To meet climate change challenges, the UK government is aiming to reach zero emissions by 2050. The heavy-duty transportation sector contributes 17% to the UKs total emissions, so to combat this, alternative power units to traditional fossil fuel-reliant internal combustion engines (ICEs) are being utilized and investigated. Hydrogen fuel cells are a key area of interest to try and reduce these transportation emissions. To gain a true view of the impact that hydrogen fuel cells can have, this study looks at the impact the manufacturing of a fuel cell has upon the environment, from material extraction through to the usage phase. This was done through the use of a lifecycle assessment following ISO 14040 standards, with hydrogen systems being compared to alternative systems. This study has found that whilst fuel cells depend upon energy intensive materials for their construction, it is possible to reduce emissions by 34−87% compared to ICE systems, depending upon the source of hydrogen u... [more]

Thermal convective flows are common phenomena in real urban canyons and strongly affect the mechanisms of pollutant removal from the canyon. The present contribution aims at investigating the complex interaction between inertial and thermal forces within the canyon, including the impacts on turbulent features and pollutant removal mechanisms. Large-eddy simulations reproduce infinitely long square canyons having isothermal and differently heated facades. A scalar source on the street mimics the pollutant released by traffic. The presence of heated facades triggers convective flows which generate an interaction region around the canyon-ambient interface, characterised by highly energetic turbulent fluxes and an increase of momentum and mass exchange. The presence of this region of high mixing facilitates the pollutant removal across the interface and decreases the urban canopy drag. The heating-up of upwind facade determines favourable convection that strengthens the primary internal vo... [more]

Selection and assessment of mining equipment used in open pit rock mines relies chiefly on estimates of overall exploitation cost. The rational arrangement of mining equipment and systems comprising loading machines, haul trucks and crushing plants should be preceded by a thorough analysis of technical and economic aspects, such as investment outlays and the costs of further exploitation, which largely determine the costs of mining operations and the deposit value. Additionally, the operational parameters of the mining equipment ought to be considered. In this study, a universal set of evaluation criteria has been developed, and an evaluation method has been applied for the selection of surface mining equipment and the processing system to be operated in specific mining conditions, defined by the user. The objective of this study is to develop and apply the new methodology of multi-criteria selection of open pit rock mining equipment based on multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) pr... [more]

A biorefinery integrated process based on lignocellulosic feedstock is especially interesting in rural areas with a high density of agricultural and agro-industrial wastes, which is the case for olive crop areas and their associated industries. In the region of Andalusia, in the south of Spain, the provinces of Jaén, Córdoba and Seville accumulate more than 70% of the olive wastes generated in Spain. Therefore, the valorisation of these wastes is a matter of interest from both an environmental and a social point of view. The olive biorefinery involves a multi-product process from different raw materials: olive leaves, exhausted olive pomace, olive stones and olive tree pruning residues. Biorefinery processes associated with these wastes would allow their valorisation to produce bioenergy and high value-added renewable products. In this work, using geographic information system tools, the biomass from olive crop fields, mills and olive pomace-extracting industries, where these wastes ar... [more]

Companies that belong to the energy sector can use Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for their strategies and diversify electrical energy production with reverence to the natural environment. This article aims to analyze sustainability strategy types among the Visegrád Group (V4) countries’ energy producers, who decided to generate electrical energy from the renewable resources. This research uses an inductive inference approach supported by a literature study and deductive reasoning supported by a statistical reference method. The main finding is that the energy producers from the V4 group have a common direction of evolution in their strategies. This change is based on a growing share of renewable energy sources to achieve environmental excellence strategies. The lack of renewable energy sector organizations’ strategies translates into disappointment with the goals pursued by these organizations. The significance of this study lies in an explanation of how sustainability strategie... [more]

The availability of suitable water is an important factor for increasing the cultivated areas and sustainability in arid (i.e., less than 200 mm precipitation per year) and semiarid regions (i.e., 200−700 mm precipitation per year). Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the impact of treated wastewater (TWW) and groundwater (GW) as well as synthetic fertilizers (50% and 100% of the recommended NPK dose; 150−150−60 kg N−P2O5−K2O ha−1) on the growth, biomass, energy traits, and macro and trace elements of maize (Zea mays L.), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.), and pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum L) grown in old cultivated (first location; L1) and virgin soil (L2 and L3) as potential bioenergy crops. The soil in L1 has been irrigated with treated wastewater for the last 15 years and continued to be irrigated with treated wastewater in this investigation. The virgin soil was divided into two parts: the first part was irrigated with TWW, and the second part was irrigated with GW. The experimen... [more]

