This paper presents pulse multiplication technology based on an optimal Pulse Doubling Technique (PDT) to upgrade a 28-Pulse Rectifier (28-PR) to a 56-PR. The optimal PDT comprises a Tapped Interphase Reactor (TIPR) with a low kVA-rating and two diodes. The number of pulses can be increased from 28 to 56 using the PDT so that the input current harmonics are reasonably mitigated. Additionally, the 14-phase Polygon-Connected Autotransformer (PCA) is designed in such a way that it can be used for retrofit applications. A detailed simulation analysis in the MATLAB/Simulink environment is carried out, and the results show that the improved quality indices of the final AC input and DC output power are equivalent to the IEEE 519-2014 standard and meet sensitive industrial application requirements with an input current Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) lower than 3%. Moreover, the power factor also maintained unity for a wide operating range. The optimal PDT scheme is affordable and easy to impl... [more]

Liquid fuel can be an alternative to solid fuel in non-gasified locations. The mazout for municipal-energy boiler plants is much cheaper than fuel oil. However, this relates to the problem of wastewater disposal from such a boiler plant. A proprietary system for the disposal of bottom water and other sewage-containing mazout has been developed. The solution depends on the proper preparation and burning of a water−mazout emulsion (WME). The emulsion is prepared in a specially designed and developed dosing ejector. By burning the emulsion using the developed system, an efficiency increase of 2−3% was achieved for boilers operating on the mazout fuel. Such a result was achieved due to a reduction in the excess air factor. Moreover, emissions of nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide were reduced by 30−35% and 70−80%, respectively. In addition due to cleaning the heat-exchange surfaces obtained when working on the WME, the amount of time for productive and more efficient use of the equipment... [more]

Unsustainable rice straw management causes environmental impacts; hence, utilisation of rice straw for bioenergy is a promising strategy for sustainable rice straw management. Although rice straw has a high potential for bioenergy generation, the whole production cycle and application may cause environmental damage that is not fully understood. Hence, environmental performance studies are required to determine the most effective rice straw utilisation options. A comprehensive approach, such as life-cycle assessment (LCA), can give comprehensive information on the possible environmental effects of rice straw utilisation for bioenergy. Therefore, this study briefly overviews the LCA of rice straw utilisation for bioenergy production. It is found that utilisation of rice straw for bioenergy could reduce global warming potential compared to energy production from fossil fuels. However, it is suggested that other impact categories in LCA be evaluated in the bioenergy production from rice st... [more]

The cultivation of energy crops on degraded soils contributes to reduce the risks associated with land use change, and the biomass may represent an additional revenue as a feedstock for bioenergy. Switchgrass and giant reed were tested under 300 and 600 mg Cr kg−1, 110 and 220 mg Ni kg−1, and 4 and 8 mg Cd kg−1 contaminated soils, in a two year pot experiment. Switchgrass yields (average aerial 330 g.m−2 and below ground 430 g.m−2), after the second year harvest, were not affected by Cd contamination and 110 mg Ni kg−1, but 220 mg Ni kg−1 significantly affected the yields (55−60% reduction). A total plant loss was observed in Cr-contaminated pots. Giant reed aboveground yields (control: 410 g.m−2), in the second year harvest, were significantly affected by all metals and levels of contamination (30−70% reduction), except in 110 mg Ni kg−1 pots. The belowground biomass yields (average 1600 g.m−2) were not affected by the tested metals. Contamination did not affect the high heating value... [more]

To improve the predicting accuracy of wind power, this paper proposes a forecasting model of wind power based on the IPSO−LSTM model and classified fusion, which not only overcomes the shortcoming of the artificially determined parameters of LSTM, but also solves the problem that the fused accuracy may be reduced by the environment when adopting a single fusion model. Firstly, some wind speed sub-series were obtained by decomposing the original wind speed according to the wavelet packet decomposition (WPD), and the data sets formed by combining these sub-series with meteorological elements. Subsequently, the wind power components formed by wind speed decomposition are predicted through the long short-term memory neural network (LSTM), which is optimized by the improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO). Consequently, the predicting value of the final wind power was acquired by adopting the method of classified fusion to calculate the wind power components. Several case studies were ca... [more]

Greenhouse gas emissions anywhere across the value chain cause the global temperature to rise. A responsible net-zero strategy is reducing and removing direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. The current net-zero actions aim to offset rather than reduce or remove life cycle greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Unless the demands/consumptions are reduced, net-zero actions will merely be a burden-shifting practice. Scope 3 emissions are considered in the life cycle assessment (LCA) of goods and services and account for direct and indirect emissions with imported goods and services. Scope 3 emission tariff seems an effective way to shift consumption patterns to carbon-neutral options. This article explores tools and systems for ‘just transition’ using three buckets of scientific questions: (1) Technical: which GHG to remove, when, where, and by what mechanism; (2) Social-Policy: how to share GHG obligations between stakeholders to deliver the UN SDGs; (3) Data: how to create robust, trus... [more]

