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Greater energy efficiency can be achieved in existing dwellings thanks to longer lifecycles, slow replacement rates, and technical innovations. Many such dwellings are located in dense urban neighbourhoods, where urban renewal projects are undertaken. Local government can encourage the setting of ambitious goals as a stepping stone to realizing energy efficiency goals that achieve high levels of energy efficiency. The research question which this paper addresses is: to what degree do local governments influence ambitions to conserve energy in existing housing sites? To examine this issue, thirty-three sites in the Netherlands were studied using a quantitative analysis. The results show that collaboration between...
The region of Valencia has a marked territorial duality: an urbanised, populated and high-income coastal line, and mountain and depressed inland rural areas. This territorial duality also derives in a functional duality, so that market and regulation drivers seem to assign rural areas specific roles for the provision of raw materials, energy, water, and the like. One of the clearest examples can be found in the design and development of the Wing Energy Plan passed by the Regional Government in 2001, which designated areas for the installation of windmills. However, this regulation has resulted in an outstanding emergence of associations that have organised at several levels (from the local to the national) as a...
Natural gas is an important energy source for power generation, a chemical feedstock and residential usage. It is important to analyse the future production of conventional and unconventional natural gas. Analysis of the literature determined conventional URR estimates of 10,700–18,300 EJ, and the unconventional gas URR estimates were determined to be 4250–11,000 EJ. Six scenarios were assumed, with three static where demand and supply do not interact and three dynamic where it does. The projections indicate that world natural gas production will peak between 2025 and 2066 at 140–217 EJ/y (133–206 tcf/y). Natural gas resources are more abundant than some of the literature indicates.
This paper estimates the social rate of return to research and development (R&D) in the energy manufacturing industry. Our model tries to quantify the positive contribution that lagged R&D has on total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the manufacturing of coal, petroleum products and nuclear fuel for a number of OECD countries. Using a panel of data from the OECD STAN database we are able to obtain results suggesting that R&D has a positive and significant rate of return that varies for each country.
Mercury contamination of wildlife populations has been documented widely in recent years as biomonitoring has become an important tool for assessing environmental contamination. Avian eggs provide an ideal assay material for Hg biomonitoring, particularly when the collection of eggs is simplified by using cavity-nesting species that nest in easily monitored nest boxes. However. studies are needed that address the dynamics of how Hg is distributed within eggs, and how Hg is deposited naturally within clutches laid by a single female and among clutches laid by different females occupying the same contaminated environment. We collected 138 eggs from 13 complete clutches of box-nesting wood ducks (Aix sponsa) during...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Mercury, bad, ban, export, good
A two-dimensional finite element model was used to simulate the groundwater recovery process under various surface mining situations. The simulation results were used to predict the rate at which soil settlement takes place. It was found that the groundwater recovery process is very fast immediately after mine closure and cessation of dewatering programmes; a significant part of mine land settlement can be measured at such times. This paper presents a method for deriving the relationship between the re-establishment of the natural groundwater regime to its equilibrium position as existed prior to the commencement of mining operations and mine spoil settlement.
Over the past several years, the State of Washington has invested substantial time and energy to streamline the environmental regulatory and permit process. The creation of the Multi-Agency Permitting Team (MAP team) pilot is one such strategic investment. The concept is based on the idea that an interagency team composed of diverse disciplines, located within one office, will experience enhanced communication, coordination, and higher-quality, more timely permit decisions. Currently, the MAP team consists of staff from five government agencies: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington State Department of Ecology, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington State Department of transportation,...
Environmental monitoring has been an ongoing activity on the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site in southeastern Washington for almost 50 years. Objectives are to detect and assess potential impacts of Site operations on air, surface and ground waters, foodstuffs, fish, wildlife, soil and vegetation. Data from monitoring effects are used to calculate the overall radiological dose to humans working onsite or residing in nearby communities. In 1989, measured Hanford Site perimeter concentrations of airborne radionuclides were below applicable guidelines. Concentrations of radionuclides and nonradiological water quality in the Columbia River were in compliance with applicable standards. Foodstuffs irrigated with...
Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships can overcome many of the problems which exist with the transfer of Environmentally Sound Technologies (ESTs) from developed to developing countries, but as yet they have not been explored in detail in the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Technology transfer is an important part of the UNFCCC, but the mechanism for achieving this is problematic. Developed countries prefer a market approach whereas developing countries tend to negotiate for direct grants. Multi-stakeholder partnerships offer a pathway through which technology is transferred and developing country capacity enhanced, while the interests of developed country private...
The technology to recover natural gas depends on undisclosed types and amounts of toxic chemicals. A list of 944 products containing 632 chemicals used during natural gas operations was compiled. Literature searches were conducted to determine potential health effects of the 353 chemicals identified by Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) numbers. More than 75% of the chemicals could affect the skin, eyes, and other sensory organs, and the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. Approximately 40-50% could affect the brain/nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems, and the kidneys; 37% could affect the endocrine system; and 25% could cause cancer and mutations. These results indicate that many chemicals used...
