A holistic approach to achieving energy efficiency for interoperable machining systems

In the twenty-first century, the continuous demand in energy resource has put sustainability on the agenda of many businesses. This is particularly true for the manufacturing industry, where a large amount of energy is consumed to sustain daily operations. This paper studies energy-efficient computer numerical control machining systems. To achieve overall energy efficiency in machining systems, several activities are involved as in the proposed research framework of a global energy-efficient machining system (GEMS). These activities are described as modules, i.e. energy monitoring, energy analysis and optimisation, energy-based optimal control and energy-enriched database. In a GEMS, one critical issue is data interoperability. Seamless data sharing enables collaboration for improving energy efficiency. Using the EXPRESS language, energy data models are proposed for each module in the GEMS, and integrated with the existing STEP-NC (STandard for Exchange of Produce-compliant Numerical Control) standards. Two case studies are presented to demonstrate how the proposed data models may be used. One study updates an existing production file to include general energy information for auditing or reviewing purposes; the other study maintains machine tool energy profiles in a database. Many other energy-efficient activities, e.g. online energy optimisation, can be realised with the proposed data models. The present study proved that interoperable energy information can enhance the energy-efficient performance of a machining system.     

Community participation in cultural heritage and environmental policy formulation in Botswana

Cultural heritage does not have direct economic benefits. However, if properly managed it can stimulate social cohesions, improving the environment and have beneficial economic spin offs for the local communities. This paper discusses the role of communities in the formulation of the policies concerning their local environment. It argues that community engagement by policy makers is important in giving legitimacy and ownership of the policies. Furthermore, this paper discusses the potential of cultural heritage in diversifying the economy in Botswana. This paper recommends for the re-assessment of the relationship between the state and local communities which is critical in resuscitating the seemingly ailing community business organizations. In conclusion, it argues for the sustainable management of cultural heritage as a social and economic resource in the next 50 years of Botswana’s independence.     

The EU sustainable energy policy indicators framework

The article deals with indicators framework to monitor implementation of the main EU (European Union) directives and other policy documents targeting sustainable energy development. The main EU directives which have impact on sustainable energy development are directives promoting energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources, directives implementing greenhouse gas mitigation and atmospheric pollution reduction policies and other policy documents and strategies targeting energy sector. Promotion of use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency improvements are among priorities of EU energy policy because the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency improvements has positive impact on energy security and climate change mitigation. The framework of indicators can be developed to establish the main targets set by EU energy and environmental policies allowing to connect indicators via chain of mutual impacts and to define policies and measures necessary to achieve established targets based on assessment of their impact on the targeted indicators representing sustainable energy development aims. The article discusses the application of indicators framework for EU sustainable energy policy analysis and presents the case study of this policy tool application for Baltic States. The article also discusses the use of biomass in Baltic States and future considerations in this field.     

A strategic quantitative approach for sustainable energy production from biomass

European legislation has created a growing interest in the field of renewable energy production in several countries, including Italy. The applications of biomass and/or biofuel for energy generation have been assumed to provide a high level of sustainability due to the perception that renewable resources are inherently sustainable. Thus, renewable fuels applied to heating and/or electricity generation are potentially carbon dioxide neutral. However, before accepting this assumption, it is essential to analyse the actual level of sustainability in the whole supply chain (SC). This requirement has been clearly identified by the recently updated European Directives on renewable biofuels for transportation. However, there is little evidence that this concern has been directed at energy production from biomass. Thus, approaches derived from Green SC Management (GSCM) methods could provide an effective tool for evaluating, from a strategic perspective, the sustainability level of a specific biomass SC. This paper examines how biomass SC activities can define the overall environmental sustainability level. The approach was based on environmental indicators and the resultant output could support more effective GSCM strategies (e.g. defining logistics carriers, evaluating new biomass suppliers, etc.) for managing biomass SCs. Moreover, the approach could be applied by competent authorities for a quick evaluation of the sustainability level of biomass energy production installations. The approach has been tested in a real case study based on an installation, located in Southern Italy, which uses liquid biomass for energy production.     

