• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• Embargo close
• BE close
• US close
• CA close
• CN close
• English close

Increasing the rate of renovation for the existing building stock is a crucial challenge for EU’s energy policy. The Smart City Block (SCB) project proposes an innovative answer to this challenge. The underlying hypothesis is that introducing a collective dimension to renovation could result in increasing rates of renovation while also impacting positively the efficiency of the renovation and the social ties within urban areas. The collective dimension considered is the city block in Brussels.The first part of this paper describes the theoretical part of the project that was necessary to develop an adapted methodology. It describes the SCB offering, Brussels segmentation and some results of surveys.The SCB offering shows that many different options can be proposed to the city block dwellers, ranging from a collective insulation, efficient heating systems and shared photovoltaics to collective kitchen garden in the inner space of the block, shared vehicles or shared spaces. This is especially relevant for Brussels where city blocks often have an inner space that could be used. Besides, the segmentation of Brussels based on city block characteristics offers a typology that can be further used to target specific environmental or social deficit.However, the collective dimension introduced in the project is challenging for western individualistic minds. In order to evaluate the acceptance of households, a survey was conducted on 4 city blocks in Brussels, representing over 450 households. It shows a clear willingness to investigate the concept further but only if concrete proposals with estimations of energy and financial savings are provided. Sharing space, equipment and activities was more positively accepted than what we initially expected. Although the attitude-behaviour gap must not be underestimated, this opening can be viewed as an evolution of lifestyles in some segments of the population. Governance and institutional arrangements are expected to play a critical role in supporting this evolution.The second ...

Moral panic, our predisposition to exaggerate threats against our livelihood and start blaming ourselves, is as old as human history. We always feared “others”, people with skin colors or ethnicity other than ours, people coming from other corners of the globe, and the infectious diseases the strangers might bring along. This paper deals with a new version of such moral panics which is arguably even more intense than the previous ones, but which relates to a new dimension of human experience, namely globalization. The health, economic and environmental challenges we are now faced with are posed globally. The moral panic today stems from this triple challenge. Our central thesis is that these three emergencies are interrelated, but there is no simple causal relationship between them. They can only be addressed in a global manner, while we still live in a world which is segmented into sovereign nation-states.

In this thesis, I analyze the impacts of the design and implementation of different environmental policy tools from a theoretical and empirical perspective: certificates providing information on the energy performance of buildings (chapter 1); urban road pricing schemes such as congestion charges (chapter 2); quantity-based policy tools to support production with non-polluting technologies (chapter 3).In chapter 1, co-authored with Luisa Dressler, we study how energy performance certificates (EPCs) impact the residential rental market. These certificates can help solve information asymmetries between landlords and tenants about the thermal quality of dwellings for rent, which, in turn, is expected to facilitate investment aimed at improving dwellings' energy performance. However, disclosure of EPCs is often incomplete, which hampers their effectiveness in relieving such information asymmetries. Moreover, even when a certificate is available, landlords do not always disclose it. This contradicts the so-called information unraveling result, according to which all landlords should disclose quality information unless it is costly to do so: in such a setting, information eventually unravels. Using a cross-sectional dataset of residential rental advertisements from the Belgian region of Brussels, we empirically evaluate incentives to disclose energy performance ratings. We find that two fundamental assumptions underlying the unraveling result are not confirmed in our setting: firstly, tenants value energy performance of rental property only when dwellings are of very high quality; secondly, tenants do not appear to rationally adjust their expectations when faced with dwellings that withhold their energy performance rating. Finally, we formulate specific policy advice for reforming EPC mechanisms to increase disclosure rates.In chapter 2, I study how urban congestion pricing impacts the use of sustainable mobility options such as bike sharing, presenting evidence from the city of Milan, Italy.As concern for air ...

