This work presents new data on the life cycle impact assessment of various lignocellulosic biomass types in Mexico. A comparative life cycle assessment model of biomass densification systems was conducted. An integrated approach that incorporated various process variables, such as technology and variations in feed properties, within the analysis was employed to evaluate the environmental impact of producing 1 MJ of energy-containing densified fuel. The results show that the densification unit and curing (fuel drying) have the highest impact on the life cycle’s operational energy and the total life cycle energy, respectively. Of all the 33 biomass types from the 17 species sources considered in this study, sweet sorghum and sandbur grass have the highest global warming potential, 0.26 and 0.24 (kg CO2-eq), and human toxicity 0.58 and 0.53 (kg 1,4-dichlorobenzene-eq), respectively, while coffee pulp and cooperi pine wood have the least impact in both categories, with values of 0.08 and 0... [more]

While the contribution of renewable energy technologies to the energy system is increasing, so is its level of complexity. In addition to new types of consumer systems, the future system will be characterized by volatile generation plants that will require storage technologies. Furthermore, a solid interconnected system that enables the transit of electrical energy can reduce the need for generation and storage systems. Therefore, appropriate methods are needed to analyze energy production and consumption interactions within different system constellations. Energy system models can help to understand and build these future energy systems. However, although various energy models already exist, none of them can cover all issues related to integrating renewable energy systems. The existing research gap is also reflected in the fact that current models cannot model the entire energy system for very high shares of renewable energies with high temporal resolution (15 min or 1-h steps) and hi... [more]

Over 30% of the world’s land area is covered by forests. Approximately 761 million m3 of wood is harvested annually in Europe (2017). The aim of the paper is to assess the amount of wood (biomass) produced in Europe per year, as it determines the amount of carbon dioxide released from wood because of combustion for heating and energy purposes. The circular bioeconomy was applied as the theoretical framework for this study. The study employs official statistics on material flows and also uses a technology assessment, which allows for more precise estimations. It can be estimated that 110 million tons of harvested woody biomass are converted into energy every year. This constitutes nearly 69% of processed wood, with burned wood treated as zero-emission. From the analysis of the compiled results, it can be concluded that, in Europe, more than 50% of the mass of raw wood material harvested per year is used for energy in the first stage of processing by manufacturing industries. These proce... [more]

Thailand is an agricultural country with several agro-industrial by-products that can be processed into fuels. Although producing ethanol from agro-industrial by-products is an interesting option, the process of distilling ethanol from fermented agricultural products requires a high temperature to increase the ethanol concentration from 10% to 95%. In this research, solar ethanol distillation equipment incorporating a solar parabolic collector with a vacuum heat absorber tube to increase efficiency by reducing heat loss was designed and developed. An electronic device was used to control the distillation process, maintain the required temperature, and make suitable adjustments to the solar radiation acceptance angles of the parabolic solar collector. Ethanol dilution at concentrations of 10%, 15%, and 20%, and Sato (Thai Rice Wine) were used as the reactant in the distillation process. The result of distilling ethanol distillation with a semi-automatic control using a vacuum-tube parab... [more]

Road lighting is essential to ensure the safety and comfort of its users, especially in preventing accidents and aiding visual tasks. The monumental shift from conventional road lighting technology to light-emitting diode (LED) lighting is driven by energy efficiency, associated cost savings, and environmental concerns in the road lighting system. This study aims to investigate the performance of LED in substitution for high-pressure sodium vapour (HPSV) road lighting in Penang Bridge, Malaysia using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a frontier-based optimisation approach, by modelling energy, cost, and environment together, as none of the previous studies has included energy, cost, and environmental concerns together in one model. The LED renewable energy industry that promotes zero carbon emissions has the potential to establish an affordable, clean, and carbon-free energy system for road lighting, especially in rural areas.

According to Thomson Reuters DataStream database, 22,458 merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions with a deal value exceeding 7016 billion Euros have occurred in the energy worldwide sector during 1995−2020. International M&A enable promotion of sustainable competitive advantages, accelerates industry developments and helps to promote sustainable social and economic development. Our research aims to systemize empirical studies, which would enable assessment of the relationship between M&A transactions and the principles of sustainable development in the energy sector. To do so, SALSA (search, appraisal, synthesis and analysis) methodology with additional snowballing technique (chain-referral sampling) is conducted. The current research contributes to existing knowledge by providing an extensive systematic literature review of the academic publications on sustainable development and M&A deals. This paper may be insightful for practitioners and scholars because it highlights the most re... [more]