Renewable energy subsidies versus carbon capture and sequestration support

We propose an equilibrium model where final-goods production uses labor and energy, and energy production uses non-polluting Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and polluting fossil fuels. Our goal is to compare two alternative Green Tax Reforms (GTRs). In one of the GTRs, carbon tax revenues are used to support Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) activities. In the other GTR, tax revenues are used to subsidize RES. The comparison between the two GTRs is focused on three indicators: output per worker, energy intensity and the ratio of renewables over non-renewables. Results show that, in theory, the GTR with the RES subsidy could benefit both the economy and the environment if resource substitution was strong enough. The GTR with CCS support necessarily decreases output since abatement only partially alleviates the tax burden. The empirical simulation indicates that, for most tax values, both GTRs imply an economic slowdown but benefit the environment. The GTR with RES subsidies appears to be preferable than the alternative one, especially for lower tax levels.     

能源活动碳排放核算与减排政策选择

应对气候变化的科学基础是摸清区域碳排放基本状况,对碳排放现状的梳理是探索环境改善路径的依据。探索低碳发展路径的核心在于减排政策选择,同时也是实现可持续发展的条件保障。京津冀协同发展背景下区域环境保护及大气污染治理成为研究热点,河北省资源环境容量与经济增长之间的矛盾日益凸显,生态文明、可持续发展的要求促使探明环境现状,研究节能减排低碳发展的创新机制。摸清河北省碳排放基本现状,探明能源需求和碳排放的演变规律,对河北省探索低碳发展路径具有实践意义。本文基于河北省全域的数据资料和实地调查,核算了河北省下辖11个地级市能源活动引起的碳排放,分析了2005-2013年碳排放的时空演化规律,以情景分析方法为基础,预测了河北省到2030年的碳排放状况。认为:第一,能源活动的碳排放量从研究时间尺度上来看,始终保持增长的趋势,且2009年以后增长更为显著;从空间尺度上来看,唐山市的排放始终是全省最高。第二,基于情景分析对河北省能源活动的碳排放可能状况进行预测。基准情景是排放量最高的情景;低碳情景下2025年前后碳排放量基本稳定;强化低碳情景下设定2030年回到2005年的排放水平上,人均碳排放量始终保持下降,2030年将与全国2012年的人均排放平均水平相当。     

Sustainability of rice production systems: an empirical evaluation to improve policy

An evaluation is needed to monitor the progress of sustainable development (SD) in rice production systems. The purpose of this study is to provide policy inputs, examine the sustainability of rice production, and determine major policy areas. A requisite set of 12 indicators of three dimensions of SD, namely economic, was generated by employing an assemblage of top–down and bottom–up approaches. The data were gathered from farm households’ survey as well as in-depth discussion with stakeholders from the regions that represent irrigated, rain-fed lowland, rain-fed upland, flood-prone, and saline-prone rice-growing ecosystems in Bangladesh. By constructing composite indicators, the results revealed that 44 % of rice growers were economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially developed. The irrigated rice production system was found to be the most sustainable. The path analysis measured the contribution of the indicators to the index, and results highlighted that rice growers’ knowledge, skills, and social networks development, improving land productivity, and integrated nutrient management were essential for promoting sustainable rice production. However, the study findings suggest that pluralistic (i.e., government and non-government) agricultural advisory services can serve as an engine of transition to rice production sustainability in which a multi-year planning and strategy formulation are crucial besides investing in the modernization of extension services. Overall and ecosystem-specific policy implications that emerged from the findings of this study are outlined.     

