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In this study, we investigated the influence of overall financial development and its components on energy consumption using the panel data of 120 countries and the generalized method of moments (GMM). By dividing the sample into developed and developing countries, we further examined the national differences of the impact of financial development on energy consumption. The empirical results indicate that the overall financial development significantly positively impacts energy consumption from a worldwide perspective, and its two components (financial institution and the financial market) have the same effect. The analysis of national differences indicates that the financial development also positively impacts energy consumption in developing countries but with no obvious effect in developed countries. The results also suggest that financial development cannot be used to restrain the increase in energy consumption from the global perspective, and policymakers in developing countries must balance the relationship between the development of the financial sector and energy consumption.

Understanding the system of connections between societal contexts and policy outcomes in municipal governments provides important insights into how community sustainability happens, and why it happens differently in various communities. A growing body of research in recent years has focused on understanding the socio-economic characteristics of communities and cities that are recognized as policy leaders in sustainability. In this paper, we expand the focus beyond the leaders in sustainability as we apply a selection of socio-demographic influences of community sustainability to a large sample of U.S. communities using community classification analytics to identity a range of community types and levels of engagement with sustainability. Our typology presents an integrated and comprehensive perspective on the structure of community sustainability in the United States, highlighting key points of comparison between human capital factors such as population size and density, affluence, home ownership, and adoption of sustainability policy. The analysis provides new insights not only about community leaders in sustainability, but also communities with the civic and social capacity to do more, and the challenges that may inhibit sustainability efforts in others.

As a relatively mature technology, biomass molded fuel (BMF) is widely used in distributed and centralized heating in China and has received considerable government attention. Although many BFM incentive policies have been developed, decreased domestic traditional fuel prices in China have caused BMF to lose its economic viability and new policy recommendations are needed to stimulate this industry. The present study built a regionalized net present value (NPV) model based on real production process simulation to test the impacts of each policy factor. The calculations showed that BMF production costs vary remarkably between regions, with the cost of agricultural briquette fuel (ABF) ranging from 86 US dollar per metric ton (USD/t) to 110 (USD/t), while that of woody pellet fuel (WPF) varies from 122 USD/t to 154 USD/t. The largest part of BMF’s cost composition is feedstock, which accounts for up 50%–60% of the total; accordingly a feedstock subsidy is the most effective policy factor, but in consideration of policy implementation, it would be better to use a production subsidy. For ABF, the optimal product subsidy varies from 26 USD/t to 57 USD/t among different regions of China, while for WPF, the range is 36 USD/t to 75 USD/t. Based on the data, a regional BMF development strategy is also proposed in this study.

This study aims to explore the application of fractional order chaotic system (FOCS), based on the T-S fuzzy model, in the design of secure communication (SC) and this SC system’s role in the construction of efficiency evaluation system for dispatching operation of energy saving and power generation under a low carbon economy (LCE). First, the definition of fractional order differential equations and the stability theory of FOCS are discussed. T-S fuzzy control is introduced to analyse the stability of FOCS. Then, based on the adaptive synchronisation theory, the combined FOCS is designed for SC, and the performance of the system constructed here is analysed in a MATLAB environment. Next, an evaluation index system of the dispatching operation effect of energy saving and power generation under LCE is constructed. The confidential communication system constructed here is used to transmit the index data. The particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm is then used to optimise the back propagation neural network (BPNN) model. The BPNN algorithm based on PSO (PSO-BPNN) is obtained, and the evaluation model is constructed. After training this model, it is applied to the evaluation of the dispatching operation effect for energy saving and power generation in 10 provinces in China. The simulation results show that the FOCS based on the T-S fuzzy model can acquire the criterion of system stability. Furthermore, the constructed SC system can effectively undertake the secure transmission of square and sine waves. The performance of the PSO-BPNN model seems to be better than other algorithms. After analysing the data on energy saving and power generation from 10 provinces in China using this model, the comprehensive evaluation value of province 5 is found to be the highest and good (0.802), while that of province 4 is the lowest and general (0.600). Summarising, the FOCS based on T-S fuzzy model constructed here is applied to the design of SC. This can improve the confidentiality of data transmission and reduce the transmission error. Moreover, the BPNN evaluation model based on PSO can effectively achieve the evaluation of the dispatching operation effect of energy saving and power generation under LCE.

