Fast,cheap, and imperfect? US public opinion about solar geoengineering

ABSTRACT

Solar geoengineering, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting a small fraction of sunlight back into space, has drawn the attention of scientists and policymakers as climate change remains unabated. Unlike mitigation, solar geoengineering could quickly and cheaply lower global temperatures. It is also imperfect. Its environmental impacts remain unpredictable, and its low cost and immediate effects may result in ‘moral hazard,’ potentially crowding out costly mitigation efforts. There is little understanding about how the public will respond to such tradeoffs. To address this, a 1000-subject nationally representative poll focused on solar geoengineering was conducted as part of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) of the US electorate in October–November 2016. The importance that individuals place on solar geoengineering’s speed and cost predicts their support for it, but there is little to no relationship between their concerns about its shortcomings and support for its research and use. Acquiescence bias appears to be an important factor for attitudes around solar geoengineering and moral hazard.     

Comparison of the daily global solar radiation from different data sources in Northwest China climate

The solar radiation data are of high importance to the solar energy systems. Conventional methods to obtain the solar radiation data are from weather stations, solar radiation models, commercial software databases, and field measurements. In the present study, a new daily global solar radiation model is proposed, by combining the quadratic function of sunshine fraction and sine function of the day of the year. The solar radiation model calculated data are then compared with China Meteorological Data Sharing System (CMDSS) data, TRNSYS data, and field-measured data in Northwest China climate. It is found that the newly proposed solar radiation model has better performance than the other nine solar radiation models in the literature. The solar radiation model calculated data fit well with the CMDSS annually average data. The TRNSYS data are a bit larger than the CMDSS annually average data in summer half year and a little smaller than those in winter half year. The solar radiation model and the CMDSS annually average data have the best correlation, whereas the TRNSYS data and the field-measured data have the worst correlation. The solar radiation model calculated data have the best correlation with the other three data sources.     

0.1～3000MHz射频电磁环境时间变化规律及其与人群作息时间关系的研究

利用自动连续监测仪器对在成都市城区选定的监测点位开展了持续数日的测量,获取了测点的长时间监测数据,通过对监测数据的分析,研究了0.1~3000MHz射频电磁环境随时间变化的规律及其与人群作息时间的关系,并对电磁环境人工手动监测的适宜时间段进行了分析。     

Performance of a small-scale solar-powered adsorption cooling system

In this study, an experimental investigation on the performance of a small-scale residential-size solar-driven adsorption (silica gel-water) cooling system that was constructed at Assiut University campus, Egypt is carried out. As Assiut area is considered as hot, arid climate, field tests for performance assessment of the system operation during the summer season are performed under different environmental operating conditions. The system consists of an evacuated tube with a reflective concentration parabolic surface solar-collector field with a total area of 36 m², a silica gel-water adsorption chiller of 8 kW nominal cooling capacity, and hot and cold water thermal storage tanks of 1.8 and 1.2 m³ in volume, respectively. The results of summer season field test show that under daily solar insolation varying from 21 to 27 MJ/m², the solar collectors employed in the system had high and almost constant thermal efficiency. The daily solar-collector efficiency during the period of system operation ranged from about 50% to 78%. The adsorption chiller performance shows that the chiller average daily coefficient of performance (COP) was 0.41 with the average cooling capacity of 4.4 kW when the cooling-water and chilled-water temperatures were about 31°C and 19°C, respectively. As the chiller cooling water is cooled by the cooling tower in the hot arid area, the cooling water is at a higher temperature than the design point of the chiller. Therefore, an experiment was carried out using the city water for cooling. The results show that an enhancement in the chiller COP by 40% and the chilling power by 17% has been achieved when the city water was 27.7°C.     

Techno-economic and environmental analysis of an integrated standalone hybrid solar hydrogen system to supply CCHP loads of a greenhouse in Iran

The techno-economic and environmental performance of hybrid solar hydrogen energy systems was investigated to provide combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) demands of a standalone greenhouse in Iran to achieve sustainable agriculture based on an optimization procedure. From the environmental point of view, by deploying hybrid energy systems, 83%, to 100% of emissions can be avoided. Also a sensitivity analysis was performed on the hybrid energy systems in order to study the effect of major parameter variation on the systems justification. It was concluded that hybrid solar systems are economically competitive with conventional systems, for high solar intensity locations with high diesel fuel prices and decreased prices for PV and hydrogen storage technology.     

