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ABSTRACTAn overview is given of an International Atomic Energy Agency Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on the treatment of irradiated graphite (i-graphite) to meet acceptance criteria for waste disposal. Graphite is a unique radioactive waste stream, with some quarter-million metric tons worldwide eventually needing to be disposed of. The CRP has involved 24 organizations from 10 Member States. Innovative and conventional methods for i-graphite characterization, retrieval, treatment and conditioning technologies have been explored in the course of this work, and offer a range of options for competent authorities in individual Member States to deploy according to local requirements and regulatory conditions.

The transport sector needs to go through an extended process of decarbonisation to counter the threat of climate change. Unfortunately, the International Energy Agency forecasts an enormous growth in the number of cars and greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Two issues can thus be identified: (1) the need for a new methodology that could evaluate the policy performances ex-ante and (2) the need for more effective policies. To help address these issues, we developed an Agent-Based Model called Mobility USA aimed at: (1) testing whether this could be an effective approach in analysing ex-ante policy implementation in the transport sector; and (2) evaluating the effects of alternative policy scenarios on commuting behaviours in the USA. Particularly, we tested the effects of two sets of policies, namely market-based and preference-change ones. The model results suggest that this type of agent-based approach will provide a useful tool for testing policy interventions and their effectiveness.

Nowadays, most countries of the world are implementing the transition to the low-carbon economy which implies the need to carry out a full-scale eco-modernization of the energy sector. Green energy may be identified as one of the core concerns of energy sector modernization as it allows a considerable decrease in emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. Therefore, nuclear and renewable energy may become key areas of global energy development in the near future, which is also in agreement with circular economy concepts. However, public opinion (and other controversial visions/aspects) is one of the barriers to their development. The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between attitudes towards nuclear and renewable energy in two countries: a EU country (Italy) and a non-EU country (Russia), considering the level of their development. The authors conducted a survey among residents regarding their attitude towards nuclear and renewable energy, as well as their attitude to the present energy policy. The cluster analysis technique was used to analyze the results. The obtained results confirmed the dependence between the level of development of nuclear and renewable energy and the public attitude towards it. The national energy policy also might influence public opinion on the development of nuclear or renewable energy. The authors identified public attitude as one of the key factors in the development of energy and the achievement of environmental and social sustainability.

Lipase‐catalyzed transesterification of triglycerides and alcohols to obtain biodiesel is an environmentally friendly and sustainable route for fuels production since, besides proceeding in mild reaction conditions, it allows for the use of low‐cost feedstocks that contain water and free fatty acids, for example non‐edible oils and waste oils. This review article reports recent advances in the field and focus in particular on a major issue in the enzymatic process, the inactivation of most lipases caused by methanol, the preferred acyl acceptor used for alcoholysis. The recent results about immobilization of enzymes on nano‐materials and the use of whole‐cell biocatalysts, as well as the use of cell‐surface display technologies and metabolic engineering strategies for microbial production of biodiesel are described. It is discussed also insight into the effects of methanol on lipases obtained by modeling approaches and report on studies aimed at mining novel alcohol stable enzymes or at improving robustness in existing ones by protein engineering.

This work presents a project of hi-tech and supergreen ‘nZEB casale’ in Italy. The ‘nZEB casale’ is located in Matera, in the south of Italy. The project concerns the renovation of a medieval ‘casale’, a group of rural houses for residential use. The shape of the new nZEB is in the style of old light-colored buildings, compact and with projections and shielding elements to reduce the summer thermal loads. The use of local and certified materials for the construction of buildings has resulted in a low environmental impact of buildings and an excellent winter and summer energy performance reaching the best energy class A4. Finally, this work presents an environmental protocol to be applied to nZEBs in order to take into account the other benefits of these constructions, as well as the energy benefits.

In the present chapter, a global overview of mobile phone sector is presented. Specific focus is given to the Italian mobile phone sector, the sustainability of which is addressed by taking into account two critical aspects related to the behavioral patterns of the users (namely the energy consumption of mobile phones and associated equipment, and the conflicting link between potential dematerialisation due to the miniaturisation of the devices and the resource consumption and waste generated in this sector). This chapter also assesses the impact of the mobile phone sector on the national electricity consumption in a reference year (i.e., 2009), on the growing consumption of resources and on e-waste production. Additionally, some experimental guidelines for evaluating energy consumption and efficiency of mobile phones, of chargers and of batteries are provided. Finally, resource consumption and the e-waste generated by increased mobile phone usage are analyzed.

This paper provides empirical evidence on delinking and Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for municipal waste production in Italy. First, methodological issues and literature on delinking and EKC for waste are critically re-examined. Secondly, we analyse two very disaggregated panel datasets on Italian Regions and Provinces (1996-2004 data for the 20 regions, 2000-2004 data for the 103 provinces) to estimate the extent to which delinking between waste production and economic drivers is taking place. The empirical analysis of different specifications shows mixed evidence in favour of an EKC relationship. Evidence supporting an EKC hypothesis significantly arises at a provincial level, which presents a very high data heterogeneity. Nevertheless, the turning point is at very high levels of added value per capita (around 23,000-26,000€), which characterise a very limited number of wealthy (Northern) Italian provinces. The analysis does not reveal a similar evidence for the regional dataset: only a relative delinking dynamic emerges at the provincial level, we also note a positive relationship between waste production and the share of separated waste collection, which can be explained by the sharp difference in income and waste-policy performance between Northern and Southern Italy. Population density is not significant. Finally, the test on some policy proxies, i.e. the diffusion of the new waste tariff regime at the local-level and the ability of utilities to recover waste service cost, leads to the conclusion that they are not (yet) impacting waste production. To lower the turning points and to avoid an increasing gap between geographical areas, innovative (market based) and more effective policy instruments should be implemented. In particular, the weight of waste policies should be rebalanced towards waste prevention targets and instruments, in line with the priorities stated by the EU and Member Countries. In fact, the indirect feedback effect of good post-production waste management policies/practices on reducing waste production at a source can be weak and slow. In general, the results confirm that more geographically-disaggregated data may offer more insights with respect to cross-country datasets, also from the policy perspective.

The increasing demand for energy and commodities has led to escalating greenhouse gas emissions, the chief of which is represented by carbon dioxide (CO2). Blue hydrogen (H2), a low-carbon hydrogen produced from natural gas with carbon capture technologies applied, has been suggested as a possible alternative to fossil fuels in processes with hard-to-abate emission sources, including refining, chemical, petrochemical and transport sectors. Due to the recent international directives aimed to combat climate change, even existing hydrogen plants should be retrofitted with carbon capture units. To optimize the process economics of such retrofit, it has been proposed to remove CO2 from the pressure swing adsorption (PSA) tail gas to exploit the relatively high CO2 concentration. This study aimed to design and numerically investigate a vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) process capable of capturing CO2 from the PSA tail gas of an industrial steam methane reforming (SMR)-based hydrogen plant using NaX zeolite adsorbent. The effect of operating conditions, such as purge-to-feed ratio and desorption pressure, were evaluated in relation to CO2 purity, CO2 recovery, bed productivity and specific energy consumption. We found that conventional cycle configurations, namely a 2-bed, 4-step Skarstrom cycle and a 2-bed, 6-step modified Skarstrom cycle with pressure equalization, were able to concentrate CO2 to a purity greater than 95% with a CO2 recovery of around 77% and 90%, respectively. Therefore, the latter configuration could serve as an efficient process to decarbonize existing hydrogen plants and produce blue H2.