Strategic Niche Management in an unstable regime: Biomass gasification in India

This paper analyses the development and implementation of biomass gasifiers in India. Based on literature reviews and fieldwork, an historical narrative is presented starting with laboratory experiments in the 1980s up to commercial applications after 2000. This narrative is analysed using the Strategic Niche Management framework. We conclude with the benefit of hindsight that technological expectations where generally too high. The biomass gasification technology is not easy to design and operate and needs to be embedded in a stable institutional set up to allow learning, knowledge transfer, regulation and funding. We also conclude that, in contrast with theoretical predictions, up-scaling the niche suffers from regime instability rather than regime stability, as there is a need to give more security to investors and end-users. For instance through setting clear and long-term condition for grid-connected biomass gasification systems and feed-in schemes. Up-scaling through local off-grid applications where enough technical competence is available is the most likely trend in the near future.     

Biomass energy experiments in rural India: Insights from learning-based development approaches and lessons for Strategic Niche Management

This paper investigates the suitability and limitations of the Strategic Niche Management framework in the context of emerging economies of South and East Asia. We explore several learning-based approaches to development projects that are part of the academic and practitioner field of development studies. The approaches show similarities with SNM but they reflect the developing-country context within which they were framed, and are also more geared towards local community development and capacity building. We apply these approaches to four biomass energy projects in rural India to identify determinants of success and failure. We then discuss how these findings compare with the insights that an SNM analysis would have offered. We arrive at the following conclusions. First, the great strengths of SNM are its explicit conceptualisation of environmental sustainability and its endogenous treatment of the larger context. Second, the learning-based development approaches hone in on the complexities of local management and stakeholder organisation. Third, they also bring out the great importance of local institutions such as traditional status and power differences. Fourth, we conclude that SNM holds considerable promise for application in a developing Asian context, but that its usefulness and relevance in that setting could be enhanced by incorporating these additional issues.     

Sustainability experiments in Asia: innovations shaping alternative development pathways?

Global sustainability is increasingly influenced by processes of industrialisation and urbanization in non-OECD countries, especially in Asia. Growth models suggest that developing economies and regions will become first relatively more resource- and pollution-intensive, before converging on more resource-efficient and low-pollution production and consumption patterns expressed in developed countries. Alternative less resource- and pollution-intensive growth models for latecomer countries promise social and economic benefits in the short- and long-term. Drawing on insights from system innovation research on long-run change in socio-technical systems, we discuss the potential role of ‘sustainability experiments’ to generate innovations that will constitute new ‘greener’ growth models. We observe a great number of technology-based initiatives that we characterize as sustainability experiments in East and South Asian countries. These experiments emerge in the context of the growth of new socio-technical regimes in key sectors, including energy, transport, manufacturing, food and the built environment. We set out a conceptual framework for assessing the role of experiments, and for evaluating how they link with and become anchored into alternative more sustainable regimes. In this paper we argue that sustainability experiments represent a significant new source of innovation and capability-formation, linked to global knowledge and technology flows, which could reshape emergent socio-technical regimes and so contribute to alternative development pathways in latecomer countries. We conclude by summarizing the six papers published in this Special Issue.     

A goal oriented indicator framework to support integrated assessment of new policies for agri-environmental systems

The goal oriented framework (GOF) for indicators has been developed as part of a comprehensive research project developing computerised tools for integrated assessment of the effects of new policies or technologies on agricultural systems (SEAMLESS-IF). The ambition has therefore been to create an indicator framework where the environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainable development can be related to each other in a consistent way. Integrated assessment tools rely on such frameworks to capture and visualise trade-offs (antagonisms or synergies) among indicators between and within the three dimensions of sustainable development. The specific aims of this paper are to (i) present the GOF (ii) present how the GOF can be used to select indicators within the integrated assessment framework SEAMLESS-IF and (iii) discuss the advantages and limitations with the proposed approach. We show that the GOF has several advantages. Its major rewards are its relative simplicity and the possibility to link indicators to policy goals of each dimension of sustainability and thereby facilitate the comparison of the impacts of the new policy on the different dimensions. Another important feature of the GOF is its multi-scale perspective, which will enable the comparison of effects of a new policy between scales. Yet, as typical for all indicator frameworks, the GOF has also biases either instigated by the issues the included models cover or by the stakeholders’ selection of indicators. However, due to the way the GOF and its indicators are technically implemented in SEAMLESS-IF, it can easily be extended and include new indicators to increase and update its policy relevance.     

