-and–trade Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). It was established in 2005 through the Emissions Trading Directive to help the European Union and its member states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fulfill their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol in a cost-effective way. The Directive recognizes that linking the EU ETS to other emissions trading schemes would increase the cost-effectiveness of reaching the community’s emissions reduction commitment. When the EU ETS was launched in 2005, in its first phase, it covered over 11,500 energy-intensive installations across the then 15 EU member states, representing 45 percent of the EU’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Currently in its second trading period, from 2008 to 2012, the EU ETS now addresses emissions from the enlarged EU, with 27 member states. The EU ETS is also linked to domestic emissions trading schemes in Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein. Most recently, in August 2012, Australia and the EU announced their intention of linking their emissions trading schemes. Switzerland is also considering the establishment of a domestic emissions trading scheme and anticipating linking to the EU ETS in the future. Because of its size and harmonization experience, this scheme offers a starting point for establishing a global network of greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes. Greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes in Canada, in particular, the proposed federal scheme and the existing Alberta provincial scheme are also potential candidates for linkage under article 25 of the EU Trading Directive, through an agreement for the mutual recognition of allowances. However, the different designs of the EU and Canadian domestic emissions schemes will pose challenges in establishing linkage. This thesis identifies some of the key features in the design of emissions trading schemes and the implications of these design features when exploring linkage between the EU ETS and the Canadian emissions trading schemes.

When work started on a code for energy conservation in buildings, a preference was expressed for a performance code rather than a prescriptive code. With this type of code, the level of performance or energy budget must be specified and will vary depending on factors including building occupancy and geographical location. This note is one of three giving suggested norms for energy consumption. Two school building layouts, one extended and one compact, were developed. The energy consumption of primary and secondary schools with these layouts was computed. The energy norms derived from these analyses were plotted and compared to recorded energy figures for existing schools.

PolyU Library Call No.: [THS] LG51 .H577P AP 2017 Qian ; xiv, 148 pages :color illustrations ; Due to the increasing energy requirements of the portable electronic devices, backup power sources and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, there is a growing need of high performance energy storage devices, mainly including supercapacitors and lithium ion batteries. Particularly, a simple and large scale production of high performance electrode materials is highly sought. By now, many novel nanostructured materials, including carbon nanotubes, graphene, metal oxides, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and black phosphorus have been reported to be the promising candidates as electrodes for energy storage devices. Among them, graphene and manganese dioxide (MnO₂) have attracted much attention. On one hand, graphene performs unique electrical, thermal and mechanical properties, especially outstanding electrical conductivity (106 S·cm⁻¹) and large specific surface area (~2630 m2·g⁻¹), but suffers from a relatively low theoretical capacity (550 F·g⁻¹ for supercapacitors and 1116 mAh·g⁻¹ for Li ion batteries). On the other hand, MnO₂ exhibits a high theoretical capacity (1370 F·g⁻¹ for supercapacitors and 1232 mAh·g⁻¹ for Li ion batteries) but suffers from poor electrical conductivity (10⁻⁶-10⁻⁷ S·cm⁻¹). Hence, the MnO₂/graphene composites are expected as the promising candidates of the electrode materials with improved electrochemical performances for both rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors. In this work, the synthesis of MnO₂/graphene composites with different morphologies from zero- to three-dimensional were investigated. The electrochemical performances of as-prepared composites for lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors were tested. MnO₂/graphene composite aerogel (MnGA) was prepared via a fast and simple wet chemical process. The as-prepared composite aerogel exhibits 3D rigid graphene networks embedded by MnO₂ nanoparticles. A maximum specific capacitance of 534 F·g⁻¹ at 1 mV·s⁻¹ is achieved by 1.33 wt% MnGA electrode due to the synergistic effect. The aerogel could be a promising candidate for large-scale production of energy storage devices. MnO₂/graphene composite ink (MnGI) was prepared via a facile synthetic path. The MnGI is formed by 2D hexagonal MnO₂ nanosheets and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) sheets. The ink could be printed on different substrates and suitable for mass production in industry. A maximum specific capacitance of 648 F·g⁻¹ at 5 mV·s-1 is achieved. All these merits allow the MnGI to be a promising candidate for high performance energy storage devices. ; A free standing, compact and robust paper comprised of reduced graphene oxide (rGO), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MCNTs) and manganese dioxide nanowires (MnNWs) was prepared via a simple strategy. The combination of rGO, MCNTs and MnNWs exhibits high packing density but hierarchical porous structure, which facilitates the energy capacity, rate capability and long term stability. The rGO/MCNTs/MnNWs (GMM) paper electrode retains a specific capacitance of 48 mF·cm⁻² (28 F·cm⁻³) at a high current density of 20 mA·cm⁻² (11,765 mA·cm⁻³). A symmetric capacitor assembled by two GMM paper electrodes was investigated. The as-prepared device achieves a maximum specific energy and power densities of 7.96 mWh·cm⁻³ and 10,470 mW·cm⁻³ respectively, with a capacitance retention of 99% after 5,000 cycles at 1,176 mA·cm⁻³. All the results indicate that the free standing GMM paper electrode has a potential for the large scale production, low cost, environmental friendly and high performance capacitive energy storage devices. Furthermore, the synthesis strategy may be extendable to other composite materials for batteries, solar cells, fuel cells or other related fields. MnO₂/graphene quantum dots composite (MnGQDs) were synthesized via a low-temperature chemical reaction process. The MnO₂ quantum dots (MnQDs) were well mixed with graphene quantum dots (GQDs) to form a homogeneous quantum dots composite powder. To investigate the electrochemical performances, the as-obtained MnGQDs served as the anode materials for lithium ion batteries. An initial charge and discharge specific capacity of 662 and 1444 mAh·g⁻¹ are achieved respectively. Besides, a high coulombic efficiency of nearly 100% and good rate capability were measured. The discharge specific capacity remains at 246 mAh·g⁻¹ after 50 cycles. The results show that the MnGQDs anode could be an ideal candidate for lithium ion batteries with high efficiency and rate capability. ; Department of Applied Physics ; Ph.D., Department of Applied Physics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2017 ; Doctorate ; published_final