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Before the COVID crisis, the Netherlands and the UK were embarking on national energy transitions away from fossil fuel systems. However, the arrival of the pandemic unequivocally altered the trajectory of energy transitions on a global scale. Every country in the world is now grappling with the twin challenges of the COVID crisis and the climate crisis, and there is a grave risk that the short-term demands of the former could eclipse the vital long-term actions needed to address the latter. While there is optimism that green economic recoveries will propel energy transitions through investments, there is an urgent need to assess and address any new policy barriers which COVID poses to achieving them. To do so, in the summer of 2020, researchers conducted pairs of interviews with 30 experts within the social and energy sectors, involving government, industry and third sector stakeholders. Key research questions sought to identify the policy barriers acting–inadvertently or otherwise–to disrupt that balance between tackling COVID and the energy transition, and the mechanisms available to restore the necessary equilibrium. Through a structured analysis of policy barriers to the energy transition post-COVID, we assess its delivery in both countries. We derive a new taxonomy and definition of policy barriers. We also generate a suite of 10 policy recommendations, which were placed in priority order by the interviewees themselves. The paper concludes with observations on those recommendations, the differences noted between the two countries, and the validity of using policy barriers for policy analysis.

Escalating energy costs are an increasing concern for South Asian farmers growing rice and wheat in rotation. Millions of people in the IGP (Indo-Gangetic Plains) depend on this cropping system for food and income security. CT (conservation tillage) practices, including mechanical BP (bed planting), PTOS (power-tiller operated seeding), and ST (strip tillage), are advocated by donors and development organizations as profitable, high yielding, and energy-efficient alternatives to TT (traditional tillage). However, most studies on the EUE (energy input use efficiency) of CT originate from researcher-controlled and on-station experiments. Comparatively little information is available on the EUE of CT practices as farmers apply them in their own fields, and under their own management decisions. This research responds to this gap, and analyzes EUE of each of these three CT options, compared to TT, by surveying 328 rice-wheat farmers in north-western Bangladesh. Concentrating on wheat production, we employed a non-parametric benchmarking technique involving slack-based measures of technical efficiency, along with a fractional regression model to identify and compute the wasteful use of energy. PTOS achieved the highest EUE score (0.92), followed closely by BP and ST (both 0.91), whereas TT (0.68) was significantly (p <0.001) different and lower than the CT practices.

This paper brings out some remarkable differences between China as a developing country experiencing high economic growth and the Netherlands as a developed country by examining the driving forces behind the evolution of residential energy consumption per capita (RECpc) in the two countries in the period from 2001 to 2015. The components we analysed are income, energy-intensity, weather and energy-mix effects. The most remarkable result is the changing effect of energy intensity in China: during 2001–2007 energy intensity increased, and decreased afterward. The changes reflected changes in material circumstances: the shift to relative energy intensive goods and of saturation of energy demand for heating and cooling. In the Netherlands, the declining energy intensity, warmer winters and the more diversified energy mix decreased RECpc by 511.39, 58.81 and 1.08 kgce, respectively. Although the income growth both increased RECpc in the two countries, the relatively high-speed increasing income in China narrowed the RECpc gap between the two countries. This study implies that the opposite changes in RECpc in developing and developed countries are due to the different development stages reached by the countries. Policy suggestions are being offered to deal with the different circumstances, as revealed through this study.