Renewable energy resource utilisation is becoming more prevalent in society and can be a sustainable method to meet rising energy demand and consumption. The International Renewable Energy Agency reports that presently, approximately 33% of total electricity output around the world is from renewable energy sources. However, in Nigeria, the World Bank reported this figure as 18.2% in 2015. It is important to understand how Nigeria can raise this average as the world moves towards less use of fossil fuels. Therefore, the aim of this work was to provide a review of the established literature, which can then be used to support the development of renewable energy systems in Nigeria. The methodology employed for the study of the literature involved a systematic review method, including identification, screening, eligibility and inclusion criterium steps. Understanding the national energy landscape is essential to support potential projects, and consequently, energy supply, demand and consump... [more]

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation represents an important contribution to circular economy (CE). In recent months, these goals have been modified given the significant changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Research shows increasing interests in revealing the efficiency of design in order to pursue new business models as sources of innovation that can contribute to SDGs. Nevertheless, the realization of SDGs is not easy on the level of enterprises and regions. Here, our research goal was to describe the role of design in business model re-design for SDGs implementation. It was presumed that during the pandemic, entrepreneurs significantly modified business models, emphasizing aspects of sustainable development. In order to verify this assumption, desk research was combined with qualitative research. Data were gathered from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and experts. The research raises the point of the underestimated role of design as a determinant o... [more]

Energy transformation in the European Union countries is progressing. Its scope is defined by formal and legal regulations and its effectiveness by the position of decision-makers, legitimised by public support for a particular type of challenge. Both issues are the focus of this article. The promotion of environmental protection measures is currently strongly promoted globally. Hence the widespread acceptance in principle of the changes associated with the implementing of the Green New Deal in the energy sector is not surprising. However, to what extent is knowledge of the solutions constituting the mainstream transition (renewable energy sources) ingrained among communities? Does the level of public awareness influence individual consumer choices, modelling the market? The threads outlined above inspired deliberations focused on analysing the assumptions behind energy transition in the EU, with particular reference to the countries directly bordering the line of the ongoing conflict... [more]

This study aims to examine the environmental dynamics in the Union for Mediterranean (UFM) countries by considering education, urbanization, green innovation, and other key factors for the period 2001−2016. The data are divided based on the income level of UFM countries and analyzed with panel quantile regression, panel unit root tests, panel co-integration test, ordinary least squares method, and fixed effects model to evaluate the nexus between variables. A generalized method of moments (GMM) is employed to deal with the endogeneity issue in the panel data. The results of the study confirm that the urban population has an inverted U-shaped association with environmental degradation in the lower-middle and high-middle income countries. It further comes out that increased education levels decrease environmental degradation in the high-income countries. Hence, green innovation reduces environmental degradation in the upper-middle-income and high-middle-income countries. The study valida... [more]

The rapid development of digital finance has delivered significant benefits, such as sustainable development and economic growth. We explore the relationship between digital finance and green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE) for the first time, filling a gap in the existing literature. This paper uses dynamic panel models to explore digital finance’s impact on GTFEE at the Chinese city-level panel data from 2011 to 2018. The results show that digital finance can significantly improve urban GTFEE, and the findings remain robust with various tests. Second, the mechanism analysis indicates that digital finance can improve GTFEE by promoting urban green technology innovation and industrial structure upgrading. Further study shows that digital finance has a better effect on the improvement of GTFEE in central and western cities, small cities and non-resource-based cities, but has no significant or small impact on GTFEE in eastern cities, large cities and resource-based cities, reflect... [more]

In this paper, the author intends to show the interaction between the living standards of the population and the financial situation of Polish local government units at the commune level. The first (theoretical) part of the paper provides a synthetic description of topics related to defining the economic terms and to the local government’s ability to impact the standards of living of the local population. In view of the multifaceted nature of terms covered by this analysis, the second part uses a canonical analysis (which means multiple linear regressions are generalized for two sets of variables) in order to identify the relationships between them. The analysis resulted in identifying a number of indicators, including canonical correlations, total redundancy and variances extracted, as well as six statistically significant canonical variates, which enabled the identification of multidimensional relationships between the categories considered. The greatest and the most statistically si... [more]