Prospects of utilization of sugar beet carbohydrates for biological hydrogen production in the EU

Hydrogen can be produced through dark anaerobic fermentation using carbohydrate-rich biomass, and through photofermentation using the organic acids produced from dark fermentation. Sugar beet is an ideal energy crop for fermentative production of hydrogen in the EU due to its environmental profile and its potential availability in the area. In this work, various aspects of cultivating sugar beet in the EU for biohydrogen were highlighted, with special focus on The Netherlands and Greece. Moreover, fermentation of sugar beet juice with Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus at sucrose concentration 10 g/l was performed, and was found comparable to the fermentation on pure sucrose except that the hydrogen production was 10% higher on sugar beet juice. A conservative estimate of the annual hydrogen potential in the EU was made (300 × 10⁶ kg hydrogen), considering the utilization of sugar beet pulp in hydrogen production.     

A discussion of the potential impacts of climate change on the shorelines of the Northeastern USA

An increase in the rate of sea-level rise and potential changes in storminess represent important components of global climate change that will likely affect the extensive coasts of the Northeastern USA. Raising sea level not only increases the likelihood of coastal flooding, but changes the template for waves and tides to sculpt the coast, which can lead to land loss orders of magnitude greater than that from direct inundation alone. There is little question that sea-level rise, and in particular an increased rate of rise, will result in permanent losses of coastal land. However, quantitative predictions of these future coastal change remains difficult due in part to the complexity of coastal systems and the influence of infrequent storm events, and is further confounded by coastal science’s insufficient understanding of the behavior of coastal systems over decadal timescales. Recently, dramatic improvements in technology have greatly improved our capabilities to investigate and characterize processes and sedimentary deposits in the coastal zone, allowing us, for the first time, to address some of the over-arching problems involved in shoreline change. Despite advances in many areas of coastal geology, our fundamental understanding of shoreline change has been limited by a lack of a broad and integrated scientific focus, a lack of resources, and a lack of willingness on the part of policymakers who make crucial decisions about human activity along the coast to support basic research in this area. Although quantitative predictions remain constrained, there remains little doubt that the predicted climates changes will have profound effects upon the Northeastern coast.     

Quantification and composition of pharmaceutical waste in New Zealand

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - This study aimed to quantify the amount of pharmaceutical waste produced in New Zealand, and determine the composition of pharmaceutical waste from...     

The behaviour of selected rare-earth elements during the conversion of phosphogypsum to calcium sulphide and residue

Phosphogypsum (PG) is a large hazardous waste from fertiliser and phosphoric acid industries from which useful products including rare-earth elements (REEs) can be recovered depending on the treatment process. Its conversion to calcium sulphide (CaS) which was achieved at 95% followed by the formation of S, CaCO₃ and residue is one of the plausible treatment processes leading to economic and environmental benefits. This study aimed at monitoring selected REEs behaviour during the conversion of (PG) to (CaS). The concentrations of REEs in the raw PG, the produced CaS and the obtained residue were determined after digestion (microwave and traditional acid leaching) using ICP-OES. The effect of CO₂ and H₂S used in the process of forming CaCO₃ and S from PG on the concentrations of REEs was also investigated. Microwave digestion proved to be more effective than traditional acid leaching in the recovery of REEs. Microwave digestion using 3 mL HNO₃ + 1 mL HCl was more effective than 1 mL HNO₃ + 3 mL in REEs recovery. CaS contained the highest amount of Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Ho, Er, La and Y with values of 2646, 476, 2255, 320, 60.5, 376, 79.8, 1.24, 476, 1185 and 318 µg/g respectively. Based on these findings, the residue could be further processed to recover REEs despite less than 40% decrease in concentration for the majority of REEs observed due to the use of H₂S and CO₂. CO₂ was found to be more suitable as fewer REEs were leached as compared to H₂S. All things considered, the obtained residue could be a good secondary source of REEs as it is easier to leach, retained good amount of REEs and lesser impurities.