As the number of threats and the severity of their impact increases, an ever greater emphasis is being placed on the protection of critical infrastructure. Thus, the issue of resilience, or its assessment and strengthening, is increasingly coming to the fore. The resilience assessment of critical infrastructure, especially in the energy sector, has received considerable attention due to the high level of interest in this issue. However, the issue of strengthening resilience poses a significant challenge not only in the energy sector but also in the entire critical infrastructure system. Despite the great importance of this area, there is not a large number of authors moving in this direction and paying attention to resilience-strengthening tools. For this reason, the aim of this article is to provide the reader with a comprehensive methodological overview of resilience strengthening in the critical energy infrastructure sector. This article also provides an overview of internal and ext... [more]

Biogas production is a process with great potential. It uses the biodegradable raw materials of animal, vegetable and municipal waste. The amount of municipal as well as agricultural waste is increasing every year. This waste is an unmanaged and nuisance waste, and using it in biogas plants reduces the amount of waste. Biogas production is part of the EU’s policy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and use energy from renewable sources (diversification of energy sources). Its importance is certain to increase in the future as energy demand increases. This article deals with the economical use of biodegradable waste for biogas production in Poland and Germany. Both countries have a similar agricultural and municipal waste structure. An agricultural biogas plant is one way of obtaining energy based on renewable energy sources (RES). Energy production from agricultural biogas will allow Poland to meet the 32% obligation imposed by the EU and Germany to continue to be the market leader in... [more]

Energy security is a multidimensional and multifaceted concept, therefore defining it is a complex problem. It requires the consideration of a wide set of factors from the fields of economics, geology, ecology and geopolitics, all of which have an influence on energy security or the lack thereof. The article focuses on natural gas, which is a very specific fuel in the European context. It is the most “politicized” source of energy, as a consequence of its growing importance as a transition fuel in the energy transformation process. In order to identify dependencies between variables on the gas market and analyze their impact on it (in particular on underground storage), the authors chose a set of variables and built a Bayesian network. The network is an effective and flexible tool that allows analysis of the relationships between the variables that build them and model their values based on evidence. The article presents two stages of work with the Bayesian network. In the first one, a... [more]

Among the renewable energy resources, solar thermal is one of the technologies that significantly contribute to energy supply and reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Solar water heating (SWH) contributes a large proportion of the global solar thermal capacity, with 63% installation for domestic hot water (DHW) systems, 28% for large DHW systems, and the remaining 9% for other applications such as swimming pools heating, solar district heating, and space heating. Still, now, there are many challenges and limitations of those SWH technologies. The present work reviews the current challenges faced in the domestic SWH industry globally. The integration of thermal energy storage (TES) systems for better collector’s radiation absorption and overall performance are also highlighted. Many countries worldwide seem to face similar challenges within the SWH technologies and industry. It is proven that these challenges and limitations can hinder the global capacity of solar thermal utili... [more]

This paper proposes a methodology for numerical modeling of terraforming Mars’ atmosphere using high-energy asteroid impact and greenhouse gas production processes. The developed simulation model uses a spatial data science approach to analyze the Global Climate Model of Mars and cellular automata to model the changes in Mars’ atmospheric parameters. The developed model allows estimating the energy required to raise the planet’s temperature by sixty degrees using different variations of the terraforming process. Using a data science approach for spatial big data analysis has enabled successful numerical simulations of global and local atmospheric changes on Mars and an analysis of the energy potential required for this process.

was a remarkable, and remarkably influential, model, book and concept published 50 years ago this year. Its importance is that it used, for essentially the first time, a quantitative systems approach and a computer model to question the dominant paradigm for most of society: growth. Initially, many events, and especially the oil crisis of the 1970s, seemed to support the idea that the limits were close. Many economists argued quite the opposite, and the later relaxation of the oil crisis (and decline in gasoline prices) seemed to support the economists’ position. Many argued that the model had failed, but a careful examination of model behavior vs. global and many national data sets assessed by a number of researchers suggests that the model’s predictions (even if they had not been meant for such a specific task) were still remarkably accurate to date. While the massive changes predicted by the model have not yet come to pass globally, they are clearly occurring for many individual nat... [more]