Interest in the development of electro-fluid-dynamic devices (EFDs) based on corona discharge is growing due to their advantages and applicability across different industrial sectors. On the one hand, their performance as forced convection motors, in terms of weight, volume, and absence of noise and moving parts, make them competitive against traditional systems such as fans. On the other hand, the actions of the corona discharge, in terms of elimination of viruses and bacteria, are already known. This paper studies the characteristics of corona discharge in terms of air flow for a new proposed configuration and geometry of electrodes. A systematic study is performed through a parametric study of the distances, power consumption, and size of the corona electrode. The characteristic voltage−current (CVCCs) and flow−pressure curves obtained provide design rules to use the generated corona discharge and the device itself, as a silent air propeller, which may also sterilize the surrounding... [more]

The growing demand for low-carbon fuel is predicted by ultimate goals to fit the carbon neutrality by 2050 in many countries and regions including the European Union. According to the International Energy Agency, the CO2 emissions related to transportation stand for around 30% of total annual emissions, and so, the decarbonization of the mobility sector has the highest priority. In this work, we attempt to evaluate the expected demand for low-carbon fuels, including blue and green hydrogen, and low-carbon electricity in order to compare the available and required capacities of low-carbon fuels and electricity. According to our calculations based on the figures from 2020, the transition toward H2 mobility would require an amount of hydrogen equal to 366 million tons/annum, and by 2035, this requirement will increase up to 422 million tons/annum, which is several times larger than the existing H2 production capacities. We have estimated the volume of the carbon capture and storage facili... [more]

Red mud storage is associated with an increased risk of dam failure and there is an urgent need to address the environmental problem caused by the very fine particle size (average 4.9 µm) of red mud with high alkalinity (pH = 10−12.5) in the alumina industry. The specific objective of this study was to investigate the use of red mud based on the “simulation” integrating the sustainability aspect through the PROMETHEE method. The data source is from a field survey with experts conducted at the research location from the province of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The results of the study using the PROMETHEE ranking parameter showed that the best optimal industrial cluster sites were Ketapang, followed by Belitung Island, Mempawah, and Teluk Batang, with scores of 0.4167, 0.0476, 0.0, and −0.463, respectively. However, using economic input and environmental output, the efficient frontier showed that Ketapang, Teluk Batang, and Pulau Belitung are efficient sites. Considerably more work will n... [more]

The Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) has discrepancies in relation to the thermal reality of the environment; thus, adaptive models serve to improve this estimate. In this context, this research aimed to verify the performance of PMV and adaptive models under different conditions in Brazil from an analysis of variance and to further classify individuals into clusters according to their feelings of thermal comfort. Through ASHRAE’s Global II Thermal Comfort Database, users of offices and classrooms in Brasilia, Recife, Maceió, and Florianópolis were investigated. The results of ANOVA showed that the PMV model did not represent the thermal reality of any of the cities investigated, and the cluster analysis showed how most people felt thermally in relation to indoor environments.

The present study compiles a life cycle inventory for Ecuadorian sugarcane-derived ethanol production to quantify its environmental performance and identify the life cycle stages that cause major impacts. The scope of this study encompasses a cradle-to-gate analysis that includes the agriculture, the milling, the distillation, and the co-generation of electricity. This assessment is modeled using the OpenLCA v1.10.3 software. Two functional units (FU) were established in this study: “1 ton of sugarcane at-the-farm-gate” for the agricultural stage and “1 L of ethanol at-the-plant-gate”. A hybrid attributional and consequential life cycle analysis (LCA) approach has been followed. Economic allocation (EA) and system expansion (SE) were used to take co-products into account in the milling and co-generation of electricity stages, respectively. The co-generation stage is analyzed in three different scenarios: (i) average mix displacement scenario where the surplus electricity produced in th... [more]

This paper assesses the primary energy and environmental impacts of a restaurant main course product’s lifecycle, especially focusing on end-of-life (EoL) stage. In the first step, a cradle-to-grave complex life cycle assessment (LCA) model of the product has been set up from the extraction of the required raw materials through the preparation, cooking and use phase to the end-of-life. In the second step, three scenarios (landfilling, incineration, and composting) were compared for the generated food waste in the end-of-life stage given that one of the biggest challenges in waste management is the optimal management of food waste. We calculated eleven environmental impact categories for the examined food product with the help of GaBi 9.0 software. During our research work, the primary energy was examined in each phase. In the third step, a comparison between the traditional and “sous vide” cooking technologies has been created to optimise of the cooking/frying life cycle phase. This pa... [more]

Energy is essential to achieving economic growth, yet the production of energy results in the emission of carbon dioxide, the primary factor in the deterioration of the environment and the acceleration of climate change. In this sense, the diversity of energy sources can contribute to achieving both environmentally sustainable development. This study investigates the relationship between energy diversification and economic growth in Nordic nations by employing a unique measure of energy diversity. The Nonlinear Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NPARDL) approach is utilized in the research, and it looks at data from 1998 through 2018. According to our results, these nations experience favorable economic growth when there is an increase in the long-term diversity of their energy sources. However, in the near term, they have seen negative economic development due to the diversification of their energy sources. According to these findings, energy diversification benefits Nordic economi... [more]

