• Energy Research
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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.

Xuanwei City (formerly known as Xuanwei County) locates in the northeastern of Yunnan Province and is rich in coal, iron, copper and other mines, especially the smoky (bituminous) coal. Unfortunately, the lung cancer morbidity and mortality rates in this region are among China's highest, with a clear upward trend from the mid-1970s to mid-2000s. In 2004-2005, the crude death rate of lung cancer was 91.3 per 100,000 in the whole Xuanwei City, while that for Laibin Town in this city was 241.14 per 100,000. The epidemiologic distribution (clustering patterns by population, time, and space) of lung cancer in Xuanwei has some special features, e.g., high incidence in rural areas, high incidence in females, and an early age peak in lung cancer deaths. The main factor that associates with a high rate of lung cancer incidence was found to be indoor air pollution caused by the indoor burning of smoky coal. To a certain extent, genetic defects are also associated with the high incidence of lung cancer in Xuanwei. Taken together, lung cancer in this smoky coal combustion region is a unique model for environmental factor-related human cancer, and the current studies indicate that abandoning the use of smoky coal is the key to diminish lung cancer morbidity and mortality.

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.

The issue of achieving sustainable livelihoods (SL) is a persistent problem that has gained significant interest for all countries. Even though contexts of vulnerability have been highlighted to be critical to SL, the difference of SL under vulnerability contexts, particularly disaster, has been ignored. As one disaster-prone area, there is an urgent need to conduct studies on SL in Shenzha, within the context of the construction of a national park. This paper proposes to address this research gap by evaluating SL under various disaster contexts in Shenzha, China. According to the frequency of natural disasters, towns in Shenzha can be divided into three groups: Snowstorm and windstorm-dominated towns (SWT), mixed towns (MT) and drought-dominated towns (DT). The results showed that (1) a great disparity of SL can be observed among the three vulnerability groups. The scores of these SL were sorted into descending order as: DT > SWT > MT. (2) In detail, herdsmen in DT have a high value of SL because they have high livelihood assets, livelihood strategies and disaster management capabilities. (3) Herdsmen in SWT have high livelihood assets, particularly human and financial assets, and livelihood strategies. (4) The low livelihood assets and livelihood strategies have restricted the SL of herdsmen in MT. An analysis of SL under various disaster contexts helped to depict the characteristics of SL. Accordingly, targeted policies were developed for the development of SL under various disaster contexts.

Farmland is the most basic material condition for guaranteeing rural livelihoods and national food security, and exploring management strategies that take both stable rural livelihoods and sustainable farmland use into account has vital significance in theory and practice. Farmland is a complex and self-adaptive system that couples human and natural systems, and natural and social factors that are related to its changing process need to be considered when modeling farmland changing processes. This paper uses Qianjingou Town in the Inner Mongolian farming–pastoral zone as a study area. From the perspective of the relationship between household livelihood and farmland use, this study establishes the process mechanism of farmland use change based on questionnaire data, and constructs a multi-agent simulation model of farmland use change using the Eclipse and Repast toolbox. Through simulating the relationship between natural factors (including geographical location) and household behavior, this paper systematically simulates household farmland abandonment and rent behaviors, and accurately describes the dynamic interactions between household livelihoods and the factors related to farmland use change. These factors include natural factors (net primary productivity, road accessibility, slope and relief amplitude) and social factors (household family structures, economic development and government policies). Ultimately, this study scientifically predicts the future farmland use change trend in the next 30 years. The simulation results show that the number of abandoned and sublet farmland plots has a gradually increasing trend, and the number of non-farming households and pure-outworking households has a remarkable increasing trend, whereas the number of part-farming households and pure-farming households has a decreasing trend. Household livelihood sustainability in the study area is confronted with increasing pressure, and household non-farm employment has an increasing trend, while regional appropriate-scale agricultural management is maintained. The research results establish the theoretical foundation and a basic method for developing sustainable farmland use management that can meet the willingness of households and guarantee grain and ecological security.

Abstract Although the “resource curse” hypothesis has been supported by many empirical studies focusing on the transnational and regional levels, there has always been a point of contention about the proper method of estimating and selecting natural resource indicators in literature. This paper proposes a mixed estimation method for panel data of 10 typical oil and gas resource-based cities in China from 1998 to 2015. The results show that resource industry agglomeration can mirror the distribution and dependence on the resource industry by location rather than by merely measuring the influence of the relative scale of resource extraction on economic growth. Using resource industry agglomeration as the main explanatory variable for regional economic growth verifies the resource curse hypothesis and shows the nonlinear characteristics of the negative correlation between resources and economic growth. Despite mostly similar indicator parameter estimates, marked differences exist in measured effects for material capital investments and technological innovation investments. The result of using resource industry agglomeration as the main explanatory variable is basically consistent with the economic theory and is more in line with observed reality than the alternative indicator. The research conclusions can provide evidence and data for index selection in the studies on the mediating effect of resource curse transmission and international comparison.

Analyzing the efficiency of the water, energy, and food (WEF) nexus is critical for effective governance strategies. Therefore, three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to measure the efficiency level of WEF in the 36 districts of Punjab, Pakistan, for the period from 2015 to 2021. Furthermore, the stochastic frontier was used to analyze the effect of external environmental factors on these efficiency scores of the WEF nexus. The results of the DEA showed that the number of frontier efficiency districts decreased, and most districts experienced rank change over time. Overall, the performance of 50% of the districts declined over time. The relative decline in efficiency was found to be higher in districts Bahwalnaghar and Rahim Yar Khan. The performance of districts Multan and Sheikhupura increased over time, while districts Vehari and Sargodha were the most complete and efficient in actual performance. According to the SFA’s findings, the WEF nexus efficiency of South Punjab districts was negatively impacted by external environmental factors (urbanization rate, manufactured industry output, population), leading to severe stress across WEF sectors. Districts in central and southern Punjab, however, were more likely to have lower rankings because of the positive impact of external environmental factors on the efficiency of the WEF nexus. The substantial rise of external environmental variables focused on scale expansion rather than quality improvement, which created a wide gap in WEF inputs and, hence, reduced the efficiency of the WEF nexus in the districts. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for developing governance strategies based on external environmental factors and WEF resource endowment, and they complement the efficiency calculation of WEF nexus research. Future research should focus on the Baluchistan region, the most deprived area in terms of water, energy, and food.

Abstract The transition of energy structure to renewable energy is a social and systematic engineering that requires complex regional power interconnection as a support. Thus, an assessment of the economic viability of infrastructure investments for supporting such transmission expansion is crucial. This study presents a multi-regional power system optimization model to evaluate the potential economic benefits of infrastructure investments for the national inter-regional electricity network in China under various scenarios in the context of low-carbon transformation. Key factors influencing economic benefits are analyzed specifically and regulation barriers associated with inter-regional electricity trade are given particular attention. The results show that approximately 140 Giga Watt (GW) of infrastructure construction for the inter-regional electricity trade network is economically viable during the planning horizon. These new interconnections would lead to 250–440 billion RMB of economic benefits. Regional electricity trade barriers caused by imperfect market mechanisms have a negative impact on the economic benefits of transmission infrastructure investments, although they promote scale and utilization efficiency in the power sector of electricity-importing regions. Improving the national grid coordination mechanism to break the grid isolation between the State Grid Corporation of China and the China Southern Power Grid is crucial, because a large number of transmission lines connecting these two national-level power grids are economically viable.