A hybrid approach for environmental impact evaluation of design options

The strengthened environmental regulatory requirements and general awareness of the need for environmental conservation worldwide, design for environment has become a key design criterion in new product development processes. Due to their resources-consuming attribute and the prerequisite expert knowledge in environmental sciences for the impacts interpretations, the existing forms of product-oriented environmental impact assessment methods are impractical to be adopted by product designers in small-and-medium enterprises. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a generally accepted quantitative approach to assess a product’s environmental impact. However, a full LCA study often requires a considerable amount of data and therefore, it is regarded as not a handy tool for product design evaluations particularly at the initial design stage. This leads to our intention to develop an immediately applicable approach for decision-makers to evaluate the design options. The proposed approach integrates Analytic Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Theory, with Evidential Reasoning (ER) to support the environmental impact evaluations of design options. A case study is carried out to demonstrate its applicability to prioritize the environmental impact of various design options. A symmetrical triangular distribution is introduced for calculating the expected utility and for testing the sensitivity of results.     

Constructing a policy and institutional framework for an ecosystem-based approach to managing the Lower Amazon floodplain

A regional experiment in co-management is underway in the Lower Amazon that is developing the basic policy and institutional elements for an ecosystem-based approach to floodplain management. This initiative grew out of the grassroots movement of floodplain communities who, concerned with excessive commercial fishing pressure on local fisheries, took control of local lakes and implemented collective agreements regulating fishing activity. This paper describes the main elements of the evolving regional management system. This process has focused on four main dimensions of floodplain settlement and resource use: development of sustainable management systems for floodplain resources, policies and institutions for fisheries co-management, collective agreements for grazing cattle on floodplain grasslands, and a land tenure policy consistent with the objectives of the evolving co-management system. Over the last year INCRA, the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform, has begun implementation of a comprehensive new land tenure policy that could resolve structural deficiencies in the existing co-management system and provide the basis for the ecosystem-based management of the Lower Amazon floodplain. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

中国新能源汽车产业的政策变迁与政策工具选择

伴随着新能源汽车产业的发展,中国政府有关新能源汽车产业政策也在不断地跟进。梳理相关产业政策变迁之中的内在逻辑,分析政策工具的选择是一项极为重要的任务。本文基于政策框架理论及其分析方法,对有关新能源汽车研究文献进行了分析,将关注重点从政策的评价转到从历史的角度关注新能源政策变迁的推动力上。政策变迁是与其动力因素密切相关的,这些动力因素又总是体现为政策变迁的主导力量。在中国新能源汽车产业的政策变迁历程中,其主导力量或政策制定的主要影响因素不断变化,中国新能源汽车的发展政策也可以分为政府主导、汽车厂商主导和消费者主导的三个阶段。政策变迁体现了政策本身的社会价值。基于中国新能源汽车发展的各种不同政策要素及其相关性,本文发现,在中国新能源汽车产业的组织性政策工具、管制性政策工具、经济诱因性政策工具、信息性政策工具和资源性政策工具这五个方面,经济诱因性工具和信息性工具应该是推动新能源汽车产业的关键工具,组织性和管制性工具只适用于产业化初期,后期应逐渐减少,而自愿性工具在新能源汽车产业市场完善前不提倡使用,在该产业市场得到完善后可以成为政府的选择之一。经过研究发现,在新能源汽车产业发展过程中,政府应注意自身的作用范围,适当处理市场与政府规制的便捷,降低交易成本,提高规制效率,是未来产业化政策工具选择应重点关注的环节。同时,政府必须在政策上致力于技术创新,把通过技术创新推动新能源汽车产业发展作为重要的政策目标。     

A new approach to quantifying and comparing vulnerability to drought

In this study we develop an “inference modeling” approach to compare and analyze how different disciplines (economics, political science, and behavioral science/environmental psychology) estimate vulnerability to drought. It is thought that a better understanding of these differences can lead to a synthesis of insights from the different disciplines and eventually to more comprehensive assessments of vulnerability. The new methodology consists of (1) developing inference models whose variables and assertions incorporate qualitative knowledge about vulnerability, (2) converting qualitative model variables into quantitative indicators by using fuzzy set theory, (3) collecting data on the values of the indicators from case study regions, (4) inputting the regional data to the models and computing quantitative values for susceptibility. The methodology was applied to three case study regions (in India, Portugal and Russia) having a range of socio-economic and water stress conditions. In some cases the estimates of susceptibility were surprisingly similar, in others not, depending on the factors included in the disciplinary models and their relative weights. A new approach was also taken to testing vulnerability parameters by comparing estimated water stress against a data set of drought occurrences based on media analysis. The new methodologies developed in this paper provide a consistent basis for comparing differences between disciplinary perspectives, and for identifying the importance of the differences.