Mineral oil has long been used as an adequate coolant and dielectric medium in power transformer design. However, it is flammable and environmentally risky as it may be leaked or spilled. Therefore, ester fluids, which have been increasingly used in the last two decades, look promising as an ideal dielectric option. This research aims to better understand how using ester fluid insulation in power transformers impacts their physical and electrical dimensions, including their load-losses, impedance, masses, and equipment dimensions. Three case studies were carried out in a Portuguese electrical equipment manufacturer’s facility, with varying electrical parameters and physical properties of the mineral oil and ester-filled power transformers. The main results enhanced the known good electrical behavior of ester fluids, namely creating a lower electric field around winding wedges, yet the use of ester fluids led to higher load-losses, larger masses, additional radiators and, consequently,... [more]

The rate of technological progress is an important metric used for predicting the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of future light-duty fleets. A trade-off between efficiency and performance is essential due to its implications on fuel consumption and efficiency improvement. These values are not directly available in the Brazilian fleet. Hence, this is the main gap in knowledge that has to be overcome. Tendencies in all relevant parameters were also unknown, and we have traced them as well, established on several publications data and models. We estimate the three indicators mentioned above for the Brazilian fleet from 1990 to 2020. Although the rate of technological progress was lower in Brazil than that in developed countries, it has increased from 0.39% to 0.61% to 1.7% to 1.9% in subsequent decades. Performance improvements offset approximately 31% to 39% of these efficiency gains. Moreover, the vehicle market is shifting toward larger vehicles, thus offsetting some... [more]

The deposition of the Lower Cambrian argillaceous rocks on the Kongquehe slope provides a good opportunity to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental conditions of the Tarim Basin. To explore the paleoredox conditions, paleoclimate, and provenance of this deposit, 21 samples were collected from Well A, and the concentrations of major and trace elements were analyzed. The V/(V + Ni), V/Cr, Ni/Co, U/Th, Uau, and V/Sc ratios indicated that the sediments in the water body from the Lower Cambrian were in a reducing environment, and the degree of reduction weakened from the bottom to the top. The Sr/Cu, Mg/Ca, and Fe/Mn ratios in the sediments revealed that the Lower Cambrian was mainly characterized by a warm and humid paleoclimate, and there may be a paleoclimatic transition toward drought conditions as recorded by the sediments of Xidashan Formation. The chemical alteration index, compositional variation index, plagioclase alteration index values, and Th/U and K/Rb ratios of the Lower Cambrian... [more]

The future of opencast mining and energy production based on conventional resources is one of the most important issues being discussed in international forums. The whole discussion is becoming increasingly heated and takes on a special significance with the drastic increase in energy commodity prices that has occurred with the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Especially in a country like Poland, these issues are accompanied by heated discussions between miners, the government and citizens. It should be emphasised that Polish lignite mining currently produces about 35% of the cheapest electricity in Poland and also creates many jobs. The aim of this study is to assess the possibility of continuing opencast mining and its impact on rural development—both from an environmental and socio-economic point of view. The study was conducted for two municipalities in Poland where opencast lignite mining plays an important role, namely Kleszczów and Kleczew. As a result, it was found that in the case... [more]

In the present study, energy and exergy analyses of a simple supercritical, a split supercritical and a cascade supercritical CO2 cycle are conducted. The bottoming cycles are coupled with the main two-stroke diesel engine of a 6800 TEU container ship. An economic analysis is carried out to calculate the total capital cost of these installations. The functional parameters of these cycles are optimized to minimize the electricity production cost (EPC) using a genetic algorithm. Exergo-economic and exergo-environmental analyses are conducted to calculate the cost of the exergetic streams and various exergo-environmental parameters. A parametric analysis is performed for the optimum bottoming cycle to investigate the impact of ambient conditions on the energetic, exergetic, exergo-economic and exergo-environmental key performance indicators. The theoretical results of the integrated analysis showed that the installation and operation of a waste heat recovery optimized split supercritical... [more]

In the publication, the authors put forward a thesis about the low social understanding of the essence of the idea of sustainable development (SD), its assumptions, and difficulties with its implementation. This thesis became the starting point for research on contemporary problems related to the understanding and implementation of the idea of SD in Poland and an inspiration to look at Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The aim of the study was to get to know the opinions of experts on the statutory definition of SD and social awareness of this idea, and then to relate these opinions to the state of knowledge of students, as well as their opinions and attitudes towards SD. Primary data obtained in the course of surveys among 105 Polish experts (employees of universities, research institutes, government and local government units) and 844 students from several Polish university centres were used. The obtained results indicated gaps in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD... [more]