The maintenance of wireless sensor networks involves challenges such as the periodic replacement of batteries or energy sources in remote locations that are often inaccessible. Therefore, onboard energy harvesting solutions can provide a viable alternative. Experimental energy harvesting from fluid flow, specifically from air flow, is typically restricted to a rotor and stator design or a model that strikes a piezoelectric. On the other hand, energy harvesting from mechanical vibrations routinely uses the linear motion of a magnet passing through a coil or vibrating piezoelectric elements. In this paper, we propose a novel V-twin harvester design that converts wind energy from a rotational input into the linear motion of a magnet inside a coil via a crank-slider mechanism. This design allows for high performance with a smoother voltage output when compared to a reference rotor/stator harvester design or piezoelectric method. At 0.5 Hz, a single crank-slider generated a voltage of 0.176... [more]

The aim of current study is to investigate the significance of green and blue economic activities to mitigate the carbon emission in Saudi Arabia. We use the time series data which covers the period from 1990 to 2019. For empirical estimations, we use nonlinear ARDL approach which confirms that energy indicators and blue economic indicators are not mature enough to achieve carbon neutrality objectives. However, after Vision 2030 empirics, positive shocks in green indicators are turning down the carbon level. The findings of energy and blue indicators are useful for policy recommendations which help to achieve the sustainable environmental goals of Vision 2030.

An energy transition is in progress around the globe, notably led by an increase in the deployment of renewable energy and a shift toward less emissions-intense options, notably in the transportation sector. This research investigates the potential role that new transportation options, namely flying vehicles, may play toward progressing the energy transition. As flying vehicles are a relatively new technology yet to penetrate the market, it is also prudent to consider the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) associated with their implementation, alongside the potential energy and environmental impacts. Through a review of ELSI and energy and environmental literature, we identify research gaps and identify how flying vehicles may impact upon the energy transition over time. Our research identifies several critical aspects of both ELSI and energy and environmental academia relevant to the future deployment of flying vehicles and describes a deployment timeline and the resultant socie... [more]

In this paper, a quadrotor dynamic model’s energy efficiency was investigated. A method for the design of the dynamic model which assures energy consumption estimation was presented. This model was developed to analyze the energy efficiency of the quadrotor during each maneuver. A medium-class quadrotor (4.689 kg) was used as a test platform. Thrust force correction factors obtained with FLIGHTLAB software were used to predict object behavior in forward flight. Model validation and long-duration flight tests in outdoor windy conditions are also presented. Monte-Carlo simulation was used to study the influence of uncertainties in model parameters on the simulation reliability. The developed model might be used for practical purposes (for example, energy-efficient coverage path planning).

Employment and the competencies of employees in the energy sector are coming into particular prominence in economies around the world. It is one of the few sectors positively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, a significant global change in the awareness of society occurred in favor of increasing pro-health and pro-environmental activities, which can be seen in the green transformation. Poland can also boast such changes in recent years, as evidenced by the dynamic development of renewable energy sources (boom for photovoltaics) and the increase in prosumption. Correlated with this is the increase in demand for employees with specific competencies, the so-called multi-competencies that are a compilation of technical, business, and soft and hard competencies, as well as interdisciplinary ones. The paper emphasizes the need to better adjust the education system to the real needs of the labor market in a turbulent environment with the use of the Sectoral Qualifications Framew... [more]

Previously published studies on Australia’s energy security did not examine the country’s domestic energy security situation in tandem with its international energy statecraft. This paper fills this research gap. In order to provide a robust analysis of a country’s strategic options in the energy sector, it is paramount to balance domestic and international dimensions, along with internal and external factors. The paper utilizes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) method to review Australia’s strategic options by balancing the inward-looking, domestic risk minimization dimension (energy security), with the outward-looking, international power projection dimension (energy statecraft). The paper also applies the 4A framework (availability, accessibility, affordability, and acceptance) to assess Australia’s energy security performance. On the one hand, the results demonstrate that Australia has many strengths and opportunities as a reliable and stable energy suppl... [more]

The supply chain strategy has a significant impact on energy consumption. This strategy determines the location of individual links in the chain (suppliers, producers, distributors), which affects the costs of logistics processes, including, in particular, transport processes. Currently, due to the rapid increase in fuel prices, the issue of energy consumption in the supply chains is becoming increasingly important. The aim of the article is to present the impact of the increase in fuel and energy costs on the costs of logistics processes and, as a result, on the profitability of different supply chain strategies. The profitability of changing from global to local sources of supply as a result of rising energy prices was especially taken into account. The article presents the results of interviews from enterprises carried out by the authors and the results of simulations carried out using a model developed by the authors. The need to conduct such research resulted from the existing res... [more]