Climate Adaptation Services for the Netherlands: an operational approach to support spatial adaptation planning

There is a growing availability of climate change information, offered to scientists and policy makers through climate services. However, climate services are not well taken up by the policy-making and planning community. Climate services focus on primary impacts of climate change, e.g., the disclosure of precipitation and temperature data, and this seems insufficient in meeting their needs. In this paper, we argue that, in order to reach the spatial planning community, climate services should take on a wider perspective by translating climate data to policy-relevant indicators and by offering support in the design of adaptation strategies. We argue there should be more focus on translating consequences of climate change to land-use claims and subsequently discuss the validity, consequences and implications of these claims with stakeholders, so they can play a role in spatial planning processes where much of the climate adaptation takes place. The term Climate Adaptation Services is introduced as being a stepwise approach supporting the assessment of vulnerability in a wider perspective and include the design and appraisal of adaptation strategies in a multi-stakeholder setting. We developed the Climate Adaptation Atlas and the Climate Ateliers as tools within the Climate Adaptation Services approach to support decision-making and planning processes. In this paper, we describe the different steps of our approach and report how some of the challenges were addressed.     

A theoretical approach to indoor radon and thoron distribution

A model based on the Finite Element Method was developed to simulate indoor behavior of radon ((222)Rn), thoron ((220)Rn) and their progeny, as well as, to calculate their spatial distributions. Since complex physical processes govern the distribution several simplifications were made in the presented model. Different locations of possible radon/thoron sources, diffusion of these gases, their radioactive decay, etc were taken into account. Influences of different parameters on thoron/radon as well as indoor distribution of their progeny, such as the geometry and room dimension, the presence of aerosols and their size distribution expressed through the diffusion coefficient, different kinds of ventilation, etc, were investigated. It has been found that radon is distributed homogeneously, while the thoron concentration is rather inhomogeneous and decreases exponentially with the distance from the source. Regardless of the source distribution, the distribution of radon was homogeneous, except at places near an air inlet and outlet. However, the distribution of thoron depends on the source distribution. If thoron emanates from walls or the floor, its concentration decreases with the distance from the wall. Moreover, the concentration gradient is much larger near walls. This suggests that the actual selection of the site effect should be taken into account when obtaining a representative value of indoor (220)Rn and their progeny for dose assessment. The simulation results of activities and their distribution were in accordance with the results of other studies and experiments.     

New energy policy and low-carbon society in Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake

The Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 devastated the eastern region of Japan.Due to the resulting nuclear accident,Japanese Cabinet decided to revise its energy policies.The Energy and Environment Council in National Policy Unit published options on the nation’s scenarios for energy and economy in 2030.We estimated the economic impacts of the options to national economy and households in 2030.Finally,we clarified significant factors to establish a secure,affluent and low-carbon society based on the energy scenarios.     

Climate change from fossil fuel generated CO2 and energy policy

Projections of the magnitude of global climatic change from combustion generated CO₂ are both uncertain and controversial, due in large measure to ignorance of the physical mechanisms involved. Analysis indicates that the uncertainties can be considerably narrowed by considering only the most immediate time frame of possible climatic impact, thereby leading to the possibility of rationally assessing the scope of the threat and the need for remedial action.     