We report a measurement of the flux of cosmic rays with unprecedented precision and statistics using the Pierre Auger Observatory. Based on fluorescence observations in coincidence with at least one surface detector we derive a spectrum for energies above 1018 eV. We also update the previously published energy spectrum obtained with the surface detector array. The two spectra are combined addressing the systematic uncertainties and, in particular, the influence of the energy resolution on the spectral shape. The spectrum can be described by a broken power law E- γ with index γ = 3.3 below the ankle which is measured at log10 (Eankle / eV) = 18.6. Above the ankle the spectrum is described by a power law with index 2.6 followed by a flux suppression, above about log10 (E / eV) = 19.5, detected with high statistical significance. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ; 0 ; SCOPUS: ar.j ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Atmospheric plasma technology is a promising next-generation alternative for replacing thermal chemical vapor deposition or wet chemical processes for the deposition of functional coatings. In this work, TiO2 films with various morphologies and thicknesses are synthesized in a controllable way by atmospheric Dielectric Barrier Discharges (DBD) under argon/oxygen ambient conditions. This method allows varying the density of the deposited coatings, from low density powders to dense compact anatase layers simple tuning of the parameters. The surface morphology and cross section of the as-synthesized films are observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It is demonstrated that the total flow rate together with the absorbed power have a significant effect on the morphology of the film, which changes from granular to compact film by increasing the total flow rate or decreasing the power. In other words, changing the energy density (Ed) in the plasma allows to control the morphology of the TiO2 films. A deposition mechanism is proposed to explain the effect of the synthesis parameters on the formed films. The chemical and phase composition of these films before and after annealing for 2 h in air at 673 K are comparatively studied. The photocatalytic activities and the reusability of the TiO2 films is investigated by degrading a methylene blue (MB) solution under Ultra-Violet (UV) light. It is compared to the activity of a P25 film, deposited by drop-casting. The photocatalytic rate of the annealed TiO2 film synthesized at a total flow rate of 2.5 slm turns out to be about 2 and 15 times higher than the one of P25 and as-synthesized TiO2 films, respectively. The annealed TiO2 film were shown to be reusable for at least three cycles, without significant loss of photocatalytic activity. ; SCOPUS: ar.j ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

To more accurately treat severe accidents in fast reactors, a program has been set up to investigate new computational models and approaches. The product of this effort is a computer code, the Advanced Fluid Dynamics Model (AFDM). This paper describes some of the basic features of the numerical algorithm used in AFDM. Aspects receiving particular emphasis are the fractional-step method of time integration, the semi-implicit pressure iteration, the virtual mass inertial terms, the use of three velocity fields, higher order differencing, convection of interfacial area with source and sink terms, multicomponent diffusion processes in heat and mass transfer, the SESAME equation of state, and vectorized programming. A calculated comparison with an isothermal tetralin/ammonia experiment is performed. We conclude that significant improvements are possible in reliably calculating the progression of severe accidents with further development.

On the basis of experimental microbiological studies performed on different french distribution systems, a model of the dynamics of bacteria and biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC) in distribution networks was developed (the SANCHO model). The following processes are taken into account in the model: exoenzymatic hydrolysis of dissolved organic matter by bacteria and growth of free and fixed bacteria on the hydrolysis products; bacterial mortality which releases organic matter; reversible adsorption of bacteria and their biological attachment to inner pipe surfaces, chemical consumption of free chlorine and impact of free chlorine on the activity of free and fixed bacteria. The kinetics of these processes were all studied experimentally. The model considers the case of a water body flowing down in successive pipes of decreasing diameters and calculates the spatial variations, at steady state, of BDOC and chlorine concentration, free and fixed biomass. The SANCHO model was validated by the comparison of calculated and experimental data on various distribution systems which work over a large range of conditions. Good agreement between calculated and measured values of chlorine, BDOC, suspended and fixed bacterial biomass was found for the different distribution networks. This model can be used to define the water quality required at the outlet of a given treatment plant in order to avoid problems of bacterial growth within the distribution system fed by this plant. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Sur la base d'études microbiologiques expérimentales réalisées sur différents réseaux de distribution d'eau potable en France, un modèle de la dynamique des bactéries et du carbone organique biodégradable (CODB) a été développé (le modèle SANCHO). Les processus suivants ont été pris en compte: - l'hydrolyse bactérienne exoenzymatique de la matière organique et la croissance des bactéries libres et fixées, à partir des ...

This paper describes the modeling used in the Advanced Fluid Dynamics Model (AFDM), a computer code to investigate new approaches to simulating severe accidents in fast reactors. The AFDM code has 12 topologies describing what material contacts are possible depending on the presence or absence of a given material in a computational cell, the dominant liquid, and the continuous phase. Single-phase, bubbly, churn-turbulent, cellular, and dispersed flow are permitted for the pool situations modeled. Interfacial areas between the continuous and discontinuous phases are convected to allow some tracking of phenomenological histories. Interfacial areas also are modified by models of nucleation, dynamic forces, turbulence, flashing, coalescence, and mass transfer. Heat transfer generally is treated using engineering correlations. Liquid/vapor phase transitions are handled with a nonequililbrium heat-transfer-limited model, whereas melting and freezing processes are based on equilibrium considerations. The Los Alamos SESAME equation of state (EOS) has been inplemented using densities and temperatures as the independent variables. A summary description of the AFDM numerical algorithm is provided. The AFDM code currently is being debugged and checked out. Two sample three-field calculations also are presented. The first is a three-phase bubble column mixing experiment performed at Argonne National Laboratory; the second is a liquid-liquid mixing experiment performed at Kernforschungszentrum, Karlsruhe, that resulted in rapid vapor production. We conclude that only qualitative comparisons currently are possible for complex multiphase situations. Many further model developments can be pursued, but there are limits because of the lack of a comprehensive theory, the lack of detailed multicomponent experimental data, and the difficulties in keeping the resulting model complexities tractable.