Greenhouse gases, the main cause of global warming, are generated largely in the energy sector. As the need for technology that has reduced greenhouse gas emissions while producing energy is on an increase, CCU technology, which uses CO2 to produce CH4 (SNG energy, synthetic natural gas), is drawing attention. Thus, the reaction for converting CO2 to CH4 at a specific temperature using a catalyst is CO2 methanation. The field of CO2 methanation has been actively studied, and many studies have been conducted to enhance the activity of the catalysts. However, there is a lack of research on the variables that may appear when CO2 methanation is attempted using emissions containing CO2 generated from industrial fields and bio-plants. According to previous studies, it is reported that realistic feed gases from gasification or biomass plants contain a significant amount of CO. this study is a follow-up study focused on the application of CO2 methanation in various real processes. In the CO2 m... [more]

Wastewater treatment and reuse are being regarded as the most effective strategy for combating water scarcity threats. This study examined and reported the applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence in the phytoremediation of wastewater using Salvinia molesta plants. Water quality (WQ) indicators (total dissolved solids (TDS), temperature, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), and turbidity) of the S. molesta treatment system at a retention time of 24 h were measured using an Arduino IoT device. Finally, four machine learning tools (ML) were employed in modeling and evaluating the predicted concentration of the total dissolved solids after treatment (TDSt) of the water samples. Additionally, three nonlinear error ensemble methods were used to enhance the prediction accuracy of the TDSt models. The outcome obtained from the modeling and prediction of the TDSt depicted that the best results were observed at SVM-M1 with 0.9999, 0.0139, 1.0000, and 0.1177 for R... [more]

A change in thinking has been ongoing in the architecture and building industry in response to growing concern over the role of the building industry in the excessive consumption of energy and its devastating effects on the natural environment. This shift changed the thinking of architects, engineers, and designers in the initial phases of a building’s design, with a change from the importance of geometry and form to assessing a building’s performance, from structure to a building’s skin, and from abstract aesthetics to bio-climatic aesthetics. In this context, sustainable, intelligent, and adaptive building façades were extensively researched and developed. Consequently, several typologies, strategies, and conceptual design frameworks for adaptive façades were developed with the aim of performing certain functions. This study focuses on the biomimetic methodologies developed to design adaptive façades because of their efficiency compared to other typologies. A comprehensive literature... [more]

In this article, we present the possibility of applying the concept of elasticity in the system of sustainable energy development through the use of wood biomass. We used a dual (socio-ecological and economic) approach to sustainable energy development. The research was carried out using the methods of reduction reasoning, scientific observation, and examination of source documents. We identified crisis threats in the context of sustainable energy development. Then, we analyzed the supply of wood biomass in Poland, taking into account its geographical location. As a result, we identified and characterized the causal relationships between the assumptions of the concept of resistance and the sustainable development of energy with the use of wood biomass. We found that the concepts of resilience can be adapted to assessing energy sustainability. This adaptation is based on resilience, flexibility, and strategic ability to revitalize the country. We found that five key threats (extreme wea... [more]

The main aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of industrial agglomeration on the degree of interorganizational cooperation and the innovative performance of firms of the electricity supply sector in Spain. For this purpose, the agglomeration coefficient in each of the 50 provinces of Spain is calculated, based on secondary data from SABI database. Subsequently, primary data are obtained from a sample of 197 companies through a structured questionnaire. In this case, the PLS-SEM technique is used. The results show that there is a positive and significant relationship between the variables analyzed. It is concluded that industrial agglomeration and cooperation are relevant external factors that boost the innovative performance of firms and that business associations foster interorganizational cooperation.

For this study, we conducted a systematic review of the literature on digitalization in energy production, distribution, and consumption over a sufficiently long period in order to reveal the trends and particularities of this phenomenon at the sectoral level. For the systematic review of the literature, representative articles on the subject indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases were selected using the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram. As a result of the systematic review of the literature, a significant number of articles on the subject of digitalization in the energy sector were found—both over the entire period considered and especially in the last five years—indicating the magnitude of the digitalization process in this field. The impacts of digitalization in the energy production, distribution, and consumption sectors materialized in the aspects of health, safety, and environmental improvement; process improvements; and cost reductions. The most important technologies used i... [more]

Water can be an irritant to a power transformer, as it is recognized as a major hazard to the operation of transformers. The water content of a transformer insulation system comprises the water in the transformer insulation oil and in the cellulose paper. The increase in the water content in the insulation system leads to reduced breakdown voltage, accelerated aging of the oil−paper insulation system, and the possibility of producing bubbles at high temperatures. Therefore, various techniques have been applied to measure the water content in both oil and paper insulation. This article comprehensively reviews and analyzes the methods (technically or nontechnically) that have been used to monitor the water content in transformer insulation systems. Apart from discussing the advantages and major drawbacks of these methods, the accuracy, measurement time, and cost of each technique are also elucidated in this review. This review can be extremely useful to the utility in monitoring and main... [more]