新能源汽车补贴政策工具挖掘及量化评价

现阶段中国大力开展新能源汽车示范推广工作,中央及各地方政府已相继出台一系列补贴政策。在严厉打击新能源汽车"骗补"及补贴政策重新调整等背景下,分析梳理现有政策从而对其进行整体把握与正确判断显得尤为重要,从而为政策改进与优化做准备。本文选取了截至2016年底国家和北京市颁布的涉及新能源汽车补贴的相关政策。首先,从采用文本挖掘的方法整理出的政策文本的高频有效关键词从中提炼出的政策工具,可分为供给型、需求型、环境型三类,分别从技术推动、市场拉动和环境支撑三个方面促进和规范新能源汽车市场。发现现有政策工具仍存在一些问题,如缺乏支持新能源汽车技术提升和产品开发的供给型政策工具;环境型政策工具的作用重点欠科学,对充电基础设施建设的重视程度不够;补贴过于聚焦新能源汽车购买环节等。其次,结合政策特点运用PMC指数模型构建了新能源汽车补贴政策的量化评价框架,通过变量分类、参数识别建立了多投入产出表,并通过PMC指数的测量、PMC曲面的生成综合反映政策各维度的情况。再次,采用实证分析的方法,选取3项新能源汽车补贴政策(P1、P2、P3)为研究对象,对政策进行量化评价。结果得出3项政策的PMC指数分别为7.52、6.95、6.21,均在良好的等级之内,P1政策的量化结果为优秀,P2、P3政策结果为良好,且具有较大的提升空间,可考虑在激励措施等方面予以加强。最后,根据新能源汽车补贴政策无法取得预期效果的原因,提出三点政策优化意见:(1)重视供给型政策工具的使用,加大新能源汽车科研资金投入;(2)环境型政策工具的作用重点应放在充电等基础设施的建设上;(3)需求型可考虑采取以公共交通带动私人交通的策略。     

A new approach to natural capital sustainable development

The three-dimension (3D) ecological footprint makes the analysis of the relationships between the demand and supply of natural capital more credible by importing footprint depth and footprint size. This article used China’s regions as the object to analyze the high-level sustainability of the natural capital from the view of “ecology – efficiency – fairness” multidimensional framework. Research showed that China’s ecological footprint has risen while bio-capacity per capita has descended in recent 20 years. This paper also discusses the spatial distribution of China’s natural capital ecological sustainability, efficiency sustainability and fairness sustainability. Finally, it builds multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) models to get multidimensional sustainability framework taking ecological sustainability, efficiency sustainability, and fairness sustainability into consideration.     

基于市场表现的中国新能源汽车产业发展政策剖析

发展新能源汽车作为应对能源与环境问题的有效解决方式之一,受到世界各国的重视。中国政府对于新能源汽车产业的发展非常重视,在中央政府层面也提出了多项促进新能源汽车产业发展的相关政策,特别是将产业发展放到国家发展战略的高度。文章在梳理和分类2001-2015年中国新能源汽车产业发展政策(国家层面)、全面展示产业政策的时间演进与变化趋势的基础上,应用产业链分析的方法,按照研发、生产、销售和使用的顺序,选取新能源汽车产业的技术专利数据、产销量数据和商业模式等指标,将中国新能源汽车产业的市场表现与政策进行关联,构建中国新能源汽车产业市场表现与产业政策关联分析框架。然后,在搜集相关市场数据的基础上,采用该分析框架分别从技术专利、产销量和商业模式三个方面对市场表现和产业政策的关联关系进行深入剖析,发现随着产业政策数量与力度的增加,三个方面的市场表现整体均呈现出快速发展的趋势,且技术创新与商业模式创新的战略方向与发展路径均与政策导向基本一致。最后,文章对推广应用补贴和免征车辆购置税的政策变化和影响进行了相关讨论,讨论结果表明随着两项典型政策调整与退坡,国家逐步释放市场信号,显示出政策支持形式与内容在发生变化,特别是体现出对产业技术创新和商业模式创新领域的重视。本文的研究表明:中国已经构建起较为完善的新能源汽车产业发展政策体系,政策体系与市场表现之间存在强关联关系,对新能源汽车产业的技术专利、产品产销量、以及商业模式等市场表现方面起到重要的引领作用;伴随着中国新能源汽车产业政策的调整,提升产业竞争力、占据产业发展新方向将成为产业下一步重点关注的方向。