Emission reduction and profit-neutral permit allocations

The present paper addresses two policy objectives: to implement a market for pollution permits and to make regulation acceptable for businesses. Profit-neutral permit allocations are defined as the number of permits that the regulator should give for free so that post-regulation profits (i.e. a firm's profits in the products market plus the value of the allowances granted for free) are equal to pre-regulation profits. The proposed model is developed by assuming that firms use polluting technologies and compete “à la Cournot”. The paper demonstrates that a low number of free allowances is sufficient to meet these two goals. Moreover, the regulator can fully offset losses, even when the reduction in emissions is high, provided that the sectors concerned are not monopolies, both for isoelastic and linear demand functions.     

Do energy prices affect employment? Decomposed international evidence

This paper analyzes the energy price-employment nexus and contributes to the literature by showing that it is important to decompose the regulatory effect into demand, cost, and factor-shift effects. This is done by means of a cross-country multi-sectoral dataset. The results show that both rising energy prices and shadow prices of energy have no significant effect on net employment when the manufacturing sectors only are analyzed. While finding significant variations across countries, the average employment effects become significantly positive once jobs in the economy as a whole are considered. This change is driven mainly by larger positive cost effects, which more than offset the negative demand effects and reductions in the positive factor-shift effects. Moreover, the paper reveals that the often implemented approach of using a simple regulation regressor, instead of decomposing the employment effect, can result in biased estimates.     

Cumulative carbon emissions and economic policy: In search of general principles

We exploit recent advances in climate science to develop a physically consistent, yet surprisingly simple, model of climate policy. It seems that key economic models have greatly overestimated the delay between carbon emissions and warming, and ignored the saturation of carbon sinks that takes place when the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide rises. This has important implications for climate policy. If carbon emissions are abated, damages are avoided almost immediately. Therefore it is optimal to reduce emissions significantly in the near term and bring about a slow transition to optimal peak warming, even if optimal steady-state/peak warming is high. The optimal carbon price should start relatively high and grow relatively fast.     

Effects of EGR on performance and emissions of a diesel engine fuelled with balanites aegyptiaca/diesel blends

In this study, balanites Aegyptiaca (L.) Del biodiesel was blended in proportions of 10% and 20% on the volume basis with diesel fuel and tested in a single cylinder, VCR diesel engine under measured load conditions with varied EGR rates (0, 10 and 20%). The results showed that B10 and B20 blends shown a significant reduction rate in terms of NO_x emissions that were familiar with biodiesel blends. At peak load conditions, BTE increased slightly for test fuel blends compared with pure diesel fuel while the BSFC rate and EGT suffered from increasing and decreasing nature with respect to blending percentage. From the emissions point of view, with the increase in blends percentage, a significant reduction rate is observed in terms of CO and HC concentrations (up to 12.34 and 17.5%, respectively) while NOx emissions decreased at peak load conditions (up to 24.34%). HC and CO emissions decreased with increase in blends percentage. However, lower levels of NO_x and EGT (up to 21.37 and 8.47%, respectively) and the average increase in terms of BTE and BSFC (up to 2.83 and 2.9%, respectively) can be realised with B20 test fuel blend under 20% EGR rate.     

Factors influencing property selection for conservation revolving funds

Finding sustainable ways to increase the amount of private land protected for biodiversity is challenging for many conservation organizations. In some countries, organizations use revolving‐fund programs, whereby land is purchased and then sold to conservation‐minded owners under condition they enter into a conservation covenant or easement. The sale proceeds are used to purchase, protect, and sell additional properties, incrementally increasing the amount of protected private land. Because the effectiveness of this approach relies on selecting appropriate properties, we explored factors currently considered by practitioners and how these are integrated into decision making. We conducted exploratory, semistructured interviews with managers from each of the 5 major revolving funds in Australia. Responses indicated although conservation factors are important, financial and social factors are also highly influential. A major determinant was whether the property could be resold within a reasonable period at a price that replenishes the fund. To facilitate resale, often selected properties include the potential for the construction of a dwelling. Practitioners face with clear trade‐offs between conservation, financial, amenity, and other factors in selecting properties and 3 main challenges: recovering the costs of acquisition, protection, and resale; reselling the property; and meeting conservation goals. Our findings suggest the complexity of these decisions may constrain revolving‐fund effectiveness. Drawing from participant responses, we identified potential strategies to mitigate these risks, such as providing adequate recreational space without jeopardizing ecological assets. We suggest managers could benefit from a shared‐learning and adaptive approach to property selection given the commonalities between programs. Understanding how practitioners deal with complex decisions in the implementation of revolving funds helps identify future research to improve the performance of this conservation tool.     