Sustainability has been recognized as a major concern globally since the Brudtland Report, in 1987, and further reinforced in 2015 by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) 2030. This paper reviews the methodologies and criteria of sustainability applied to fashion products, regarding products’ environmental footprint (environmental life cycle assessment/analysis; e-LCA), the social issues (including the social life cycle assessment/analysis; s-LCA) and the transparency in reporting sustainability. In our review we seek KPIs (key performance indicators) that allow classification of a pair of shoes or a piece of cloth on a scale from A to E, i.e., products can be compared with a benchmark and classified accordingly with a simple labelling scheme, which is easily understandable by the consumers. This approach is similar to those used to classify electrical appliances, housing energy consumption for thermal comfort, food Nutri-Scores, CO2 levels of road vehicles, and tir... [more]

This research compares the potential environmental impacts of heat pumps with gas boilers and scenario analysis through utilising the life cycle approach. The study analyses the current situation with the baseline model and assesses future applications with Circular Economy (CE), Resource Efficiency (RE) and Limited Growth (LG) scenarios. Then, hybrid applications of low-carbon technologies and different manufacturing scenarios are investigated according to baseline and CE scenarios. Our results show that the use and manufacturing phases are responsible for 74% and 14% of all environmental impacts on average as expected. Even though the electricity mix of the UK has decarbonised substantially during the last decade, heat pumps still have higher lifetime impacts than gas boilers in all environmental categories except climate change impact. The carbon intensity of heat pumps is much lower than gas boilers with 0.111 and 0.097 kg CO2e for air source heat pumps and ground source heat pumps... [more]

The aim of the article is to present and analyze the implementation of intelligent lighting within the concept of smart energies and smart cities. Motivation and research hypothesis: Electricity consumption in the world is based largely on non-renewable energy. Until these full changes, it is necessary to look for opportunities to save and use it efficiently. Today’s cities are increasingly implementing the smart concept, of which smart energy is one area. One of the smart city elements implemented by cities is smart energy. Within this framework, a supported concept is the replacement of traditional lighting with LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes), which contributes to energy and cost savings and reduces the pollution of the sky with artificial light, while increasing the efficiency of urban lighting. Positive effects of modern solutions include reduced lighting expenses and increased safety of residents. Methods and results of the research: The authors chose the case study method for their... [more]

Georgian forests are very valuable natural resources, but due to the lack of affordable alternatives to firewood, people are forced to use forest resources illegally and unsustainably. The aim of this study was to determine the productivity and biomass properties of four poplar clones from Aigeiros and Tacamahaca and one control clone, considering their wood and bark characteristics and their proportion in the stems. Short-rotation woody crops with these clones represent a potential source of commercial fuelwood production in Georgia as an alternative to natural forests. These tree characteristics were evaluated after three years of growth. The survival of the clones was generally high. No significant differences in biomass production (dry matter, DM) were found among the four clones tested (DM of approximately 4 Mg ha−1 yr−1), while the control clone achieved significantly lower values for DM. The biomass specific density was exceptionally high, at 481−588 kg m−3, which was a result o... [more]

The aim of the study is to present a methodology for analyzing pollution emissions in a medium-sized city using modern traffic simulations in the aspect of minimizing exhaust emissions. The scope of the research and the methods of analysis used differ from those applied in big cities projects that can be found in the literature, Therefore the progressive elaboration model has been applied methodically to formulate and carry out the feasibility study. To perform microscopic traffic simulations, the software Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO—German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin, Germany) was applied. Thanks to the simulations, changes in traffic organization were accurately identified in the context of pollution emissions before they were implemented. The proposed approach allows a smooth flow of vehicles and a reduction of exhaust emissions. The experiments, supported by visual modelling of traffic with respect to pollution emissions, were performed on one of the main arteries of the... [more]

Based on resource carrying capacity, this study used the revised theory of relative resource carrying capacity (RRCC) and introduced an innovative concept of relative fossil energy carrying capacity (RFECC), which evaluates the degree of fossil energy sustainability based on the relationship between economy, population, and environment. This study took China and the United States as the study objects, took the whole country as the reference area, and calculated the RFECC of population, economic, and environmental resources from 2000 to 2018. Therefore, based on the comparative analysis, the following conclusions were drawn: (i) there is a big difference in the RFECC between China and the United States, which is manifested in the inverted U-shaped trend in China and the U-shaped trend in the United States; (ii) the relative fossil energy carrying states in China and the United States are different, mainly reflected in the economy and environment; (iii) the gap in RFECC between China and... [more]

In the course of our investigations, we burned high-quality logs as well as wood briquettes in a conventional, manually fed mixed-fired boiler, under different operating parameters. Based on the evaluation of the measurement results, there is a significant difference in terms of recoverable energy and carbon monoxide emissions for the two fuels burned in the same device at different air supply parameters. Studies have shown that a constantly changing position of the draft control door has an adverse effect on carbon monoxide emissions as well as the energy produced. In the case of a constant draft door setting, the preset values that can be considered ideal for energy yield and CO emissions were determined for the two fuel types. The obtained results were compared with the requirements according to the MSZ EN 303-5 standard.