Nanostructured materials have gained much attention in recent engineering and material- science research due to their unique structural makeup, which stands them out from their bulk counterparts. Their novel properties of tiny-size structural elements (molecules or crystallites, clusters) of nanoscale dimensions (1 to 100 nm) make them a perfect material for energy applications. The recent keen interest in nanostructured materials research by academia and industrial experts arises from the unique variable characteristics of increased electrical and thermal conductivity. This occurs as nanostructured materials undergo a transient process from infinite-extended solid to a particle of ascertainable numbers of atoms. The commercial and energy sectors are very interested in developing and expanding simple synthetic pathways for nanostructured-electrocatalysts materials to aid in optimizing the number of active regions. Over the decades, various techniques have been put forward to design and... [more]

This study investigates the design and development of a pyrolysis reactor for batch-type biochar production from rice husks. The main objective is to develop an appropriate technology to regulate pyrolysis temperature and biomass residence time that can be easily operated under field and household conditions with minimal operational and technical requirements. The designed novel dual-chamber reactor comprises two concentrical metal cylinders and a syngas circulation system. The outer cylinder is for energy generation and the inner one is for pyrolysis. Temperature profiles, energy exchanges, syngas production, and the physicochemical characteristics of biochar were obtained to determine the performance of the reactor. Different trials were carried out to obtain different pyrolysis temperatures under constant amounts of feedstock and fuel. The temperature was monitored continuously at three predetermined reactor heights, the temperature profile varied from 380 °C to 1000 °C. The biochar... [more]

The increasing demand for food, the lack of natural resources and arable land, and the recent restrictions on energy consumption require an immediate solution in terms of agricultural activities. This paper’s objective was to review hydroponics (a new soilless cultivation technology) and compare it with conventional agriculture (soil cultivation) regarding its environmental impact and water and energy consumption. The soil loss, the crop/soil contamination, and the greenhouse gas emissions were the criteria for the environmental comparison of conventional agriculture and hydroponics. As for resource consumption, the water consumption rates (L/kg), energy consumption rates (kWh), and energy required (kW) were the criteria for comparing conventional agriculture with hydroponics. Tomato and cannabis cultivation were used as case studies in this review. The review results showed that the advantages of hydroponics over conventional cultivation include zero-soil cultivation, land-use efficie... [more]

Energy is one of the most important aspects of urban development and technological advancements. As its production and consumption are connected to several environmental, social, and economic issues covering all three sustainability pillars, strategic and targeted energy planning is vital to the smooth transition towards a more efficient and greener society. In accordance with the specific priorities of every state, sustainable energy planning should also satisfy the international trends, requirements, and targets, including the global commitments for sustainable development. As of this time, energy transition with further deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency improvement are the priorities for a sustainable future. However, due to recent global events, a new situation has been established. The COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine have caused new circumstances challenging the recognized approaches for an effective sustainable energy strategy. While the global... [more]

Transformer failures have a significant cost impact on the operation of an electrical network. In many utilities, transformers have been operating for many years past their expected usable life. As power demand has surged, transformers in some areas are being loaded beyond their rated capacity to meet the demand. One of the vital components in a transformer is the on-load tap changer (OLTC), which regulates the voltage in the distribution network. This study aims to review several condition-monitoring techniques (online and offline) that can monitor the health of the OLTC and assure the safety of the transformer’s OLTC from irreparable damage by detecting the defect at an earlier stage, which is preceded by the specification of typical faults. This paper also discussed the common faults of the OLTC and the root causes of these faults. The OLTC is prone to mechanical faults due to its frequently changing mechanism in the tap operation. The OLTC are also prone to oil as well as thermal f... [more]

Nowadays, cognitive computing has become the popular solution to many problems arising in the energy industry, such as the creation of renewable technologies, energy saving, and searching for new sources. Last decade, a substantial number of scientific papers aiming to support these tasks were published. On the other hand, some years ago, the “cognitive enterprise” (CE) concept was introduced by the IBM company, which assumes, among others, the cognitive technologies used to increase enterprise intelligence. On the road to obtaining the status of a “cognitive enterprise”, it should overcome many challenges. Thus, the aim of the paper was to analyze the current state of research on the application of cognitive computing in the energy industry and to define the trends, challenges, milestones, and perspectives in scientific work’s development. The aim has been achieved using the bibliometric approach. The preliminary analysis was made by Web of Science data sources; 4182 records were retr... [more]