Commuting lives: children's mobility and energy use

Globally, the issue of energy use and climate change is at the forefront of many national and international agendas, and also an issue central to children's lives and well-being. This paper examines how children are both affected by and contribute to the problems associated with unsustainable energy use as it relates to the growth of car dependent lives. The paper presents the findings of a study of travel as it relates to the everyday lives of children in the city of Dunedin in New Zealand. The study found that children currently lead complex car dependent lives. This extensive car reliance presents a serious and largely unrecognised challenge to the sustainable planning and management of the urban environment. The move towards more sustainable transportation can bring benefits for both the environment and for children's lives.     

苏里格气田试气队伍节能减排工作现状及改进建议

苏里格气田试气队伍因涉及数家企业单位,节能减排工作有其特殊性和复杂性。通过调查试气过程中的排污状况,分析了其节能减排工作中出现的几个问题,如计量粗放、管理薄弱、措施简单等,提出了健全管理制度,完善计量系统,鼓励技术研究,加强自主创新,创建统一平台,依靠丙方监管等措施,以促进其节能减排工作健康有序地发展。     

曙光油田节能减排现状调查及对策研究

曙光采油厂随着超稠油的不断开发,生产能耗也随之增加,通过开展节能减排及节能挖潜工作,全厂能耗增长状态得到了良好的控制,能耗总量由2005年的58.21×10~4t标煤下降到2008年的47.75×10~4t标煤;原油(气)液生产单位综合能耗为52.02 kg标煤/t,同期对比减少0.38 kg标煤/t;生产系统运行效率不断提高。文章详细介绍了曙光油田从机采系统、热注系统、集输系统等方面推广应用节能新技术、新产品,达到其投资和运行费用最少,经济性较好,对油田减排挖潜进行了探讨。     

Technological Progress, Structural Change and China＇s Energy Efficiency

China has witnessed rapid economic development since 1978, and during the time, energy production and consumption developed at a tremendous speed as well. Energy efficiency which can be measured by energy consumption per unit of GDP, however, experienced continuous decrease. Theoretically, the change of energy efficiency can be attributed to industry structural change and technological change. In order to explain the transformation of Chinese energy efficiency, we adopt logarithmic mean Divisia index techniques to decompose changes in energy intensity in the period of 1994-2005. We find that technological change is the dominant contributor in the decline of energy intensity, but the contribution has declined since 2001. The change in industry structure has decreased the energy intensity before 1998, but raised the intensity after 1998. Decomposed technological effects for all sectors indicate that technological progresses in high energy consuming industries such as raw chemical materials and chemical products, smelting and pressing of ferrous metals, manufacture of non-metallic mineral products and household contribute are the principal drivers of China＇s declining energy intensity.     

Analysis of the Energy Embodied in Foreign Goods Trade of China

In recent years, scientists have been increasingly interested in the energy embodied in traded goods among countries. In this article, the direct energy intensities in various economic sectors of China were calculated with the data of energy consumption and output value of each sector, and the input-output table was used to estimate the external energy consumption. The total energy intensity of all sectors was then obtained. From the data of international trade, the energy embodied in goods trade of China was estimated for the period of 1994-2001. During this period, the average energy intensity of imported goods was always higher than that of exported ones. As a country with a surplus in international goods trade, China actually imported net embodied energy in the past few years. The net embodied energy imported was at the same magnitude of the imported energy in the form of fossil fuels.     

Environmentally compatible energy resource production—consumption pattern (case study: Iran)

Like all rapidly developing countries, the government of Iran (GOI) has to integrate environment priorities into its energy sector. In order to integrate environmental concerns into energy sector, an Energy-Environment Review (EER) may be considered as the mainstreaming tool capable of examining the interface between energy and the environment. The results of the EER should be interpreted, in the light of the objective of the 4th Five Year Development Plan in Iran, to achieve fast and sustainable growth and accelerate the transition to a market economy. In particular, the suggested actions will promote economic efficiency use of energy resources through a proper allocation of scarce resources, including environmental resources, so as to achieve economic efficiency and environmental and social protection. This paper comprises: (A) an analysis of the current situation with regards to energy production and consumption; (B) an evaluation of the growth prospects with regard to energy production and consumption; (C) the identification of environmental issues induced by the generation and use of energy and estimation of the associated costs of damages; (D) the evaluation of the extent of contribution to the climate-change phenomenon through emission of greenhouse gases; (E) the evaluation of the proposed mitigation measures for the previously identified environmental problems; and (F) conclusions and recommendations. The EER-Iran assessed the total health damage from air pollution in 2001 at about 56  ×  10¹² Rials (US $ seven billion); equivalent to 8.4% of nominal GDP. In the absence of the price reform and control policies, the EER-Iran estimated that the damage in Iran in the money of 2001, will grow to 155  ×  10¹² Rials (US $ nine billion) by 2019. This is equivalent to 10.9% of nominal GDP, i.e., a large percentage of a larger GDP. Of this total, 107  ×  10¹² Rials (US $ 8.4 billion) come from transport sector. The damage cost to the global environment from the flaring of natural gas, assessed on the basis of a carbon price of US $ 10/ton CO₂, is found to be approximately US $ 600 million per year. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Social Acceptability of Water Resource Management: A Conceptual Approach and Empirical Findings from Portland,Oregon1

