• Energy Research
• engineering and technology close
• 3. Good health close
• Energies close

Coal will continue to be the main energy source in China for the immediate future, although the environmental pollution and ecological impacts of each stage in the full life cycle of coal mining, transportation, and combustion generate large quantities of external costs. The Late Permian coals in southwestern (SW) China usually contain high amounts of fluorine (F), arsenic (As), and ash, which together with high-F clays cause abnormally high levels of endemic fluorosis, As poisoning, and lung cancer in areas where coal is mined and burned. In this paper, we estimate the external costs of the life cycle of coal. The results show that the externalities of coal in SW China are estimated at USD 73.5 billion or 284.3 USD/t, which would have accounted for 6.5 % of the provincial GDP in this area in 2018. The external cost of human health accounts for 87.2% of the total external costs, of which endemic skeletal fluorosis diseases and related lung cancers have the most important impact. Our study provides a more precise estimate of externalities compared with its counterparts in other provinces in China. Therefore, several policy recommendations would be proposed to internalize the external cost.

The techno-economic performance evaluation of a combined cooling heating and power (CCHP) system installed in a hospital building in Greece is presented. The aim was to verify performance standards and evaluate real behavior, while highlighting the economic gains. In this research, system performance was evaluated using actual and year-round field measurements. The data were used to calculate the recovered heat and the generated electric energy. Furthermore, the performance was modeled and compared to the manufacturer specifications. Financial assessment was conducted through energy cost analysis to verify the operating viability of the system, both for its heating and cooling functions. The results showed that, overall, after eight years of operation, the energy efficiency was still within design standards. Electrical efficiency was constantly above 30%, while thermal efficiency was around 40–45%. Total efficiency was usually above the 75% threshold, characterizing the system as fully CHP operating. The analysis also pointed out the economic effectiveness of the system in the Greek energy market. The results verified the potential of a CCHP system for improving the energy and economic performance of a building.

The outbreak of SARS-COV-2 disease 2019 (COVID-19) abruptly changed the patterns in electricity consumption, challenging the system operations of forecasting and balancing supply and demand. This is due to the mitigation measures that include lockdown and Work from Home (WFH), which decreased the aggregated demand and remarkably altered its profile. Here, we characterise these changes with various quantitative markers and compare it with pre-COVID-19 business-as-usual data using Great Britain (GB) as a case study. The ripple effects on the generation portfolio, system frequency, forecasting accuracy and imbalance pricing are also analysed. An energy data extraction and pre-processing pipeline that can be used in a variety of similar studies is also presented. Analysis of the GB demand data during the March 2020 lockdown indicates that a shift to WFH will result to a net benefit for flexible stakeholders, such as consumer on variable tariffs. Furthermore, the analysis illustrates a need for faster and more frequent balancing actions, as a result of the increased share of renewable energy in the generation mix. This new equilibrium of energy demand and supply will require a redesign of the existing balancing mechanisms as well as the longer-term power system planning strategies.

Transportation safety, as a critical component of an efficient and reliable transportation system, has been extensively studied with respect to societal economic impacts by transportation agencies and policy officials. However, the embodied energy impact of safety, other than induced congestion, is lacking in studies. This research proposes an energy equivalence of safety (EES) framework to provide a holistic view of the long-term energy and fuel consequences of motor vehicle crashes, incorporating both induced congestion and impacts from lost human productivity resulting from injury and fatal accidents and the energy content resulting from all consequences and activities from a crash. The method utilizes a ratio of gross domestic product (GDP) to national energy consumed in a framework that bridges the gap between safety and energy, leveraging extensive studies of the economic impact of motor vehicle crashes. The energy costs per fatal, injury, and property-damage-only (PDO) crashes in gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) in 2017 were found to be 200,259, 4442, and 439, respectively, which are significantly greater than impacts from induced congestion alone. The results from the motor vehicle crash data show a decreasing trend of EES per crash type from 2010 and 2017, due primarily in part to a decreasing ratio of total energy consumed to GDP over those years. In addition to the temporal analysis, we conducted a spatial analysis addressing national-, state-, and local-level EES comparisons by using the proposed framework, illustrating its applicability.

The solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) film plays a significant role in the capacity and storage performance of lithium primary batteries. The electrolyte additives are essential in controlling the morphology, composition and structure of the SEI film. Herein, fluoroethylene carbonate (FEC) is chosen as the additive, its effects on the lithium primary battery performance are investigated, and the relevant formation mechanism of SEI film is analyzed. By comparing the electrochemical performance of the Li/AlF3 primary batteries and the microstructure of the Li anode surface under different conditions, the evolution model of the SEI film is established. The FEC additive can decrease the electrolyte decomposition and protect the lithium metal anode effectively. When an optimal 5% FEC is added, the discharge specific capacity of the Li/AlF3 primary battery is 212.8 mAh g−1, and the discharge specific capacities are respectively 205.7 and 122.3 mAh g−1 after storage for 7 days at room temperature and 55 °C. Compared to primary electrolytes, the charge transfer resistance of the Li/AlF3 batteries with FEC additive decreases, indicating that FEC is a promising electrolyte additive to effectively improve the SEI film, increase discharge-specific capacities and promote charge transfer of the lithium primary batteries.

Disposal of municipal solid wastes (MSW) remains a challenge to minimize its impacts on the environment and human health. Landfilling, currently the most common method used for MSW disposal, occupies land space and leads to soil and air emissions. Gasification, an alternative MSW disposal method, can convert waste to energy, but can also lead to soil and air emissions and is a more extensive operation. In this study, life cycle assessments (LCA) of the two disposal methods (landfilling without energy recovery and gasification) were compared to understand impacts on environment and health. The LCA was conducted following the ISO 14040 standards with one ton of MSW as the functional unit. The life cycle inventory was obtained from published journals, technical reports, LandGEM, HELP and GREET database. The impact assessment was done using TRACI 2.1 and categorized into eight groups. The LCA revealed that landfilling is a higher contributor in global warming, acidification, smog formation, eutrophication, ecotoxicity and human health cancer and non-cancer categories. The negative environmental impacts of MSW landfilling can be primarily attributed to the fate of leachate loss and landfill gas, while those of the MSW gasification can be attributed to the disposal of its solid residues.

Technological developments in the health sector for the safety of neonates are essential. Such efforts are needed to curb the increase in premature infant mortality cases caused by bacteria, asphyxia, infections, and poor management of facility equipment. Furthermore, preterm and other at-risk babies have low ability to regulate temperature and produce body heat as characterized by their dry skin conditions; hence, the need for baby incubators. For their operation, these baby incubators provide strict regulated energy change that is influenced by heat transfer caused by the surrounding atmospheric temperature and humidity. This paper presents the design, construction, and performance study of a proposed Fuzzy-PID hybrid control system for regulating temperature and humidity in a baby incubator. To accomplish its goal, the proposed controller must be able to distribute heat and maintain humidity in the incubator under fluctuating atmospheric conditions to keep the baby’s body warm. Performance tests of the proposed hybrid controller were conducted by comparing temperature and humidity outputs in the baby incubator against predetermined expected values. Results show that the proposed controller is able to successfully achieve and maintain the temperature and humidity set points. Further examination also suggests that the proposed Fuzzy-PID hybrid control offers an improved overall system response performance compared to the PID controller.

With the wide spread of new variants of coronavirus that cause the infectious disease COVID-19, governments around the world typically respond by imposing restrictions on people’s activities that range from partial to full lockdowns. This has severe implications on all economic activities, which is manifested by the changes in energy demand. In this study, the impact of COVID-19 on the electricity sector in Jordan is analysed through quantifying the strictness of the government response measures to contain the spread of the pandemic, as calculated by the stringency index, with the electricity demand by the different sectors. Results showed that the minimum peak load in 2020 decreased by 13% as compared to that of 2019. The most affected sectors were the domestic sector, whose share in consumption increased by 8%, and the commercial and hotel sector, whose share decreased by 19%. The concept of an energy-weighted stringency index was introduced to account for the impact of government response measures on the different sectors. The analysis was applied for all Jordan as well as for the three electricity distribution regions. Results also showed that despite measures taken to contain spread of the pandemic, the share of electricity generation by renewables increased from 15% in 2019 to 24% in 2020.