Abstract The Chinese government has taken measures to realize energy-savings and emission reductions, such as promoting innovations, adjusting the industrial structure, balancing regional development, and reforming markets. The aim of this paper is to assess the effects of these measures on China's CO2 emissions by using a newly proposed decomposition approach, which identified eight new factors related to the above realistic measures, i.e., energy saving and production technologies, industrial energy and production efficiencies, regional energy and production efficiencies, and pure energy and production efficiencies. The main findings indicate benefits from considerable technological progress in energy-saving and production during 2000–2016 period, and two technological factors contributed the most to emissions abatement and cumulatively reduced 5372.43 Mt and 1291.72 Mt CO2 emissions. The efforts of industrial restructuring promoted energy and production efficiency improvement, which further facilitated emission reduction. In contrast, the pure energy and production efficiency changes cumulatively led to 1080.26 Mt and 1135.85 Mt CO2 emissions growth during the whole sample period, suggesting that severe resource misallocation problems may exist in both the energy market and output market. Additionally, the Chinese government failed to narrow the technology gap between developed regions and underdeveloped regions, further restricting emission reduction.

A promising route to transition wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) from energy-consuming to net energy-positive is to retrofit existing facilities with process modifications, residual biosolid upcycling, and effluent thermal energy recovery. This study assesses the economics and life cycle environmental impacts of three proposed retrofits of WWTFs that consider thermochemical conversion technologies, namely, hydrothermal liquefaction, slow pyrolysis, and fast pyrolysis, along with advanced bioreactors. The results are in turn compared to the reference design, showing the retrofitting design with hydrothermal liquefaction, and an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket has the highest net present value (NPV) of $177.36MM over a 20-year plant lifetime despite 15% higher annual production costs than the reference design. According to the ReCiPe method, chlorination is identified as the major contributor for most impact categories in all cases. There are several uncertainties embedded in the techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment, including the discount rate, capital investment, sewer rate, and prices of main products; among which, the price of biochar presents the widest variation from $50 to $1900/t. Sensitivity analyses reveal that the variation of discount rates causes the most significant changes in NPVs. The impact of the biochar price is more pronounced in the slow pyrolysis-based pathway compared to the fast pyrolysis since biochar is the main product of slow pyrolysis.

We researched China's climate and sustainable development goal with relevant and susceptible instruments capable of inducing and mitigating carbon emissions. Amidst the contributor to the global carbon emissions, China is caught in between mitigating its carbon emission and aiming towards placing its national contribution of emissions to the acceptable levels of 1.5 °C and below 2 °C. Following the intricacies surrounding China's sustainable development as it contains its economic and environmental performance, we adopt China's data of 1980 and 2018 with different scientific approaches (nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL), dynamic ordinary least square test, and bootstrap Granger causality) with different instruments (such as economic growth, financial development, renewable energy, and innovation policies) to research China's sustainable development. For clear exposition and insight into our findings with policies attached, we draw a conclusion from the outcomes of the mentioned approaches. From NARDL and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), we find that economic growth through economic activities is statistically significant in determining the trend (increase) of carbon emissions in China in both periods (short run and long run). However, other selected instruments (financial, renewable, and innovation policies) tend towards controlling and moderating the carbon emissions in China. Thus, China has good prospects to mitigate its carbon emissions if considered tailoring its policies towards favorable instruments. From bootstrap Granger causality, we find similar inferential results that support previous findings thereby confirming the positive implication of the selected instruments to China's sustainable development. Hence, the nexus that is established among the selected instruments clearly show the importance of technological innovation and renewable energy in mitigating carbon emissions.

Exploring the sensitivity of rural households’ livelihood strategies to livelihood capital is of great significance for improving rural households’ livelihood levels. This paper selects 23 livelihood capital measurement indicators and conducts an in-depth survey of rural households. In addition, the entropy method and a weighted comprehensive model are used to explore the basic characteristics of rural households’ livelihood capital in the upper reaches of the Min River, China, in 2017. Furthermore, econometric models are used to analyze the sensitivity of rural households’ livelihood strategies to livelihood capital. As indicated from the research, the livelihood capital levels of different types of rural households in the study area are not equivalent. The types of rural households with different livelihood strategies can be ordered in terms of quantity as follows: non-agricultural type > non-agricultural dominant type > agricultural dominant type > pure agricultural type. Livelihood strategies have different sensitivities to different livelihood capital measurement indicators. Among these indicators, cash income, the number of relatives and friends available for financial assistance, and the number of civil servants have positive effects on the livelihood strategy selection of non-agricultural dominant rural households and non-agricultural rural households. However, the average age of laborers, area of cultivated land and gardens, number of livestock and poultry, and present value of production tools have negative effects. These evaluation results can provide a scientific decision-making basis for the formulation of poverty alleviation policies by relevant government departments.