Sustainability is among the most important directions in global development. The challenge today is to reconcile the fastest possible economic growth and the pursuit of prosperity with concern for the environment. One of the important problems of modern economies and societies is to reduce overall consumption and implement new patterns of sustainable consumption and production. The main aim of this article was to analyze consumer preferences in terms of purchasing personalized production offered by implementing the concept of Industry 4.0 and ensuring sustainable consumption and production (SCP). Based on the analysis of the literature and the results of our own research, an attempt was made to estimate the impact of personalized production offered by the Industry 4.0 concept on SCP and thus the sustainable development of the economy. This article presents the results of a survey conducted on a selected group of consumers, focusing on learning about expectations, consumer preferences f... [more]

L. (JCL) commercial plantations in Mexico, one of the most important JCL origin centers, have failed due to a variety of biological, political and technical factors affecting their productivity. This study explores feasible sites of JCL cultivation as a potential source for biodiesel production in Mexico, given agroclimatic and agroecological considerations. We propose a GIS-based approach for estimating suitable and available lands to grow JCL by integrating an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in the ArcGIS software. Spatial analysis combined multiple data, different evaluation criteria, three land availability classes (high, medium and low potential) and took into account ecological, ethical, and political restrictions, and considering two scenarios with different restriction levels. Suitability and availability maps were generated using agroclimatic information (climatic, land use/soil, and climate change and extreme weather events risk) together with other socioeconomic factors.... [more]

The monitoring of rock volume where offshore exploitation activities take place is crucial to assess the corresponding seismic hazard. Fluid injection/extraction operations generate a pore fluid pressure perturbation into the volume hosting the reservoir which, in turn, may trigger new failures and induce changes in the elastic properties of rocks. Our purpose is to evaluate the feasibility of reconstructing pore pressure perturbation diffusion in the host medium by imaging the 4D velocity changes using active seismic. We simulated repeated active offshore surveys and imaged the target volume. We constructed the velocity model perturbed by the fluid injection using physical modeling and evaluated under which conditions the repeated surveys could image the velocity changes. We found that the induced pressure perturbation causes seismic velocity variations ranging between 2−5% and 15−20%, depending on the different injection conditions and medium properties. So, in most cases, time-lapse... [more]

This paper deals with the study of multi-channel adaptive noise cancellation with a focus on its application in electromagnetic (EM) telemetry. We presented new variable step-size least mean square (LMS) techniques: regularized variable step-size LMS and regularized sigmoid variable size LMS, for electromagnetic telemetry data processing. Considering the complexity and spatial distribution of environmental noise, algorithms with multiple reference signals were used to retrieve transmitted EM signals. The feasibility of the regularized variable step size LMS algorithms with numerical simulation was analyzed and presented. The adaptive processing techniques were applied in the recovery of frequency and binary phase shift key modulated signal. The proposed multi-channel adaptive technique achieves fast convergence speed, low mean squared error and is shown to have good convergence characteristics compared to conventional methods. In addition to attaining good results from the multi-channe... [more]

One of the repeating themes around the provision of the knowledge and skills needed for delivering sustainable communities is the idea of a “common language” for all built environment professionals. This suggestion has been repeated regularly with each new political and professional review within and between different sectors responsible for the delivery of sustainable communities. There have been multiple efforts to address academic limitations, industry fragmentation and promote more interdisciplinary working and sector collaboration. This research explored the role of skills for sustainable communities, particularly within the higher education (HE) sector, and the responses to support the development of a “common language of sustainability” that can be shared between different sectors, professional disciplines and stakeholders. As an interdisciplinary group of academics and practitioners working with the HE sector in the North East of England, we evaluate the progression of sector c... [more]

As both the human population and living standards grow, so does the worldwide electricity demand. However, the power sector is also one of the biggest environmental polluters. Therefore, options are currently being sought aimed at reducing environmental impacts, one of the potential tools for which concerns the use of life cycle assessment. This study, therefore, focuses on the most commonly used nonrenewable (black coal, lignite, natural gas and nuclear) and renewable sources (wind, hydro and photovoltaic) in the Czech Republic in terms of their construction, operation, and decommissioning periods. Environmental impacts are assessed via the use of selected impact categories by way of product environmental footprint methodology. The results highlight the potential environmental impacts associated with electricity generation for each of the primary energy sources. Black coal and lignite power plants were found to contribute most to the global warming, resource use, energy carriers and r... [more]

