• Energy Research
• economics and business close
• 7. Clean energy close
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Highlights •Biomass resource constraints impact the effectiveness of bioeconomy policies. •Bioeconomy policies may have an important impact on the sector structure in the long run, but the sector growth remains ultimately constrained by the availability of inputs. •Solutions to reduce the biomass constraint have to be included in innovation policy for the biobased economy.

This paper analyzes the effect of environmental policies on the direction of energy innovation across countries over the period 1990-2012. Our novelty is to use threshold regression models to allow for discontinuities in policy effectiveness depending on a country's relative competencies in renewable and fossil fuel technologies. We show that the dynamic incentives of environmental policies become effective just above the median level of relative competencies. In this critical second regime, market-based policies are moderately effective in promoting renewable innovation, while command-and-control policies depress fossil based innovation. Finally, market-based policies are more effective to consolidate a green comparative advantage in the last regime. We illustrate how our approach can be used for policy design in laggard countries.

Presently, an increasing human population, customer consumption, and global market competition result in the reduction of natural resources and growing environmental damage. Therefore, the current practice in the use of resources is not sustainable. The production companies have to focus not only on cost-effective and profitable operation, but at the same time environmentally friendly and sustainable production in order to increase competitiveness. New innovative technologies are required, improving the efficiency of the processes and the optimization of global supply chains (GSC) in order to establish sustainability in environmental, social, and economic aspects. The aim of the study is the GSCs’ optimization, which means forming the optimal combination of the chain members (suppliers, final assemblers, service providers) to achieve cost-effective, time-effective, and sustainable operation. This study introduces an elaborated single- and multi-objective optimization method, including the objective functions (cost, lead time) and design constraints (production and service capacities; volume of inventories; flexibility and sustainability of the chain members). Based on the elaborated method, software has been developed for the optimization of sustainable GSCs. The significance and novelty of the developed method and software is that the chain members have been required to fulfill the sustainability design constraint built into the software. A real case study is introduced, for the optimal design of a sustainable GSC, to confirm that our developed optimization method and software can be applied effectively in practice for the optimization of both profitable and sustainable GSCs.

Electric mobility is beginning to enter East African cities. This paper aims to investigate what policy-level solutions and stakeholder constellations are established in the context of electric mobility (e-mobility) in Dar es Salaam, Kigali, Kisumu and Nairobi and in which ways they attempt to tackle the implementation of electric mobility solutions. The study employs two key methods including content analysis of policy and programmatic documents and interviews based on a purposive sampling approach with stakeholders involved in mobility transitions. The study findings point out that in spite of the growing number of policies (specifically in Rwanda and Kenya) and on-the-ground developments, a set of financial and technical barriers persists. These include high upfront investment costs in vehicles and infrastructure, as well as perceived lack of competitiveness with fossil fuel vehicles that constrain the uptake of e-mobility initiatives. The study further indicates that transport operators and their representative associations are less recognized as major players in the transition, far behind new e-mobility players (start-ups) and public authorities. This study concludes by identifying current gaps that need to be tackled by policymakers and stakeholders in order to implement inclusive electric mobility in East African cities, considering modalities that include transport providers and address their financial constraints.

Abstract The sheer complexity of sustainability transitions makes it vital to develop simplifying conceptual frameworks. Starting from the contrast between the mainstream innovation-economics and systems-innovation/evolutionary literatures, this paper begins by summarising the “Three Domains” framework, which relates technology innovation and adoption choices to different domains of socio-economic decision-making, at successively larger scales of time and social structures. We note the high-level implications for policy mixes and illustrate the main themes through three electricity technology examples (lighting, fossil fuel generation, and low carbon power systems), and use these also to show that the relative importance of different policy pillars may differ substantially according to the technology and context. We then relate this to the “innovation chain” (another simplifying framework) approach to vertical innovation and show how this can help to explain radical differences in innovation intensities between different sectors. We then expand the innovation chain framework from technology to the multiple journeys required for successful innovation, ordered according to levels of decision-making and hence domains. We conclude by indicating how this can help identify key blockages in energy transformations, and potentially help to reconcile the classical innovation-economics with systems innovation/evolutionary perspectives, and explain their currently divergent policy recommendations.

The project X-TEAM D2D (extended ATM for door-to-door travel) has been funded by SESAR JU in the framework of the research activities devoted to the investigation of integration of Air Traffic Management (ATM) and aviation into a wider transport system able to support the implementation of the door-to-door (D2D) travel concept. The project defines a concept for the seamless integration of ATM and Air Transport into an intermodal network, including other available transportation means, such as surface and waterways, to contribute to the 4 h door-to-door connectivity targeted by the European Commission in the ACARE SRIA FlightPath 2050 goals. In particular, the project focused on the design of a concept of operations for urban and extended urban (up to regional) integrated mobility, taking into account the evolution of transportation and passengers service scenarios for the next decades, according to baseline (2025), intermediate (2035) and final target (2050) time horizons. The designed ConOps encompassed both the transportation platforms integration concepts and the innovative seamless Mobility as a Service, integrating emerging technologies, such as Urban Air Mobility (e.g., electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles) and new mobility forms (e.g., micromobility vehicles) into the intermodal traffic network, including Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM). The developed concept has been evaluated against existing KPAs and KPIs, implementing both qualitative and quantitative performance assessment approaches, while also considering specific performance metrics related to transport integration efficiency from the passenger point of view, being the proposed solution designed to be centered around the passenger needs. The aim of this paper is to provide a description of the activities carried out in the project and to present at high level the related outcomes.

The growing popularity of traveling with electric scooters in recent years is, on the one hand, a great opportunity to shift from the current forms of mobility to a new service among the public, but it is also a huge challenge for urban centers and operators. One of the main challenges related to electric scooters is the growing demand for high energy consumption, which is currently a big issue due to the growing interest in electromobility used in mobility as a service (MaaS) systems. However, in order to properly estimate the level of energy consumption of scooters, there is a real need for reliable scientific information on the actual electricity consumption of electric scooters used in shared mobility systems. An extensive literature analysis indicates the lack of research conducted in this area. Noting this research gap, studies were conducted to determine the factors influencing the energy consumption of an electric scooter. The study attempts to determine these values on the basis of the proposed research experiment. The scientific experiment was based on a three-factor plan; an experimental plan. The author conducted the research by driving and measuring electric scooters in order to compare the actual consumption with the data provided by vehicle manufacturers. The result of the research was to determine the influence of factors that influence the significant energy consumption of electric scooters from shared mobility systems. Interestingly, the results generated show that the electricity requirements for six scooters corresponded to one electric car. This proposal raises the question of whether scooters are the best form of electric mobility for the environment. In addition, the work also includes guidelines for scooter users and recommendations for shared mobility operators on the energy consumption of electric scooters.