Energy plays a crucial role in the sustainable development of modern nations. Today, hydrogen is considered the most promising alternative fuel as it can be generated from clean and green sources. Moreover, it is an efficient energy carrier because hydrogen burning only generates water as a byproduct. Currently, it is generated from natural gas. However, it can be produced using other methods, i.e., physicochemical, thermal, and biological. The biological method is considered more environmentally friendly and pollution free. This paper aims to provide an updated review of biohydrogen production via photofermentation, dark fermentation, and microbial electrolysis cells using different waste materials as feedstocks. Besides, the role of nanotechnology in enhancing biohydrogen production is examined. Under anaerobic conditions, hydrogen is produced during the conversion of organic substrate into organic acids using fermentative bacteria and during the conversion of organic acids into hydr... [more]

Demand-side management (DSM) is increasingly needed for answering electricity flexibility needs in the upcoming transformation of energy systems. Use of automation leads to better efficiency, but its acceptance is problematic since it is linked with several issues, such as privacy or loss of control. Different approaches investigate what should be done for building community support for automation for the purpose of DSM, but it is only recently that literature has shown interest in the application of social license as a concept merging several issues traditionally treated separately. The social license concept emerged in the mining sector before being adopted for other problematic resources. It serves to identify different levels of community support for a project/company as well as various factors that influence it, such as economic and socio-political legitimacy and interactional trust. This paper investigates, through empirical evidence from eight case studies, what has been done in... [more]

Micro/nano-motors play an important role in energy, environment, and biomedicines. As a new type of nano-motors, nanobottles attract great attention due to their distinct advantages of a large cavity, high specific surface area, bionic streamline structure, and chemotactic motion. Here, we systematically review the development of nanobottle motors from aspects of propulsion mechanisms, fabrication methods and potential applications. Firstly, three types of propulsive modes are summarized, with focus on chemical propulsion, light driving and magnetic actuation. We then discuss the fabrication methods of nanobottles, including the soft-template-based hydrothermal method and the swelling-inducement and wet-chemistry methods. The potential applications of nanobottle motors are additionally highlighted in energy, environmental, and biomedical fields. Finally, the future challenges and outlooks of nanobottle motors are discussed for the further development of this technology.

In this research, the advantages of the e-scooter tool used in the mail or package delivery process were discussed by considering the Turkish Post Office (PTT) data in the districts of Istanbul (Kadıköy, Üsküdar, Kartal, and Maltepe) in Turkey. The optimization Poisson regression model was utilized to deliver the maximum number of packages or mails with minimum cost and the shortest time in terms of energy consumption, cost, and environmental contribution. Statistical and optimization results of dependent and independent variables were calculated using numerical and categorical features of 100 e-scooter drivers. The Poisson regression analysis determined that the e-scooter driver’s gender (p|0.05 < 0.199) and age (p|0.05 < 0.679) factors were not effective on the dependent variable. We analysed that the experience in the profession (tenure), the size of the area responsible, and environmental factors is effective in the e-scooter distribution activity. The number of packages deli... [more]

Global warming is becoming an increasing issue, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions represent the engine of such a phenomenon. This review aims to identify the origin of GHG emissions and focus in detail on the ones related to (petro) chemical industries. The industrial sector is the primary GHG emitter among all the other anthropogenic sources. The chemical industry is the first in charge of that (having accounted for about 6.5% of the global GHG emissions in 2018). Thought-provoking data such as yearly productivities and emission factors related to the predominant chemicals prompt the reader to acquire a sense of the critical activities responsible for carbon-intensive emissions, which should be the first to be decarbonized. Specifically, ammonia synthesis and steam cracking resulted in the most polluting processes of the chemical industry, being responsible for the release of about 440 and 228 Mt-CO2,eq/y, respectively, in 2020. The same approach also applies to oil refining. Due to... [more]

Utilization of high-temperature energy in industrial production processes is often exhausted by huge low-temperature waste heat without recovery. Thus, energy efficiency is quite limited. Heat pumps are widely used as a high-efficiency waste heat recovery system and are divided into vapor compression cycle, driven by electricity, and absorption type, driven by steam or hot water. However, compression heat pumps are quite difficult to reach more than 100 °C due to the temperature and compression limits of compressors and the working medium. Meanwhile, the COP (coefficient of performance) of an absorption heat pump is quite low due to the thermodynamic cycle characteristics. In order to increase the outlet temperature and COP significantly, a new type of compression-absorption hybrid heat pump cycle is presented and simulated. Compared with traditional cycles, this heat pump can reach the heat sink temperature of 200 °C with a highly satisfactory COP. This heat pump could reach the optim... [more]