High anthropogenic activities are constantly causing increased soil degradation and thus soil health and safety are becoming an important issue. The soil quality is deteriorating at an alarming rate in the neighborhood of smelters as a result of heavy metal deposition. Organic biowastes, also produced through anthropogenic activities, provide some solutions for remediation and management of degraded soils through their use as a substrate. Biowastes, due to their high content of organic compounds, have the potential to improve soil quality, plant productivity, and microbial activity contributing to higher humus production. Biowaste use also leads to the immobilization and stabilization of heavy metals, carbon sequestration, and release of macro and micronutrients. Increased carbon sequestration through biowaste use helps us in mitigating climate change and global warming. Soil amendment by biowaste increases soil activity and plant productivity caused by stimulation in shoot and root le... [more]

Efforts toward a low-emission economy constitute a common challenge for Polish cities. Solutions are being sought to support Polish, medium-sized cities, that is, cities with about 140,000 inhabitants, to implement and develop low-carbon energy in their public transport systems. This paper proposes and explores a sustainable urban development card for a Polish city, namely, Zielona Góra, the use of which will enable the effects of a public transport system using low-carbon energy to be monitored. This research was based on the two main areas of analysis of a system of low-carbon energy and public transport and were formulated as: (1) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and (2) Indicators of the Satisfaction Rate of Public Transport Passengers (SPTP). This paper used literature studies to determine SDGs as well a questionnaire-cum-survey, which was conducted on a sample of 1022 public transport passengers in Zielona Góra, Poland, to determine SPTP. The results were verified by a real c... [more]

Agricultural activities produce an estimated amount of 32.7 MToe/year of residues in EU countries. They are mostly disposed in landfills, incinerated without any control, or abandoned in fields, causing severe impacts on human health and environment. Rice is one of the most consumed crops worldwide with an annual production of 782 million tons according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations database. In this context, the EU-funded project LIFE LIBERNITRATE promotes the use of renewable residual sources (i.e., rice straw) to obtain new materials with an added value. The methodology is based on the incineration of rice straw in an own-designed and constructed valorization system. Rice straw/wood pellets are burned in optimized conditions to produce a maximized quantity of ashes with high silica content. These materials will be then used to treat water polluted with nitrates, representing an optimal example of circular economy strategy. In this work, the own-desig... [more]

For renewable ocean wave energy to support global energy demands, wave energy converters (WECs) will likely be deployed in large numbers (farms), which will necessarily change the nearshore environment. Wave farm induced changes can be both helpful (e.g., beneficial habitat and coastal protection) and potentially harmful (e.g., degraded habitat, recreational, and commercial use) to existing users of the coastal environment. It is essential to estimate this impact through modeling prior to the development of a farm, and to that end, many researchers have used spectral wave models, such as Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN), to assess wave farm impacts. However, the validity of the approaches used within SWAN have not been thoroughly verified or validated. Herein, a version of SWAN, called Sandia National Laboratories (SNL)-SWAN, which has a specialized WEC implementation, is verified by comparing its wave field outputs to those of linear wave interaction theory (LWIT), where LWIT is theo... [more]

The recent expansion of the internet network and rapid advancements in information and communication technology are expected to lead to a significant increase in power consumption and the number of data centers. However, these data centers consume a considerable amount of electric power all year round, regardless of working days or holidays; thus, energy saving at these facilities has become essential. A disproportionate level of power consumption is concentrated in computer rooms because air conditioners in these rooms are required to operate throughout the year to maintain a constant indoor environment for stable operation of computer equipment with high-heat release densities. Considerable energy-saving potential is expected in such computer rooms, which consume high levels of energy, if an outdoor air-cooling system and air conditioners are installed. These systems can reduce the indoor space temperature by introducing a relatively low outdoor air temperature. Therefore, we studied... [more]

Landfilling of organic waste is still the predominant waste management method in Canada. Data collection and analysis of the waste were done for the case study city of Montréal in Canada. A life cycle assessment was carried out for the current and proposed waste management system using the IWM-2 software. Using life cycle assessment results, a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm was used to optimize the waste flows. The optimization showed that the current recovery ratio of organic waste of 23% in 2017 could be increased to 100% recovery of food waste. Also, recycling could be doubled, and landfilling halved. The objective functions were minimizing the total energy consumption and CO2eq emissions as well as the total cost in the waste management system. By using a three-objective optimization algorithm, the optimized waste flow for Montréal results in 2% of waste (14.7 kt) to anaerobic digestion (AD), 7% (66.3 kt) to compost, 32% (295 kt) to recycling, 1% (8.5 kt) to incineration,... [more]