In the construction of ecological civilization, green innovation has become an important driving force for the sustainable development of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This paper uses panel data of state-owned listed enterprises from 2008 to 2019 to explore mixed-ownership reform’s influence on the green transformation of SOEs and its specific mechanisms. The results show that the diversity of mixed shareholders, the depth of mixed equity, and the restriction of mixed equity significantly promote the SOEs’ green innovation. Moreover, there are distinctions in the impact of the shareholding ratio of heterogeneous shareholders on green innovation. Only the increase in the shareholding ratio of foreign shareholders has a positive correlation with green innovation. The mechanism tests indicate that the mixed-ownership reform plays a governance role in the green transformation of SOEs by optimizing the reasonable allocation of environmental protection subsidies and propelling environmenta... [more]

Smart buildings use Internet of Things (IoT) sensors for monitoring indoor environmental parameters, such as temperature, humidity, luminosity, and air quality. Due to the huge amount of data generated by these sensors, data analytics and machine learning techniques are needed to extract useful and interesting insights, which provide the input for the building optimization in terms of energy-saving, occupants’ health and comfort. In this paper, we propose an IoT-based smart building (SB) solution for indoor environment management, which aims to provide the following main functionalities: monitoring of the room environmental parameters; detection of the number of occupants in the room; a cloud platform where virtual entities collect the data acquired by the sensors and virtual super entities perform data analysis tasks using machine learning algorithms; a control dashboard for the management and control of the building. With our prototype, we collected data for 10 days, and we built two... [more]

Any building’s design should sustain thermal comfort for occupants and promote less energy usage during its lifetime using accurate building retrofits to convert existing buildings into low-energy buildings so that the heating and cooling loads can be minimized. Regarding the methodology adopted in this research, an energy model of an educational building located at the German Jordanian University in Jordan was constructed utilizing DesignBuilder computer software. In addition, it was calibrated utilizing real energy consumption data for a 12-month simulation of energy performance. Subsequently, a computerized evaluation of the roles of building envelope retrofits or the adaptive thermal comfort limits in the reduction of the overall building energy consumption was analyzed. The results of the study show that the current building’s external wall insulation, roof insulation, glazing, windows, and external shading devices are relatively energy-efficient but with high cost, resulting in s... [more]

Although the Internet of Things (IoT), advanced manufacturing technologies, and cloud manufacturing contribute to developing a digital manufacturing ecosystem that enhances energy efficiency and resource utilization, manufacturing processes are vulnerable to timely production and delivery. The digital manufacturing systems in Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) minimized the human-technology interactions to foster productivity and material flow. However, there is scarce research to gauge the efficiency of these digital technologies in the entire manufacturing process; also, little is known about the collaborative efforts among countries to achieve sustainable manufacturing performance through the digitalization of the production process. Thus, this systematic review aimed to highlight the effectiveness of the digital manufacturing systems for sustainable product development and the collaborative research on the subject. We selected 52 research articles for this review by following the 2... [more]

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have scarcely been considered in studies on green consumption. Likewise, little attention has been paid to the effects of informational feedback on household energy ICT-related consumption. This paper aims to fill these gaps in the literature. Using microdata from a representative sample of the European Union population, this paper analyzes, in a novel way, whether the provision of information about the energy consumed by online services would make internet users change to a greener ICT consumption behavior. To assess this issue, Heckman type selection models are estimated. The results show that people’s concerns about environmental problems, their environmental activism and self-perceived efficacy as consumers are directly related to the influence that information provision exerts. We also find that frequent internet users and those with better digital skills are more willing to change their online behavior if given information on energ... [more]

So far, a lot of efforts have been put in life cycle assessments (LCA) of bioethanol production. There are many works that have assessed bioethanol production in different points of view to illustrate the environmental impacts. This study reviewed former LCA studies on bioethanol produced from various biomass resources by considering the effect of methodological components, technical pathways and feedstock provision on the result of LCA studies. The review evaluated 48 papers published 2002−2021 with a focus on studies that included a complete set of environmental impact categories. However, due to lack of harmony among studies, comparing the LCA results was challenging but the review indicated that the final results of studies are influenced by LCA methodological components, such as system boundary, functional unit, etc. Around 80% of the reviewed papers show the reduction in global warming potential, while contrary results have been found about increasing acidification, eutrophicatio... [more]

