RETRACTED ARTICLE: Perspectives for the long-term penetration of new renewables in complex energy systems: the Italian scenario

Renewable energy sources are mainly used in the electrical sector. Electricity is not a storable commodity. Hence, it is necessary to produce the requested quantity and distribute it through the system in such a way as to ensure that electricity supply and demand are always evenly balanced. This constraint is actually the main problem related to the penetration of new renewables (wind and photovoltaic power) in the context of complex energy systems. The paper analyzes some aspects in connection with the problem of new renewable energy penetration. The case of Italian scenario is considered as a meaningful reference due to the characteristic size and the complexity of the same. The various energy scenarios are evaluated with the aid of a multipurpose software taking into account the interconnections between the different energetic uses. In particular, it is shown how the penetration of new renewable energies is limited at an upper level by technological considerations and it will be more sustainable if an integration of the various energy use (thermal, mobility and electrical) field will be considered.     

Modelling the long-term behaviour of radiocaesium and radiostrontium in two Italian lakes

The present paper describes the application of a state-of-the-art model to two lakes in central Italy (Trasimeno and Monterosi) for the assessment of migration parameters of (137)Cs and (90)Sr (migration velocity to sediment, transfer rates from sediment to water and to bottom sediment). Applications of a compartment model and a model based on the diffusion equation to predict the behaviour of pollutants in water and through bottom sediment are presented and discussed. The application of the diffusion equation shows some difficulties of a general nature and typical of such a modelling approach. Moreover, there is no evidence of significant improvements of the model performances when the diffusion equation is applied. Very low levels of sedimentation rate of suspended matter in Lake Monterosi were evaluated by the quantitative assessment of radiocaesium migrating to bottom sediment. This suggests that, in this lake, the removal of radionuclide from the water column is mainly due to the turbulent mixing of bottom sediment causing radionuclide burial.     

Discrete-choice experiments valuing local environmental impacts of renewables: two approaches to a case study in Portugal

Despite the often mentioned environmental benefits associated with transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, their use for electricity production has non-negligible negative environmental impacts. The most commonly mentioned in surveys concern different types of landscape impacts, impacts on the fauna and flora, and noise. These impacts differ by size and location of plants, and by source of energy, rendering the policy decision complex. In addition, there are other welfare issues to take into consideration, as positive and negative environmental impacts are not evenly distributed among population groups. This paper proposes to compare the welfare impacts of renewable energy sources controlling for the type of renewable as well as the specific environmental impact by source. To this end, two discrete-choice experiments are designed and applied to a national sample of the Portuguese population. In one case, only individual negative impacts of renewables are used, and in another case, the negative impacts interact with a specific source. Results show the robustness of discrete-choice experiments as a method to estimate the welfare change induced by the impacts of renewable energy sources. Overall, respondents are willing to pay to reduce the environmental impacts, thus making compensation for local impacts feasible. Moreover, the estimations reveal that respondents are significantly sensitive to the detrimental environmental effects of specific renewable energy sources, being willing to pay more to use these sources of energy relative to others.     

Pre-feasibility study of stand-alone hybrid energy systems for applications in eco-houses

In light of rising cost of fossil fuels and fears of its depletion, coupled with the increase in energy demand and the rise in pollution levels, governments worldwide have had to look at alternative energy resources. Combining renewable energy generation like solar power with superior storage and conversion technology such as hydrogen storage, fuel cells and batteries offers a potential solution for a stand-alone power system. The aim of this paper was to assess the techno-economic feasibility of using a hybrid energy system with hydrogen fuel cell for application in an eco-house that will be built in Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman. Actual load data for a typical Omani house of a similar size as the eco-house was considered as the stand-alone load with an average energy consumption of 40 kW/day and 5 kW peak power demand. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Hybrid Optimisation Model for Electric Renewable software was used as a sizing and optimisation tool for the system. It was found that the total annual electrical energy production is 42,255 kW and the cost of energy for this hybrid system is 0.582 $/kW. During daylight time, when the solar radiation is high, the photovoltaics (PV) panels supplied most of the load requirements. Moreover, during the evening time the fuel cell mainly serves the house with the help of the batteries. The proposed system is capable of providing the required energy to the eco-house during the whole year using only the solar irradiance as the primary source.     