Building energy standards provide control over excessive use of energy in buildings, promoting energy efficiency and mitigating detrimental environment impacts brought by high energy consumption. The central objective of this paper is to develop correlations that will predict building heat gains and cooling energy consumption for commercial buildings in tropical climates. The energy performance index OTTV was first revised to obtain a new performance index, ETTV for commercial buildings. We developed new correlations to investigate the impact ventilation rates and building aspect ratios had on building cooling energy consumption. Comparing estimated and simulated results, we demonstrated good agreement, even for...
After harvesting energy from the wind for centuries, for a long period in history which started with the industrial revolution, wind power development has lagged behind due to the advent of other types of technologies based on fossil fuels and nuclear fission. It was not until the 20th century that technological developments in other fields revolutionized wind power conversion and ultimately led to modern wind turbine systems. This re-emergence of wind as a significant energy source is now encouraged by the need to meet increasing worldwide electricity demand and reduce the environmental impact caused by the conventional electricity generation technologies. Considerable progress in wind-power technology during the...
This article offers a critical review of eight tradable permit markets: water permits at Fox River, Wisconsin; the U.S. leaded gasoline phase-out; sulfur dioxide credits under the U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990; the Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM) for controlling ozone and acid rain in Southern California; renewable energy credit trading at the regional level in the United States; individual transferrable quotas for fisheries at the national level in New Zealand; carbon credits traded under the European Union-Emissions Trading Scheme; and carbon offsets permitted under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. By "critical" the article does not fully weigh the costs and benefits...
The pricing of particular fuels, such as electricity, gas and oil, should be considered in terms of the development of pricing policies for the energy sector as a whole. The pursuit of an efficient allocation of resources will require that energy prices are related to their marginal costs. This simple prescription may have to be modified to allow for the achievement of other objectives, such as profitability and income distribution.
Important policy issues concerning the mitigation of impacts from construction and development affecting wetlands are under examination by the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the Environment and Public Works Committee of the U.S. Senate, and the National Wetlands Technical Council. The issues divide into two main parts: (1) how the current strategy to simplify federal regulation of wetlands is limiting the success of mitigation; and (2) how to change the present strategy for mitigation under the U.S. Clean Water Act, if at all. Requirements for site-specific analysis of impacts and their mitigation requirements are being replaced by simple, uniform national guidelines on impact mitigation; these...
In this paper the precautionary principle is reviewed alongside the process of international implementation. Adoption of the precautionary principle is advocated to deal with energy choices as a mechanism to account for potential climate change impacts, notwithstanding the debate on scientific uncertainty on the links between solar activity, greenhouse gas concentration and climate. However, it is also recognized that the widespread application of the precautionary principle to energy choices does not seem to be taking place in the real world. Relevant concrete barriers are identified stemming from the intrinsic logic governing the hegemonic economic system, driving the energy choices by economic surplus and rent...
In this paper, I develop a model where “exploration” yields information about the size and location of the stock of an exhaustible resource. This information is valuable in two ways. First, before production takes place, reserves must be located through exploration. The process of exploration changes “unproven reserves,” which cannot be produced, into “proven reserves,” which can. One value of exploration, then, is that it allows total production over time to expand (the expansion effect). Second, by exploring in an early time period, a producer gains information about the true stock size prior to making a decision about how fast to exploit reserves. With better information, the extraction rate chosen by the producer...
Issues related to energy saving and pollution reduction are closely related. Their importance has increased in recent years and presents considerable academic and industrial challenges. They generally represent complex tasks of a considerable scale and comprehensive interactions. The methodology and concepts of Process Integration have been developing over last thirty years [1] and have been considerably expended to tackle these problems [2]. International conferences provide a good opportunity to review the state-of-the-art in this field. One of the most established and well known conference is PRES. The 13th Conference on “Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction...
Rapid expansion of the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry is quickly causing solar to play a growing importance in the energy mix of the world. Over the full life cycle, although to a smaller degree than traditional energy sources, PV also creates solid waste. This paper examines the potential need for PV recycling policies by analyzing existing recycling protocols for the five major types of commercialized PV materials. The amount of recoverable semiconductor material and glass in a 1 m2 area solar module for the five types of cells is quantified both physically and the profit potential of recycling is determined. The cost of landfill disposal of the whole solar module, including the glass and semiconductor was also...
Since the 1970s, Canada has formulated various strategy measures to accelerate the development of energy efficiency systems and renewable energy technologies and has made significant progress. "From 1990 to 2003, Canada's energy efficiency improved by an estimated 13%, or 883.3 petajoules, saving Canadians almost $13.4 billion in 2003 alone and reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by 52.3 megatonnes". In 2000, about 17% of Canadian primary energy supply came from renewable sources (with hydroelectric, combustible renewables and waste). Canada is a leader in devising and implementing energy options for sustainable development. However, the nation still has great scope for furthering energy efficiency and more...