The high concentration of pollutant sources, complex topography, and regional meteorology are all factors that may contribute to air episodes in dense urban areas. Energy use in buildings is a significant source of pollution in the Greater Athens Area (GAA), Greece, where over 90% of the existing building stock has been classified below energy class B. The present study focuses on the potential effects that a realistic level of building energy efficiency upgrades will have on the air quality over the GAA. Results are expected to be relevant to similar urban areas. Furthermore, the study of primary pollutants’ dispersion is applied at a 1.2 × 1.2 km spatial resolution, providing significant local (neighborhood) level information. Numerical simulations were performed using EPA’s CALPUFF modeling system with wind field input from an independent numerical weather prediction using NCAR’s Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. In order to calculate emission rates from major roads, hig... [more]

Our paper focuses on eliciting the factors that constitute threats and dangers for urban energy networks, information networks, and energy grids in the cities. Moreover, we attempt to determine how these threats are perceived by the inhabitants of those cities. Urban energy networks tend to play an increasing role in achieving energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in large urban centers. Even though they do not necessarily correspond to reality, public opinions can substantially influence the adoption of relevant technologies in populous urban locations. We use the public opinion representative survey data from the Czech Republic (a sample of 1023 respondents) in order to show how people perceive the dangers and threats for urban energy networks from such events as: (i) Extensive and long-term power outage; (ii) service disruption of the Internet, mobile networks or telephone landlines; (iii) cyber-attacks, and (iv) the technological dependence of the state on multinationa... [more]

 Borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) generally employ water-antifreeze solutions to allow working fluid temperatures to fall below 0 °C. However, some local regulations have forbidden antifreeze additives (even non-toxic ones) to avoid groundwater pollution in case of pipe leakage. This paper presents a techno-economic and environmental analysis of four different fluids: propylene glycol at 25% and 33% weight concentrations, calcium chloride at 20% weight concentration (CaCl2 20%), and pure water. Thermal loads from 36 case studies in six different climate zones are used to perform BHE sizing and compare the abovementioned fluids from the economic, operational, and environmental points of view. The economic analysis and the carbon footprint assessment are performed on a life cycle of 25 years considering the installation (BHE drilling, fluid) and operation (heat pump and ground-side circulation pump energy demand, fluid replacement) of the simulated GSHPs. Results highlight that using... [more]

Increasing the share of renewable energies in electricity and heat generation is the cornerstone of a climate-friendly energy transition. However, as renewable technologies rely on diverse natural resources, the design of decarbonized energy systems inevitably leads to environmental trade-offs. This paper presents the case study of a comprehensive impact assessment for different future development scenarios of a decentralized renewable energy system in Germany. It applies an adapted ecological scarcity method (ESM) that improves decision-support by ranking the investigated scenarios and revealing their main environmental shortcomings: increased mineral resource use and pollutant emissions due to required technical infrastructure and a substantial increase in land use due to biomass combustion. Concerning the case study, the paper suggests extending the set of considered options, e.g., towards including imported wind energy. More generally, the findings underline the need for a comprehe... [more]

The present study sought to investigate the formation of carbon monoxide (CO) during aerobic biostabilization (AB) of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) in forced aerated piles. Understanding the factors influencing CO formation may be important not only for safety, but also for environmental and technical reasons. The objective of the study was to determine the effect of the technical parameters of the piles on the concentration of CO in the process gas during AB of the OFMSW in a full-scale waste treatment system: rate of waste aeration (from 3365 to 12,744 m3∙Mg−1), waste mass loads in the pile (from 391 to 702 Mg), thermal conditions, application of sidewalls as an element of pile bioreactor construction, concentration of O2 and CO2 in the waste piles and the duration of the process from 6 to 9 weeks. The temperature and concentration of O2, CO2, CO, CH4 were measured in each pile at weekly intervals. All six reactors provide stable thermal and aerobic conditions... [more]

Predicting the energy needs of future water systems is important for coordinating long-term energy and water management plans, as both systems are interrelated. We use the case study of the Los Angeles City’s Department of Water and Power (LADWP), located in a densely populated, environmentally progressive, and water-poor region, to highlight the trade-offs and tensions that can occur in balancing priorities related to reliable water supply, energy demand for water and greenhouse gas emissions. The city is on its path to achieving higher fractions of local water supplies through the expansion of conservation, water recycling and stormwater capture to replace supply from imported water. We analyze scenarios to simulate a set of future local water supply adoption pathways under average and dry weather conditions, across business as usual and decarbonized grid scenarios. Our results demonstrate that an aggressive local water supply expansion could impact the geospatial distribution of ele... [more]

The overall purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of financing renewable energy sources on the assessment of sustainable development in Poland’s provinces. There are also two detailed objectives: (1) define how Polish policies are being passed on to local authorities; (2) realize a Poland’s provinces ranking, taking into account the indicators of sustainable development, thanks to the taxonomic measure of development in the area of environmental order. This study deals with the taxonomic assessment of local sustainable development in the local administration units of Poland. To this end, the methods of linear ordering were applied for the assessment of the level of objects differentiation with the use of a closed set of statistical features. The presented analysis proved that the taxonomic distances between synthetic measures for particular provinces are considerable. The highest values of the integrated measure in 2018 were obtained by the following provinces: Podlaskie, Sub... [more]