Abstract Background In Germany, the energy system is undergoing reorganisation from a centralised system based on fossil fuels and nuclear power to a sustainable system based on decentralised production and consumption of energy, the so-called Energiewende. Recently, there has been more attention to improving energy efficiency in those regions where conventional energy production activities and energy-intensive industries are located, such as the Ruhr area. Although the potential for decentralised combined heat and power (CHP) units is high in this region, local action plans show only modest developments for this technology. In this paper, we address this issue by answering the following research question: Which factors block the uptake and integration of decentralised CHP in the German Ruhr area's energy system? Methods The multilevel perspective (MLP) was used to analyse the state of system innovation in relation to the uptake and integration of decentralised CHP technology. Prior to the MLP analysis, a stakeholders' analysis was conducted to identify stakeholders' views, positions and experienced barriers regarding the uptake and integration of decentralised CHP technology. Data collection included review of text documents and conducting 11 interviews. Results Due to many regime barriers blocking niche development, the uptake of decentralised CHP technology is limited. Identified barriers relate to lack of market services and mismatches with user preferences, (sectoral) policies and industrial interests. Conclusions Observed barriers relate to (i) lack of market services such as financial means for making investments; (ii) user awareness such as unawareness and information deficit regarding the benefits of decentralised CHP to potential users, (iii) the presence of centralised district heating systems, (iv) policy issues such as lack of sufficient policies supporting diffusion of decentralised CHP units, legal stipulations from social housing policies that prevent housing cooperatives from becoming energy producers and district heating systems owned by public and private owners (via concessions contracts); (v) sector issues such as lack of skilled service-providing companies; and (vi) industrial interested such as the vested interests of the coal and gas industry. Moreover, many of the mentioned barriers seem interrelated, especially those concerning policy and finance available for making upfront investments.

Summary In a laboratory study, an automated, linear-traversing, sampling probe enabled real-time gas analysis and temperature measurements within the combustion zone. Results showed that the combustion-zone thickness was on the order of 1 in. [25 mm] for a nominal injected air flux of 20 scf/hr-ft2 [1.7 × 10-3 std m3/s·m2]. The combustion-zone thickness was found to be kinetically controlled. The combustion reaction could not be represented by the commonly used first-order, Arrhenius kinetics; however, the actual kinetics of combustion is unimportant for performance prediction because the combustion-front velocity is oxygen-flow-rate-controlled.

Abstract Several strategies based on a two steps organosolv pretreatment followed by enzymatic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse (SCB) were evaluated with the objective of selecting operational conditions suitable to promote an efficient and low cost production of ethanol. Initially, the influence of six variables used for the organosolv pretreatment was studied. The variables included the time of the first organosolv pretreatment step, the use of 45% ethanol as pulping solution, solid-to-liquid ratio of the ethanol solution used during the first pretreatment step, time of second organosolv pretreatment, concentration of ethanol and concentration of NaOH solution used in the second pretreatment step. Further assays of enzymatic hydrolysis were carried out to promote additional reduction in the costs of the process and improve the results of cellulose conversion to glucose. Eliminating the milling step of the pretreated SCB, using a commercial tensoactive (composed of esters and several surfactants), and recycling 50% of the slurry obtained during the second step of organosolv pretreatment as reaction medium proved to be feasible for use during the enzymatic hydrolysis. Fermentation of the glucose medium produced under the selected pretreatment conditions to ethanol by Saccharomyces cerevisiae occurred with 81% efficiency and a cost of 102.88 $/hL of ethanol.

Context: Software producing organizations have the ability to address the energy impact of their software products through their source code and software architecture. In spite of that, the focus often remains on hardware aspects, which limits the contribution of software towards energy efficient ICT solutions. Objective: No methods exist to provide software architects information about the energy consumption of the different components in their software product. The objective of this paper is to bring software producing organizations in control of this qualitative aspect of their software. Method: To achieve the objective, we developed the StEP Method to systematically investigate the effects of software units through the use of software stubs in relation to energy concerns. To evaluate the proposed method, an experiment involving three different versions of a commercial software product has been conducted. In the experiment, two versions of a software product were stubbed according to stakeholder concerns and stressed according to a test case, whilst energy consumption measurements were performed. The method provided guidance for the experiment and all activities were documented for future purposes. Results: Comparing energy consumption differences across versions unraveled the energy consumption related to the products’ core functionality. Using the energy profile, stakeholders could identify the major energy consuming elements and prioritize software engineering efforts to maximize impact. Conclusions: We introduce the StEP Method and demonstrate its applicability in an industrial setting. The method identified energy hotspots and thereby improved the control stakeholders have over the sustainability of a software product. Despite promising results, several concerns are identified that require further attention to improve the method. For instance, we recommend the investigation of software operation data to determine, and possibly automatically create, stubs.