Accelerating urban sprawl in depopulating regions: a scenario analysis for the Elbe River Basin

The paper presents a method and results for the generation of future residential land use scenarios for the Elbe River Basin. The challenge of this study is to develop scenarios that consider two processes, accelerated urban sprawl in growth centres while peripheral regions are depopulating. The question is whether the demand for built-up areas can be reduced to achieve the objective of the German sustainability strategy. Current socioeconomic developments of the study area are described, and approaches to calculate residential land use demand are reviewed. Regionalised socioeconomic scenarios of the IPCC-SRES as well as households and housing forecasts are applied to calculate residential land demand for regions. The Land Use Scanner, a spatially explicit land use change model, is then used to allocate the demand on grid-cells within the spatial planning units. The results show a shift of residential developments from urban areas in general to agglomerations leading to a polarisation of developments. Residential land consumption can only be minimised to achieve the sustainable development goals if a strict land use policy with the implementation of higher building densities, activation of inner city quarters and application of effective planning instruments is followed.     

Global-scale vs. regional-scale scenario assumptions: implications for estimating future water withdrawals in the Elbe River basin

In this paper, we explore how scenarios of future water withdrawals in a river basin are influenced by scale-dependent quantifications of the driving forces for two global-scale storylines. Either global-scale information or region-specific information is used to do the quantifications. In addition, we analyze the impact of including or not some restricted regional-scale information in the employed water use model. To develop scenarios of water withdrawals in the German part of the Elbe River basin, we applied the modules for domestic, thermoelectric power and manufacturing water use of the global water model WaterGAP, using scale-dependent driving forces scenarios and other scale-dependent model input. In the global-scale quantitative interpretations of the storylines of the IPCC SRES scenarios A1 and B2, all major driving forces of water withdrawals in the basin—population, thermoelectric power production and industrial gross domestic product—show vigorous increases between 2000 and 2025, while from the regional perspective, smaller increases but mostly decreases appear to be plausible. These discrepancies are partly due to the fact that for the global-scale interpretations only the historic developments until 1990 were taken into account, and not until 2000 as in the regional case. The resulting scenarios of sectoral water withdrawals in 2025 differ strongly between the two scale-dependent interpretations of the storylines, with the global one leading to much higher absolute water withdrawals and much lower withdrawal decreases between 2000 and 2025. Therefore, for regional assessments of water withdrawals, we recommend to embed the scenario analysis in global-scale storylines by performing regional-scale quantifications of the global qualitative driving forces scenarios, based on a limited amount of region-specific information.     

An integrated decision-support process for adaptation planning: climate change as impetus for scenario planning in an agricultural region of Canada

The amount of information required to adapt to climate change is vast: downscaled climate projections, information on environmental impact, sectoral performance, external drivers, regional strategies, policies and practices. It can be argued that most of this information is accessible at the community/regional level, and thus, the important challenges to adaptation are not information gaps, but constraints created by fragmented planning decisions and a sector-by-sector basis for financial and human resource allocations. To strategically address this through adaptation planning, we developed and tested a place-based decision-making framework that creates an integrated platform for considering regional and global sectoral drivers in Eastern Ontario, Canada. Using available socioeconomic and biophysical information from regional authorities, alternative future scenarios were used to describe the range of socioeconomic futures and their vulnerabilities to climate change. We found that: (1) integration of diverse sets of available data (rather than narrowly focused sectoral assessments) helped identify shared common objectives (maximizing the long-term environmental, economic, social well-being within the region), (2) a high degree of congruence existed as the key drivers of change, irrespective of sector, (3) exploring the future scenarios highlighted shared regional priorities and helped identify adaptation priorities requiring more integrated regional planning.     

A new hazard index of complex mixtures integrates bioconcentration and toxicity to refine the environmental risk assessment of effluents

A new methodology to evaluate the overall environmental hazard of unknown mixtures, based on bioconcentration potential and toxicity, was developed using a combination of two methodologies: 1) the estimation of the octanol-water partition coefficient (K(ow)) using reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) and 2) the toxicity identification evaluation (TIE). Forty seven compounds with known K(ow) and different molecular structures where used for the calibration of the log K(ow) in relation to the retention time in reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). A linear regression with an R(2)=0.81 and an sd=0.69 was established between log K(ow) and RP-HPLC retention time. This K(ow) estimation method was furthermore validated using seven additional compounds, showing acceptable estimations of the log K(ow) of unknown substances. Two different mixtures were tested, one containing 3,4 Dichloroaniline, Diazinon and 4-Nonylphenol and another one containing a mixture of 16 pesticides. Both mixtures were first tested as a whole effluent and then fractionated and tested, using a miniaturized Daphnia magna test. An equation is presented, that combines both methodologies and establishes a relative hazard index RHI, ranging from 1 to 10 for any particular mixture of chemicals. The results show how the method presented can refine the security factors that could be included in the environmental risk assessment of effluents in the future.     