Under the background of the prompt development of the global economy and continuous improvement of environmental protection awareness, end-of-life vehicles (ELVs), as an essential part of “urban mineral”, have the substantial economic, resource, and environmental value. The research on reverse logistics of ELVs has developed rapidly, but the existing relevant reviews are based on unique research perspectives and do not fully understand the whole field. This work aims to help comprehend the research status of reverse logistics of ELVs, excavate and understand the critical publications, and reveal the main research topics in the past 20 years. Based on 299 articles published in ISI Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database from 2000 to 2019, this paper uses the methodologies of literature bibliometrics and content analysis, combined with VOS viewer, CiteSpace, and Bibexcel software. Besides, the literature quantity and cited situation, core journals, distribution of countries and r... [more]

In this paper, we consider the navigation of a group of solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for periodical monitoring of a set of mobile ground targets in urban environments. We consider the scenario where the number of targets is larger than that of the UAVs, and the targets spread in the environment, so that the UAVs need to carry out a periodical surveillance. The existence of tall buildings in urban environments brings new challenges to the periodical surveillance mission. They may not only block the Line-of-Sight (LoS) between a UAV and a target, but also create some shadow region, so that the surveillance may become invalid, and the UAV may not be able to harvest energy from the sun. The periodical surveillance problem is formulated as an optimization problem to minimize the target revisit time while accounting for the impact of the urban environment. A nearest neighbour based navigation method is proposed to guide the movements of the UAVs. Moreover, we adopt a partiti... [more]

With the continuous improvement of the voltage level of the power system, the electromagnetic interference problem of the converter station has become more and more serious. The thyristor control unit (TCU) is the core equipment of the converter valve, and its normal operation is related to the safe and stable operation of the entire converter valve. This paper starts with the actual electromagnetic environment in the converter valve hall, analyzes the failure principle of the TCU under electromagnetic disturbance, and observes the electromagnetic field distribution and sensitive components on the circuit board. Then, a TCU failure early warning method based on pattern matching and support vector regression (SVR) is proposed. The failure trend is deduced by constructing an abnormal information vector, and then the failure predictor is constructed using support vector regression optimized by grid search (GS), genetic algorithm (GA), and particle swarm optimization (PSO). Considering the... [more]

This paper summarizes the literature on detection of islanding resulting from distributed generating capabilities in a power distribution system, with emphasis on the rural distribution systems. It is important to understand the legacy technology and equipment in the rural distribution electrical environment due to the growth of power electronics and the potential for adding the new generations of intelligent sensors. The survey identified four areas needing further research: 1. Robustness in the presence of distribution grid disturbances; 2. the future role of artificial intelligence in the islanding application; 3. more realistic standard tests for the emerging electrical environment; 4. smarter sensors. In addition, this paper presents a synchro-phasor-based islanding detection approach based on a wireless sensor network developed by the University of Texas at Austin. Initial test results in a control hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) simulation environment suggest the effectiveness of th... [more]

The 20-year cumulative fatigue damage of an offshore jacket substructure was estimated under the long-term local environmental conditions in the Taiwan Strait. Because of the nonlinearity of wave load for slender members of the structure, time-domain simulations of the dynamic finite element model were conducted for each sea state. By utilizing the Dirlik method to process the stress signals, the fatigue damages of joints were computed. Concerning the computational time, we propose a probability-based method of using a representative combination of environmental conditions in this study, which can considerably reduce the required number of evaluations prior to determining fatigue damage, thereby improving the process of preliminary design. The results show that only three sea states among 120 can represent 28% of the average damage ratio, and up to 17 sea states fully resolved the fatigue life.

Renewable energy sources are environmentally friendly and cost-efficient. However, the problem with these renewable resources is their heavy reliance on weather conditions. Thus, at times, these solutions are not guaranteed to meet the required demand all the time. For this, hybrid microgrids are introduced, which have a combination of both renewable energy sources and non-renewable energy resources. In this paper, a cost-efficient optimization algorithm is proposed that minimizes the use of non-renewable energy sources. It maximizes the use of renewable energy resources by meeting the demand for utility grids. Real data based on the load and demand of the utility grids in Italy is used, and a system that determines the optimal sizing of the microgrid and a daily plan is introduced to optimize the renewable resources operations. As part of the proposal, the objective function for the operation and planning of the microgrid in such a way to minimize cost is formulated. Moreover, a varia... [more]