The protection of the environment and pollution control are issues of paramount importance. Researchers today are engrossed in mitigating the harmful impacts of petroleum waste on the environment. Lubricating oils, which are essential for the smooth operation of engines, are often disposed of improperly after completing their life. In the experimental work presented in this paper, deteriorated engine oil was regenerated using the acid treatment method and was reused in the engine. The comparison of the properties of reused oil, the engine’s performance, and the emissions from the engine are presented. The reuse of regenerated oil, the evaluation of performance, and emissions establish the usefulness of the regeneration of waste lubricating oil. For the used oil, total acid number (TAN), specific gravity, flash point, ash content, and kinematic viscosity changed by 60.7%, 6.7%, 4.4%, 96%, and 15.5%, respectively, compared with fresh oil. The regeneration partially restored all the lost... [more]

Phototactic and polarotactic aquatic insects, such as mayflies, can be drawn to electric lighting on bridges at night. Past research investigating the effect of light intensity, polarization, and spectrum on mayflies suggests that a combination of different techniques can reduce the number of mayflies attracted to bridges. Here, various lighting strategies are systematically tested on Veterans Memorial Bridge in Pennsylvania to investigate the effect of lighting on mayflies and address safety concerns caused by their mass crowding. Isolated trials on different parts of the bridge tested the effectiveness of correlated color temperature, chromaticity, ultraviolet radiation, shielding, and polarization. Results indicate that mayflies were more attracted to ultraviolet radiation, blue and green light, and polarized light than other lighting conditions. Shielding was minimally effective in reducing the number of mayflies on the bridge when supported by the change in light source spectrum.... [more]

One of the biggest problems of the modern economy is the depletion of traditional energy sources. Despite the fact that this problem was noticed several dozen years ago, steps to solve it were taken relatively recently. In December 2017, the European Union adopted a position on the directive, promoting the use of energy from renewable sources in all Member States. The EU has committed itself that by 2030, at least 27% of its energy consumption will come from renewable sources. On the one hand, it is a huge challenge, but on the other hand, it is an opportunity to achieve economic growth through innovation and a sustainable energy policy. On the Polish market, the chance to achieve the assumed plan is offered mainly by small companies that have been involved in innovative activities in the renewable energy sector in recent years. Innovation is an extraordinarily important determinant of the sustainable development of economies across the world. However, introducing it into business prac... [more]

The technology of waste-management thermal processing may pose a threat to the natural environment through the emission of harmful substances, such as CO, NOx, SO2, HCl, HF, total organic carbon (TOC) and dust, as well as dioxins and furans. Due to the advantages of thermal waste treatment, including the small volume of solid residue produced and possible thermal energy recovery, thermal waste treatment is widely applied. Continuous research is necessary to develop methods for reducing the risk of harmful substances being produced and methods for the effective removal of pollutants resulting from flue gases. This paper presents an analysis of the results and conditions of the experimental redesign of a thermal industrial waste (polypropylene) treatment plant. The purpose of the redesign was to improve the quality of gasification and afterburning processes taking place in the combustion and afterburner chambers (through the installation of an additional section), thus resulting in a red... [more]

The aim of this study is to examine the factors influencing the electricity consumption of urban households and to prove these with statistically significant results. The study includes 46 small and medium-sized towns in Hungary. The methodology of the study is mainly provided by a model that can be used for this purpose; however, the results obtained with the traditional regression method are compared with the results of another, more complex estimation method, the artificial neural network, which has the advantage of being able to use different types of models. The focus of our article is on methodological alignment, not necessarily the discovery of new results. Certain demographic characteristics significantly determine the energy demand of a household sector in a municipality. In this case, as the ratio of people aged 60 or over within a city rises by 1%, the urban household average energy consumption decreases by 61 kilowatt hours, and when it rises by 1%, the amount of pollutants... [more]

The meteorological environment is a determining factor in photovoltaic (PV) system feasibility (PVSF). To evaluate this impact more accurately, a quantitative analysis model based on multimeteorological factors and the Random Forest Regression model is proposed in this work. Firstly, an evaluation system is established to assess the impact. Then, to predict the indicators of the evaluation system, a parameter, i.e., performance ratio in sampling period, is defined. Secondly, a set of essential influences on the performance ratio in the sampling period is established through analyzing and reducing the discovered influences on the PV system performance. Finally, data from the Desert Knowledge Australia Solar Centre (DKASC) website are used to conduct the experiment. During the experiment, the sample set is cleaned using the model based on the cosine of the zenith angle. The functional relationship between the performance ratio in the sampling period and its essential influences is establ... [more]