A general methodology for structuring models to predict the long-term migration of radionuclides from catchments

In the present paper a generic model for predicting the long-term migration of radionuclides and heavy metals from catchments is described. The model subdivides the catchment into a number of homogeneous, infinitesimal sub-catchments and integrates the radionuclide contributions from such sub-catchments to calculate the total flux of contaminant. It relates the radionuclide behaviour to the statistical distribution of the pollutant partition coefficient on the "ensemble" of sub-catchments. The methodology was validated for 90Sr and 137Cs by using data for water contamination in some European rivers. Values of migration parameters for Pu, Tc, I and Cd isotopes were obtained.     

Examining the effectiveness of low-carbon strategies in South Asian countries: the case of energy efficiency and renewable energy

Environment, Development and Sustainability - This paper examines the impact of energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE) on carbon emissions, using a panel data of South Asian countries...     

Contribution of the sugar cane industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the energy sector: the case of Mauritius

The aim of this paper was to present the contribution of the sugar cane industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the energy sector. Mauritius is taken as a case study. Sugar cane was introduced in Mauritius during the seventeenth century and production of sugar started around 60 years later. Since then, the cane industry has been one of the economic pillars of the country. Bagasse, a by-product of sugar cane, is used as fuel in cogeneration power plants to produce process heat and electricity. This process heat and the generated electricity are used by an annexed sugar mills for the production of sugar, while the remaining electricity is exported to the national grid. In fact, Mauritius is a pioneer in the field of bagasse-based cogeneration power plant; the first bagasse-based cogeneration power plant that was commissioned in the world was in Mauritius in 1957. The contribution of the cane industry in the electricity sector has been vital for the economic development of Mauritius and also in terms of mitigating carbon dioxide emissions by displacing fossil fuels in electricity generation, as bagasse is classified as a renewable source. Data obtained from Statistics Mauritius on electricity production for the past 45 years were analysed, and carbon dioxide emissions were calculated based on international norms. It is estimated that savings on heavy fuel oil importation were by 1.5 million tons of oil—representing a value of 2.9 billion dollars—thus avoiding 4.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This figure can be further increased if molasses, a by-product of sugar cane juice, is used to produce bio-ethanol to be used as fuel in vehicles.     

Stakeholder requirements for building energy efficiency in mass housing delivery: the House of Quality approach

Threats of climate change and future energy price uncertainty have led to a global debate on energy efficiency, particularly the energy efficiency of housing projects. This serious global problem calls for improvement in energy efficiency from all sectors, especially the building sector which is considered a major energy consumer. Adoption of energy efficiency design practices in the housing sector has been perceived to have a significant potential to contribute greatly to the sustainable building process. Additionally, most studies indicate that the understanding and integration of stakeholder requirements has an enormous potential towards increasing the sustainability perspectives that relate to social, environmental, economic and technical issues of buildings. However, there is enough evidence from several studies suggesting a lack of common perspective on stakeholder requirements towards building energy efficiency (BEE) in housing development. Hence it is argued that stakeholders’ alignment for energy efficiency improvement is crucial and a fundamental challenge that needs to be addressed if the goal of energy use reduction in buildings is to be achieved. The aim of this paper is to identify the important building energy requirements among stakeholders of mass housing projects and their impact on technical characteristics of mass housing projects. Through a survey of building industry stakeholders and using the House of Quality model for analysis of the data obtained, the study identified five (5) most rated BEE stakeholders’ requirements in respect of housing development. The study gives a new insight into the considerations of building stakeholders regarding energy efficiency. This insight is useful towards achieving sustainable building solutions that meet the sustainability features of housing development in Ghana and other countries with similar energy and housing challenges.     

Adaptive urban governance: new challenges for the second generation of urban adaptation strategies to climate change

The task of adapting cities to the impacts of climate change is of great importance—urban areas are hotspots of high risk given their concentrations of population and infrastructure; their key roles for larger economic, political and social processes; and their inherent instabilities and vulnerabilities. Yet, the discourse on urban climate change adaptation has only recently gained momentum in the political and scientific arena. This paper reviews the recent climate change adaptation strategies of nine selected cities and analyzes them in terms of overall vision and goals, baseline information used, direct and indirect impacts, proposed structural and non-structural measures, and involvement of formal and informal actors. Against this background, adaptation strategies and challenges in two Vietnamese cities are analyzed in detail, namely Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho. The paper thereby combines a review of formalized city-scale adaptation strategies with an empirical analysis of actual adaptation measures and constraints at household level. By means of this interlinked and comparative analysis approach, the paper explores the achievements, as well as the shortcomings, in current adaptation approaches, and generates core issues and key questions for future initiatives in the four sub-categories of: (1) knowledge, perspectives, uncertainties and key threats; (2) characteristics of concrete adaptation measures and processes; (3) interactions and conflicts between different strategies and measures; (4) limits of adaptation and tipping points. In conclusion, the paper calls for new forms of adaptive urban governance that go beyond the conventional notions of urban (adaptation) planning. The proposed concept underlines the need for a paradigm shift to move from the dominant focus on the adjustment of physical structures towards the improvement of planning tools and governance processes and structures themselves. It addresses in particular the necessity to link different temporal and spatial scales in adaptation strategies, to acknowledge and to mediate between different types of knowledge (expert and local knowledge), and to achieve improved integration of different types of measures, tools and norm systems (in particular between formal and informal approaches).     

