• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• Restricted close
• BE close
• SE close
• CN close
• English close

Valundersökningen 1976 är den sjunde riksomfattande studien i serien undersökningar kring partival, valdeltagande och politisk opinionsbildning inom den svenska valmanskåren i samband med ett riksdagsval. Denna undersökninga genomfördes i samarbete mellan statsvetenskapliga institutionen vid Uppsala universitet och statistiska centralbyrån. 1976 års undersökning är den första valundersökning som täcker kärnkraftsfrågan, ett ämne som under många år var en av de centrala politiska frågorna i Sverige. Undersökningen innehåller ett stort antal frågor om hur olika samhällsgrupper behandlas av de olika politiska partierna. Den innehåller även ett antal frågor om olika gruppers och organisationers inflytande i samhället. I samband med 1976 års undersökning introducerades ett antal frågor som sedan ställts i samtliga, eller nästan samtliga, valundersökningar som genomförts därefter. Dessa frågor behandlar respondentens inställning till en rad ämnen såsom, daghem, pornografi, förstatligande, militärutgifter, företagsamhet och skatter. Syfte: Förklara varför väljare röstar som de gör och varför val slutar som de gör. Spåra och följa trender i svensk valdemokrati och göra jämförelser med utvecklingen i andra länder. This study is part of the collection of Swedish election studies fielded continuously since 1956. The 1976 study was the first election study to cover the nuclear power issue, an issue which for many years became one of the central political issues in Sweden. This study also includes a large number of questions on how different groups in society are treated by different political parties, it also includes a number of questions on different groups´ and organizations´ influence in society. This study introduces a number of questions, asked in all or nearly all of the election studies since then, about the respondent´s opinion on different issues such as day-care centers, pornography, socialization, defence expenditures, private enterprise, and taxes. Purpose: Explain why people vote as they do and why an election ends in a particular way. Track and follow trends in the Swedish electoral democracy and make comparisons with other countries.

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 ...

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

SHINE

Currently, forest ecosystems are facing many sustainability problems due to drastic climate changes and extreme exploitation of their resources. Planted forests can contribute to more sustainable practices and help addressing some of these issues. In order to be able to profit from these benefits sustainably, production rates of forest regeneration materials should be higher than the harvesting rates. Nevertheless, intensive production methods often bring along adverse consequences for the environment. At the moment, there exist several options such as greenhouses or plant growth chambers that allow producing forest materials more rapidly. Unfortunately these systems consume considerable high amounts of energy for lighting, acclimatization and irrigation having a negative impact on the environment. The Zephyr project aims to introduce an innovative technology built on pre-cultivation of forest regeneration materials in a zero-impact and cost-friendly production unit. The project will integrate several technologies into a functional and transportable system for large scale production of pre-cultivated forest regeneration materials adapted to transplanting and further growth at forest nurseries. A transportable and closed incubator independent from the outdoor climate provides a better control on the seedlings production. The plants can be produced directly at the place where they are needed avoiding further transportation to the reforestation/afforestation zone. The closed-climate allows seedlings pre-cultivation in places where it would not be possible otherwise (e.g. near deserts). Additionally, it extends the production time throughout the whole year even during the winter. Moreover, it will allow a certified and standardized production of reforestation materials, with a noticeable increasing of the efficiency of the reforestation operations. Specially developed LED growth lamps and wireless sensors will be used to reduce energy consumption and monitor the cultivation process. The main part of the energy will be provided by solar PV-panels, depending from the geographic and climatic area the power system should be able to provide at least one day of autonomy (in central Europe). The energy savings will result in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; moreover, since the LED lamps do not produce additional warming, there will be further energy saving through the reduction of air conditioning costs. The PV system is designed based on the load specifications of the different subsystems involved for advanced state-of-art pre-cultivation of forest seedlings. It will be further evaluated based on the changes in the load profiles as the growth protocols for different species are defined. The main objectives are to maximize the power/energy flow delivered to the load and to investigate feasible options for an external backup power source whilst considering options to reduce the overall load of the system.

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

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 ...