Population and economic growth, industrial activities, development of technology, and depletion of fossil fuels have all led to increasing energy demand. As a result, there is an increasing ambition towards implementation of sustainable energy sources. In this study, first, a review of the literature is conducted to learn about various methods and objectives for optimization of photovoltaic and thermal (PV/T) systems. Then, a case study is considered, and the seasonal and hourly solar radiation are studied. Further, two methods of multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition (MOEA/D) and multiobjective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) are compared. On this basis, the energy and exergy efficiencies are analyzed for a proposed PV/T system. The outcomes are validated by taking into account the previous studies, and a sufficient agreement is found indicating the validity and accuracy of the results. It is also found that the efficiency rates for both energy and exergy so... [more]

This article deals with the issue of human capital as a factor responsible for the emergence of development inequalities in rural areas. Its main goal is to analyze and evaluate the existing differences in the distribution of human capital resources in rural areas in Poland in relation to their socio-economic situation. The essence of human capital is expressed through the analogy of energy and capital in relation to the concept of homo energeticus. The essence of human capital is also expressed in terms of two components of its structure, i.e., health and the labor market. The level of human capital was expressed using two synthetic measures, i.e., the human capital ratio in the field of health (HCH) and the labor market (HCLM). The obtained research results indicate the existing differences in the spatial distribution of human capital, resulting in a polarization effect in the center-periphery system, and showing relations with the socio-economic structure of rural areas, their agric... [more]

This study explores the effects of hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) on the fuel properties of empty fruit bunches (EFB) by varying the reaction temperatures between the range of 180−300 °C. The improved properties of hydrochars following HTC were achieved by analyzing the changes in the physical and chemical properties of EFB. Moreover, it can save energy during treatment processes, in addition to evaluating the improvement of the biofuel stability based on the equilibrium moisture content and agglomeration. The results showed that the chemical structure of EFB decomposed owing to dehydration and decarboxylation reactions, leading to increased carbon and fixed carbon concentrations in the obtained hydrochar; and thus, an increased calorific value. Hydrochar generated during HTC exhibited chemical properties similar to those of conventional coal fuel. The optimal HTC reaction temperature range was ~230−250 °C. Based on the X-ray fluorescence results, hydrochar produced during HTC had sm... [more]

Photovoltaic installations (PVs) are currently one of the fastest-growing sources of renewable energy. Expanded forms of financial support and higher electricity prices have resulted in a large increase in its installed capacity. PV installations are increasingly being ordered by industry and privates, often for installations capacity of several hundred kilowatts. In addition to the advantages, photovoltaic installations also have drawbacks. One of these is that the increase in the voltage in the power grid leads to the exclusion of individual installations from the grid. An important issue in the operation of photovoltaic installations is also their reliability during their lifetime. The reliability of photovoltaic installations depends on the random nature of the cloud cover as well as the material’s mechanical degradations. This paper presents a literature analysis using Citespace software in terms of reliability. A detailed bibliometric analysis has been performed to outline the ma... [more]

Energy and power demands for military operations continue to rise as autonomous air, land, and sea platforms are developed and deployed with increasingly energetic weapon systems. The primary limiting capability hindering full integration of such systems is the need to effectively and efficiently manage, generate, and transmit energy across the battlefield. Energy efficiency is primarily dictated by the number of dissimilar energy conversion processes in the system. After combustion, a Compression Ignition (CI) engine must periodically continue to inject fuel to produce mechanical energy, simultaneously generating thermal, acoustic, and fluid energy (in the form of unburnt hydrocarbons, engine coolant, and engine oil). In this paper, we present multiple sets of Shallow Artificial Neural Networks (SANNs), Convolutional Neural Network (CNNs), and K-th Nearest Neighbor (KNN) classifiers, capable of approximating the in-cylinder conditions and informing future optimization and control effo... [more]

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) may serve as a catalyst in energy transition by accelerating this trend and “greenwashing” the deals. M&A are often used by large energy companies as a tool to explore potential synergy benefits. Recently, M&A strategies in the energy industry have been pursued to transform traditional business models into more “sustainable” models. On the one hand, it may be observed that companies are taking a proactive rather than reactive approach towards environmental-, social-, and governance (ESG)-related M&A deals. On the other hand, sustainable M&A deals do not interest activist shareholders and regulatory authorities only anymore. Inclusion of a sustainability framework and managing ESG-related risks have become part of the overall strategy of most companies within the energy industry. This research addresses the problem of how energy M&A are contributing to sustainable development on the one hand and reflecting sustainable developments on the other hand. The cu... [more]