History of the urban environmental imprint: introduction to a multidisciplinary approach to the long-term relationships between Western cities and their hinterland

This paper introduces a series of 11 studies on the relationships between large Western cities (Paris, London, Brussels, Vienna, Barcelona, Athens, New York, Providence) and their surrounding territories over a long historical time period. The concept of hinterland is introduced to designate a rural territory structured by its function of supplying the city with food, fuel, water and other material. The papers question the usefulness of this concept in the current globalized world, where cities are often considered as simple nodes of a network of worldwide trade exchanges, but where new citizen aspirations for reconnecting urban and rural territories are emerging.     

Search for long-term radiation trends in the environs of Swiss nuclear power plants

Annually since 1989, biannually since 1994 the sites of the Swiss nuclear facilities are surveyed flying the same survey lines by airborne gamma ray spectrometry. The equipment and the data processing software used for those surveys were built and developed at the Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich. For mapping the ground radiation around the nuclear facilities, a pixel representation and a modified spectrum dose index (SDI) method are used. In the search for long-term trends, the local dose rates are calculated first and in turn the net dose rates. So far, no change in the radiation levels was detected over the last 13 years outside of the fenced sites of the nuclear facilities and, especially, no artificial radioactivity was present that could not be explained by nuclear weapon tests or by the Chernobyl event.     

Sustainable building technology: thermal control of solar energy to cool and heat the building naturally

Environment, Development and Sustainability - A sustainable building design technology is being proposed to heat and cool inside the building naturally by using exterior curtain wall to control the...     

Green energy clusters and socio-technical transitions: analysis of a sustainable energy cluster for regional economic development in Central Massachusetts,USA

As the societal benefits associated with transitioning to more sustainable, less fossil fuel-reliant energy systems are increasingly recognized by communities throughout the world, the potential of creating ‘green jobs’ within a ‘green economy’ is attracting much attention. Green energy clusters are increasingly promoted throughout the world as a strategy to simultaneously promote economic vitality and stimulate a sustainable energy transition. In spite of their emerging role in regional-scale sustainability planning efforts, such initiatives have not been considered within the sustainability transitions literature. This paper explores the development of one such regional sustainable energy cluster initiative in Central Massachusetts in Northeastern USA to consider the potential for such cluster initiatives to contribute to socio-technical transition in the energy system. Since 2008, a diverse set of stakeholders in Central Massachusetts, including politicians, universities, businesses, local citizens, and activists, have been working toward facilitating the emergence of an integrated cluster of activity focused on sustainable energy. Through interviews with key actors, participant observation, and document review, this research assesses the potential of this cluster initiative to contribute to a regional socio-technical transition. The empirical details of this case demonstrate that sustainable energy cluster initiatives can potentially accelerate change in entrenched energy regimes by promoting institutional thickness, generating regional ‘buzz’ around sustainable energy activities, and building trust between multiple and diverse stakeholders in the region. This research also contributes to emerging efforts to better ground socio-technical transitions in geographic space.     

Wind energy in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec: conflicts and social implications

Social acceptance is fundamental, and directly affects the installation of wind farms. In this paper, the factors that have had the greatest influence on the development of wind energy in the Itsmo region of Tehuantepec, Mexico are identified. The data were collected face to face through a semi-structured questionnaire of 31 people: owners, municipal authorities, opposition groups, and academic members. The results of the interview highlight the social impact, the lack of application, and concerning ILO Convention 169, the abuse of community rights. As a result, people interviewed perceive that the environmental impact of the installation, and operation of wind farms has been ambivalent: positive due to the intrinsic benefits that wind energy generates compared to other energy sources, and negative in terms of affectation by the noise, and the landscape. However, the income received by the owners of land in which wind facilities are located is lower compared to other parts of the world. In general, the facts show a disintegration between the authorities (federal, state, and municipal), universities are isolated from wind projects, communities are not consulted in projects, and large companies are the main beneficiaries.