Modeling urban solar energy with high spatiotemporal resolution: A case study in Toronto,Canada

This research presents a method to determine the maximum potential for the capturing of solar radiation on the rooftop of buildings in an urban environment. This involves the modeling of solar energy potential and comparison to historical building energy demand profiles through the use of 3-D solar simulation software tools and geographic information systems (GIS). The objective is to accurately identify the amount of surface area that is suitable for solar photovoltaic (PV) installations and to estimate the hourly PV electricity generation potential of existing building rooftops in an urban environment. This study demonstrates a viable approach for modeling urban solar energy and offers valuable information for electricity distributors, policy makers, and urban energy planners to facilitate the substantial design of a green built environment. The developed methodology is comprised of three main sections: (1) determination of suitable rooftop area, (2) determination of the amount of incident solar radiation available per rooftop, and (3) estimation of hourly solar PV electricity generation potential. A case study was performed using this method for Ryerson University, located in Toronto, Canada. It was found that solar PV could supply up to 19% of the study area’s electricity demands during peak consumption hours. The potential benefits of solar PV was also estimated based upon hourly greenhouse gas emission intensity factors as well as Time-of-Use (TOU) savings through the Ontario Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) program, which allows for better representation of the positive impacts of solar technologies.     

Comparative study on performances of a heat-pipe PV/T system and a heat-pipe solar water heating system

The heat-pipe solar water heating (HP-SWH) system and the heat-pipe photovoltaic/thermal (HP-PV/T) system are two practical solar systems, both of which use heat pipes to transfer heat. By selecting appropriate working fluid of the heat-pipes, these systems can be used in the cold region without being frozen. However, performances of these two solar systems are different because the HP-PV/T system can simultaneously provide electricity and heat, whereas the HP-SWH system provides heat only. In order to understand these two systems, this work presents a mathematical model for each system to study their one-day and annual performances. One-day simulation results showed that the HP-SWH system obtained more thermal energy and total energy than the HP-PV/T system while the HP-PV/T system achieved higher exergy efficiency than the HP-SWH system. Annual simulation results indicated that the HP-SWH system can heat the water to the available temperature (45°C) solely by solar energy for more than 121 days per year in typical climate regions of China, Hong Kong, Lhasa, and Beijing, while the HP-PV/T system can only work for not more than 102 days. The HP-PV/T system, however, can provide an additional electricity output of 73.019 kWh/m², 129.472 kWh/m², and 90.309 kWh/m² per unit collector area in the three regions, respectively.     

Efficiency enhancement in solar air heaters by modification of absorber plate-a review

This paper outlines a complete review on modifications made on the absorber plate of solar air heaters in order to improve the turbulence and heat transfer rate, thereby efficiency. Corrugated sheets, fins, extended surfaces, wire mesh, porous medium, etc., are a few of the modifications used. Most of such alterations in the absorber plate resulted with an increase in efficiency but associated with drawback of increased pumping power due to raising friction factor. Pumping power is considered here as a predominant comparison parameters of various solar air heaters with different absorber plate in terms of effective efficiency.     

不同流态下微波辐射对污水污泥性质的影响研究

通过对不同流态下微波辐射对污水污泥性质的影响进行研究,考察了不同流态下微波辐射作用处理后污泥沉降性能、脱水性能的变化,以及微波辐射作用下流态对污泥挥发性悬浮固体(VSS)溶解率、上清液中COD和污泥微观形态的影响.结果表明,流态对污泥的沉降性能和脱水性能有一定影响,微波辐射功率越高,流态对污泥沉降性能和脱水性能的影响越显著.微波辐射功率较低时,雷诺数Re越大,污泥的沉降比(SV)、比阻和泥饼含水率越小;微波辐射功率较高时,Re为2300的临界流态下污泥的沉降性能和脱水性能最好.随着Re的增大,VSS溶解率和上清液中COD升高,微波辐射功率分别为300、500、700和900W时,Re为3000的紊流流态下上清液中COD分别达到1.1、2.1、3.6和6.7g·L-1.SEM观察结果表明,微波辐射及流态产生的协同剪切应时适宜时,有利于污泥颗粒的絮凝反应,高强度的微波辐射和紊流产生的较大剪切应力导致污泥絮体被打碎.     

微波辐射对污水处理厂动态流活性污泥性能的影响研究

通过微波辐射对污水处理厂动态流活性污泥性能进行实验研究,考察了微波辐射3min内污泥沉降性能、脱水性能的变化,探讨了微波辐射对污泥挥发性悬浮固体(VSS)溶解率、上清液中COD和污泥微观形态的影响.结果表明,低强度的微波辐射对活性污泥相关性质的影响不显著,没有从根本上改善活性污泥的结构.适宜的微波辐射能显著改善活性污泥的沉降性能和脱水性能,500、700和900W微波辐射的适宜辐射时间分别为180、150和60s,此时,活性污泥的比阻为0.3×109S2·g-1左右,较原活性污泥减小了88%,泥饼含水率由原活性污泥直接抽滤的85.2%降低到70.0%.VSS溶解率和上清液COD都随着辐射功率及辐射时间的增加而升高.适宜的微波辐射能促进污泥的团聚絮凝,过度的辐射会破坏活性污泥结构,使活性污泥颗粒细小化,混合液黏度增大,导致脱水性能变差.通过动态流动下微波辐射对活性污泥性能影响的研究,可为微波辐射在活性污泥处理的实际应用提供理论依据.