• Energy Research
• Restricted close
• Embargo close
• other engineering and technologies close
• NL close
• UA close

This paper presents results of an online stated choice experiment on preferences of Dutch private car owners for alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) and their characteristics. Results show that negative preferences for alternative fuel vehicles are large, especially for the electric and fuel cell car, mostly as a result of their limited driving range and considerable refueling times. Preference for AFVs increases considerably with improvements on driving range, refueling time and fuel availability. Negative AFV preferences remain, however, also with substantial improvements in AFV characteristics; the remaining willingness to accept is on average € 10,000-€ 20,000 per AFV. Results from a mixed logit model show that consumer preferences for AFVs and AFV characteristics are heterogeneous to a large extent, in particular for the electric car, additional detour time and fuel time for the electric and fuel cell car. An interaction model reveals that annual mileage is by far the most important factor that determines heterogeneity in preferences for the electric and fuel cell car. When annual mileage increases, the preference for electric and fuel cell cars decreases substantially, whilst the willingness to pay for driving range increases substantially. Other variables such as using the car for holidays abroad and the daily commute also appear to be relevant for car choice. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Climaps.eu is an online atlas providing data, visualizations and commentaries about climate adaptation debate. It contains 33 issue-maps and 5 issue-stories. Each of the maps focuses on one issue in the adaptation debate and provides.The atlas is addressed to climate experts (negotiators, NGOs and companies concerned by global warming, journalists…) and to citizens willing to engage with the issues of climate adaptation.It employs advanced digital methods to deploy the complexity of the issues related to climate adaptation and information design to make this complexity legible.

In this study we show that a chemical ferricyanide cathode can be replaced by a biological oxygen reducing cathode in a plant microbial fuel cell (PMFC) with a new record power output. A biocathode was successfully integrated in a PMFC and operated for 151 days. Plants growth continued and the power density increased reaching a maximum power output of 679 mW/m2 plant growth area (PGA) in a 10 min polarization. The two week record average power densities was 240 mW/m2 PGA. The new records were reached due to the high redox potential of oxygen reduction which was effectively catalyzed by microorganisms in the cathode. This resulted in a 127 mV higher cathode potential of the PMFC with a biocathode than a PMFC with a ferricyanide cathode. We also found that substrate availability in the anode likely limits the current generation. This work is crucial for PMFC application as it shows that PMFC can be a completely sustainable biotechnology with an improved power output.

Due to the increasing awareness of climate change, depletion of natural resources, and increasing world population, companies in the agri-food sector need to redesign their existing supply chains and take into account both the economic and environmental impact of their operations. In practice not all the required information is available in advance due to various sources of uncertainty in agri-food supply chains. In this research a multi-objective two-stage stochastic programming model is proposed to analyse and evaluate the economic and environmental impacts to account for uncertainty in agri-food supply chains. A mushroom supply chain in the Netherlands is presented as an illustrative case study. Optimal production planning decisions calculated with a two-stage stochastic programming model are compared with the results of an equivalent deterministic model. The results of the optimizations show that accounting for stochasticity in important model parameters can reduce the difference between expected and realized economic performance by approximately 4% on average. Moreover, this paper demonstrates that including stochastic model parameters can reduce the environmental impact without compromising the current economic performance. Given the assumptions in the setup of the case study and the available information, it is concluded that applying a 2-stage stochastic programming approach for production planning decisions can lead to improved economic and environmental performance in an agri-food supply chain. New findings in real-life case studies are needed to get profound insights and understanding on the impact of uncertainty on production planning decisions in sustainable agri-food supply chains.

Biomass is considered one of the most important options in the transition to a sustainable energy system with reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increased security of enegry supply. In order to facilitate this transition with targeted policies and implementation strategies, it is of vital importance to understand the economic benefits, uncertainties and risks of this transition. This article presents a quantification of the economic impacts on value added, employment shares and the trade balance as well as required biomass and avoided primary energy and greenhouse gases related to large scale biomass deployment on a country level (the Netherlands) for different future scenarios to 2030. This is done by using the macro-economic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model LEITAP, capable of quantifying direct and indirect effects of a bio-based economy combined with a spread sheet tool to address underlying technological details. Although the combined approach has limitations, the results of the projections show that substitution of fossil energy carriers by biomass, could have positive economic effects, as well as reducing GHG emissions and fossil energy requirement. Key factors to achieve these targets are enhanced technological development and the import of sustainable biomass resources to the Netherlands. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The transition to a low carbon future is starting to affect landscapes around the world. In order for this landscape transformation to be sustainable, renewable energy technologies should not cause critical trade-offs between the provision of energy and that of other ecosystem services such as food production. This literature review advances the body of knowledge on sustainable energy transition with special focus on ecosystem services-based approaches and methods. Two key issues emerge from this review: only one sixth of the published applications on the relation between renewable energy and landscape make use of the ecosystem service framework. Secondly, the applications that do address ecosystem services for landscape planning and design lack efficient methods and spatial reference systems that accommodate both cultural and regulating ecosystem services. Future research efforts should be directed to further advancing the spatial reference systems, the use of participatory mapping and landscape visualizations tools for cultural ecosystem services and the elaboration of landscape design principles.

Stories play an exceptionally important role in how people assign value to a place. Taken together, all those stories essentially give a place an identity. The aim of placemaking is to ensure that the people using a place can appreciate that place. Placemaking approaches are focussed on strategic interventions in a place and aimed at changing the meaning and value of that place for local people, thus creating a qualitative place for enhanced storytelling. Using greenery is a common approach in place-making. Urban greenery has gone through a process of emancipation in the past 15 years. This emancipation has led to awareness that urban greenery is about more than just ecology and biodiversity, but also has social and economic consequences for a city’s fortunes. It is clear that green spaces do not stand alone: they are part of a complex urban system, and the use of green spaces in this complex system has immediate repercussions for how the city functions. With the changing role of green spaces within cities, the need to manage these spaces is emphasized. In this sense, the place-making approach, along with the storytelling approach could provide valuable insight on the planning and management of green spaces within the urban environment, with the aim to enhance quality of life by means of the social connection between people, the users of the space, and the qualitative place provided. This research illustrated that green space managers would need more social and organizational skills to manage modern urban green spaces in an attempt to create qualitative, usable spaces for citizens, spaces that are built upon stories and spaces that would further enable future stories of citizen life. The Story Behind the Place: Creating Urban Spaces That Enhance Quality of Life (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271918395_The_Story_Behind_the_Place_Creating_Urban_Spaces_That_Enhance_Quality_of_Life [accessed Dec 21, 2015].

Need for reduction of energy use in greenhouse production has increased. First objective was to develop and validate a dynamic air temperature model. Second objective was to minimize total energy input to the greenhouse, for pre-set temperature boundaries. Optimal control techniques were used to minimize total energy input (cooling and heating). Results confirm that air temperature is on the upper boundary when cooling is applied and on the lower boundary when heating is applied. This work is a first step toward optimal deployment of a large array of possible options for the grower to optimally satisfy heat or cooling.