One of the primary difficulties we have recently is environmental degradation. The deterioration of the environment was visible in the rise in carbon dioxide emissions, which has a detrimental impact on various life matters. A variety of factors caused this growth. Inappropriate human behaviors caused the majority of them. This study aimed to ascertain how energy consumption and economic growth with its components in the Czech Republic, affected CO2 emissions. The relationship between CO2 emissions, economic growth, agriculture, and energy consumption was studied using econometric analysis, specifically the Johansen, Vector Error Correction (VEC) Model, and granger causality. The findings revealed that all variables are cointegrated. Economic growth, agricultural, and energy consumption output are all positively correlated with CO2 emissions. There is a unidirectional Granger Causality between economic growth, and Agriculture towards carbon dioxide emissions. A unidirectional Granger C... [more]

Environmental protection is currently one of the key priority areas of the European Union (EU). The search for effective solutions for the supply and use of energy in cities is currently a key topic. The reduction in gas emissions and the use of renewable energy sources are goals that result from environmental aspects. The purpose of this publication is to conduct a literature review in the area of municipal energy management. Municipal energy management systems integrate many areas, from energy supply systems and the modernization of public transport to the energy demand reduction of residential and commercial facilities. The results of the literature review research have allowed for the classification of articles based on the following criteria: research methodology, research purpose, research data collection method, use of research results article type, and research subject area.

The overall transition towards a low-carbon economy is expected to pose a solution for several global problems, including the ongoing climate change while ensuring economic and social development. Large oil and gas companies are aware of the need to transform their business, turn to renewable and clean energy sources to build a positive image and reputation, and have the economic power to do so. This paper aims to evaluate the marketing communication of leading European oil and gas companies on their Instagram accounts in the context of reputation building through using social media and identify to what extent the companies reflect the environmental aspects of corporate social responsibility. Content analysis and the Social Blade tool were used to examine the marketing communication of the five biggest companies by revenue. All the companies are active on Instagram, but it has been found that the Russian companies have remained inactive and have even been losing followers since March 2... [more]

The energy sector is one of the most important sectors as it is the producer and supplier of fuel to run other industries and economies. This research aims to present an intertwined structure of risk exposure measuring the performance of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Energy Index and selected companies from the constituents while taking into account two scenarios of risk, namely the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia−Ukraine conflict, in a manner appropriate for energy stock investors, energy companies, and the economy through hedging against investment risk, diversification in operations securing the continuation of energy production, and the risk of fluctuating prices in the energy market, respectively. The research problem is observed as the requirement to choose the representative stocks of the S&P (BSE) Energy Index to evaluate their situations during the period of the two crisis scenarios and to provide the current risk exposure to India’s energy sector. The methodological ap... [more]

This paper assesses the use of gas from a landfill located in Kiełcz for energy purposes, considering energy, environmental and socioeconomic aspects. The literature review contains information on waste management methods in various regions of the world and the legal acts regulating them. The reference was also made to the methods of degassing landfills and the methods of reducing pollutants from this process. The research methodology describes, among other things, the method of measuring exhaust gas quality and temperature or gas composition. This section also presents the catalyst that was used as a reducer of flue gas emissions. The use of a catalyst in the flue gas duct allowed for the reduction in CO emissions by 85%, NOX by 53%, SO2 by 95%, and PM by 82%. For the socio-economic analysis, formulas and quantities were given that allow for the parameterization of profits. Three leading indicators were selected, i.e., the impact of the energy produced on the producer, the reduction i... [more]

The motivation behind solving the issue of estimating the flow parameters of the pneumatic system of a launcher was the need to obtain the take-off energy with a value exceeding 80 kJ. The take-off energy and the initial speed of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) depends on the pressure drop time in the launcher’s pneumatic system. The aim of the research was to estimate the flow parameters of the trigger system of the UAV launchers in order to achieve the shortest time of its operation. Due to the lack of a description of the selection of pneumatic elements and their flow characteristics in the available literature, the article attempts to analytically describe the air flow through pneumatic units. The trigger system is described using the sonic conductivity and the critical pressure ratio. Due to the lack of numerical data on the flow parameters of pneumatic units, a test stand was designed and constructed to determine these parameters. The values of the sound conductivity and the cr... [more]