Abstract: Surface water resources in urban areas serve multiple functions ranging from recreation to wildlife habitat. As a result, diverse values influence people’s views about resource protection, potentially leading to conflicting interests. In metropolitan Portland, Oregon, natural resource planning has recently focused on habitat restoration as well as stormwater and pollution mitigation, especially through the protection of riparian areas. Due to opposition over proposed regulations in the study region, this research examines public attitudes about an array of resource management efforts. The primary research question is: what is the extent of positive–negative attitudes about water resource protection, and what theoretical dimensions underlie diverse judgments? After empirical survey results are presented, I outline a conceptual approach for future assessments of environmental attitudes while highlighting important value‐based dimensions of judgments. Although flexible, the framework allows broad comparisons to advance knowledge about the social acceptability of varied water resource management approaches across diverse places and contexts.     

铁路运输传爆药安全性评价

通过对现有传爆药安全性综合评价方法和装载加固评价方法进行改进,建立导弹铁路运输安全评价模型,运用改进型安全评价方法计算出导弹运输实际现实危险度。通过重大事故后果模拟法对运输过程中存在的最大量危险源进行分析、模拟,得出发生事故后产生的对人、物的危害范围。运用装载加固安全评价方法对装载加固方案进行评价,从而得知铁路运输导弹的危险综合程度,该评价模型可为铁路运输部门危险货物运输安全评价提供参考。     

中国区域能源、经济与环境耦合的动态演化

文章全面解析了系统耦合机制,以此为基础构建了能源、经济与环境三系统耦合模型,测算了1995—2014年中国四大区域三大系统间的耦合协调水平,并从时空两个维度对区域三系统交互关系的变化特征以及差异做出了全面讨论。结果表明,1各省区经济和环境综合指数呈持续上升的良好态势,而能源综合指数在小幅波动中保持了较为稳定的发展状态,同时三者关系极为密切,具体表现为三类指数的变动具有显著的相关性。2三系统交互作用的耦合度均保持不断递增的演化趋势,但绝对水平较低,且区域间差异较为明显,整体上呈现由东到西递减态势。3三系统的耦合变化与能源-经济、能源-环境和经济-环境三类二元系统的协调发展具有密切的相关性。4在探索三系统耦合协调的持续发展路径时,需重点引导三系统打破固有束缚,通过有秩序的相互配合产生单个系统所不具备的发展能力。而从现实状态看,在当前面临经济下行、资源环境不可持续以及区域发展差异扩大等问题的严峻挑战,各省区需结合本区域实际发展状况和比较优势制定发展规划。东部需以雄厚的经济实力为基础强化技术创新,以带动能源高效利用和环境保护;中部和东北需调整能源消费结构并提高能源利用效率;西部则应将重点放在绿色发展和防范环境风险两方面。     

电网发展、清洁电源接入与地区能源效率

鉴于我国已经建成全球规模最大的超高压和特高压电网,彻底弥补了电力跨区配置的电网基础设施短板,并且为清洁电源并入电网和跨区消纳提供了完善的基础设施,不仅克服我国电力负荷中心和能源基地的区域布局不协调,而且有益于缓解日益严峻的能源利用率低下和环境污染问题。本文利用1991—2012年全国29个省市面板数据实证研究了清洁电源并网对地区全要素能源效率的影响。为保证实证结果稳健性分别在线性和非线性实证框架下采用系统广义矩估计(SYS-GMM)和面板平滑转换模型(PSTR)两种方法估计了清洁电源接入高压、超高压和特高压电网的地区全要素能源效率异质性效应。实证结果显示:(1)我国电网基础设施对地区全要素能源效率具有明显的增进效应,特别是超高压电网在促进全要素能源效率提升上表现的最为突出,在特高压骨干网架尚未形成的情况下起到了支柱性作用。(2)高压、超高压、特高压与清洁电源交互项的估计系数始终位于负数区间,反映清洁电源并网的能源效率绩效并不明显,受限于并网规模和机制缺陷,还没有发挥出全要素能源效率提升作用。(3)随着人均GDP的不断提高,各等级电网对地区能源效率的益处越来越明显,并且存在着门槛效应。(4)特高压电网对地区能源效率的积极作用主要表现在东部沿海高收入省份,这些省份作为电力消费负荷中心,大规模接入清洁电源对能源效率改善裨益明显。接下来,需要根据地区的能源禀赋结构选择清洁电源的并网模式,完善的电网基础设施、合理的电源结构还需要配置以高效的清洁电源并网机制才能不断增进地区全要素能源效率。