Use of genetic,climatic, and microbiological data to inform reintroduction of a regionally extinct butterfly

Species reintroductions are increasingly used as means of mitigating biodiversity loss. Besides habitat quality at the site targeted for reintroduction, the choice of source population can be critical for success. The butterfly Melanargia russiae (Esper´s marbled white) was extirpated from Hungary over 100 years ago, and a reintroduction program has recently been approved. We used museum specimens of this butterfly, mitochondrial DNA data (mtDNA), endosymbiont screening, and climatic‐similarity analyses to determine which extant populations should be used for its reintroduction. The species displayed 2 main mtDNA lineages across its range: 1 restricted to Iberia and southern France (Iberian lineage) and another found throughout the rest of its range (Eurasian lineage). These 2 lineages possessed highly divergent wsp alleles of the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia. The century‐old Hungarian specimens represented an endemic haplotype belonging to the Eurasian lineage, differing by one mutation from the Balkan and eastern European populations. The Hungarian populations of M. russiae occurred in areas with a colder and drier climate relative to most sites with extant known populations. Our results suggest the populations used for reintroduction to Hungary should belong to the Eurasian lineage, preferably from eastern Ukraine (genetically close and living in areas with the highest climatic similarity). Materials stored in museum collections can provide unique opportunities to document historical genetic diversity and help direct conservation.     

Sources of underground CO: Crushing and ambient temperature oxidation of coal

As a harmful gas in underground coal mine, CO seriously threatened the safety of miners. Currently, the spontaneous combustion of residual coal in goaf is generally considered as the main source of underground CO. CO gas is also widely used as an indicator gas in fire prediction in mines. However, high concentrations of CO are also detected in some mines without spontaneous combustion of coal. Therefore, in the paper, with four ranks of coal, we studied other two potential CO sources: crushing and oxidation at ambient temperature. The more completely crushed coal produces more CO. The concentration of generated CO is inversely proportional to moisture content in coal. Therefore, the addition of water can inhibit the generation process of CO during the crushing process of coal. Lignite with low metamorphic grade can be oxidized to produce CO at ambient temperature (25 °C), and anthracite with high coal rank can be only oxidized to produce CO at 60 °C. Infrared spectra indicated that the coal with rich aliphatic hydrocarbons and oxygen-containing functional groups are more susceptible to oxidation at room temperature. Moreover, the smaller particle size of coal is more beneficial to the oxidation at ambient temperature to generate CO. CO generation during coal oxidation is also closely related to the ventilation rate.     

Quantifying progress toward a conservation assessment for all plants

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) set an ambitious target to achieve a conservation assessment for all known plant species by 2020. We consolidated digitally available plant conservation assessments and reconciled their scientific names and assessment status to predefined standards to provide a quantitative measure of progress toward this target. The 241,919 plant conservation assessments generated represent 111,824 accepted land plant species (vascular plants and bryophytes, not algae). At least 73,081 and up to 90,321 species have been assessed at the global scale, representing 21–26% of known plant species. Of these plant species, at least 27,148 and up to 32,542 are threatened. Eighty plant families, including some of the largest, such as Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, and Rubiaceae, are underassessed and should be the focus of assessment effort if the GSPC target is to be met by 2020. Our data set is accessible online (ThreatSearch) and is a baseline that can be used to directly support other GSPC targets and plant conservation action. Although around one‐quarter of a million plant assessments have been compiled, the majority of plants are still unassessed. The challenge now is to build on this progress and redouble efforts to document conservation status of unassessed plants to better inform conservation decisions and conserve the most threatened species.     

三子汤对水丝蚓铅污染的保护作用研究

为了研究三子汤对铅胁迫下水丝蚓抗氧化酶的保护作用,以探索中药抗重金属污染的特性,采用室内急性毒性的试验方法测定了不同质量浓度的铅离子对水丝蚓6 h、12h、24 h的半致死浓度分别为2. 50 mg/L、2. 00 mg/L、1. 25mg/L;测定了三子汤对水丝蚓的6 h、12 h、24 h半致死浓度分别为45 g/L、24. 75 g/L、22. 50 g/L。然后在反应体系中加入不同质量浓度的三子汤,测定不同质量浓度的三子汤对铅胁迫水丝蚓的SOD酶活性的影响,与未加入三子汤的铅胁迫水丝蚓的SOD酶活性进行检测。结果显示,铅胁迫的水丝蚓体内SOD酶活性为0. 087 U/g;加入1/4致死浓度三子汤的水丝蚓体内SOD酶的活性降低至0. 048 U/g;加入半致死浓度三子汤和1/8致死浓度三子汤的水丝蚓体内的SOD酶活性分别为0. 068 U/g和0. 058 U/g;对照组水丝蚓体内的SOD酶活力为0. 047 U/g。研究表明,1/4致死浓度的三子汤对铅胁迫的水丝蚓有明显的保护作用。     

采空区注超临界CO2防灭火试验研究

为研究超临界CO₂注入采空区防灭火的规律,自主研制了产生超临界CO₂和模拟采空区遗煤自燃升温试验系统,得到了不同温压条件下超临界CO₂注入采空区前后不同监测点的温度、O₂和CO浓度变化数据信息。试验结果表明:注入采空区的超临界CO₂发生相变,有序结构急速失序,大量吸收热量,采空区内的煤体、空气温度随时间呈线性快速下降规律,其降温能力是气态N₂的10倍;超临界CO₂在自燃发火煤体中的强渗透扩散特性,使自燃煤体快速惰化,防灭火效率高;停止注入后,小范围回温符合反二次函数特征;高压力超临界CO₂相对于低压条件,防灭火性能更佳;超临界CO₂是1种降温降氧能力显著,且输送性能优良的采空区新型防灭火材料,超临界CO₂防灭火效果优于气态N₂。