Experimental Investigation of an Improved Biogas Injera Baking Stove Using Conical Burner

The paper shows the process of the development of the sustainable energy action plan (SEAP) for the city of Zagreb and analysis of the interaction between measures, which are used for the reduction in energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The energy savings and CO2 reduction potential of measures are compared in a scenario and individual approach. Sectors of energy consumption listed in SEAP are buildings, transport and public lighting. The buildings sector is divided into public buildings, residential and commercial buildings. The transport sector is subdivided on public transport, public vehicles and private and commercial transport. Measures for CO2 emission reduction are selected by a discussion with relevant stakeholders and most effective measures from the previous SEAP. Mutual interaction between measures, which influences the total result of energy consumption and CO2 emissions reduction, is done through simulation in LEAP. In this way, it can be shown that measures have either synergetic, negative or neutral interaction between them. The analysis showed the negative interaction is prevailing and scenario approach resulted in 16.23% lower CO2 reduction potential than the individual assessment of each measure. It is recommended to use a scenario approach in the development of SEAP for the assessment of measures CO2 reduction potential. This will provide more efficient planning of measures for the reduction in CO2 emissions on a local level and avoid overestimating of the CO2 reduction potential when developing SEAPs.

Reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions to combat global climate change has become an international necessity. A large portion of energy consumption is attributed to old buildings, with increased operational costs and decreased occupational comfort. These buildings require renovation measures that can be viewed as an opportunity to implement sustainable construction and create traditionally designed buildings based on sustainable construction. This study proposes a combination of building information modeling (BIM) with Design Builder and Meteonorm software to evaluate the environmental impact of renovating buildings during the operational phase. The process involved is demonstrated in a case study application to a typical two-story single-family residential building in Tehran city, in which the building’s materials, weight, and volume are determined using Revit software, and Design Builder is used to simulate the renovation effect on various building components – showing that, by combining the most effective insulation, glass, heating system, and doors, a 15% reduction in energy consumption and 44% reduction in CO2 emissions could be achieved. The study significantly advances knowledge in sustainable building practices by introducing a practical framework for decision-making in environmentally conscious building renovations, focusing on such crucial elements as insulation materials, window glass types, heating systems, and door materials. It also provides valuable insights into the practical implications of weather data for accurate environmental forecasting, emphasizing the methodology's applicability and adaptability to similar contexts, as evidenced by its successful application in a real-world case in Tehran.

This paper presents the implementation of chemical enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) on the offshore platform CB22F, detailing its impact over three years and proposing improvements for future deployments. It discusses the project's effects, such as increased oil production, reduced water cut, and lowered CO2 emissions, while sharing insights for optimizing future CEOR designs on two newly sanctioned platforms. The CEOR strategy on CB22F has shown significant outcomes, demonstrated by an increase in oil production, a reduction in water cut, and a decrease in CO2 emissions. Oil production increased by 663 of barrels per day (b/d), the water cut decreased from 90% to 80.5%, reducing the volumes of water handled. This decrease in water cut lowered energy consumption for water pumping and chemical treatment costs for produced water, leading to a reduction in cost and CO2 emissions to produce one barrel of oil. The test area began showing positive effects by June 2021, with a significant decrease in water content in produced fluids in 2022 and a rapid increase in oil output. By the end of March 2024, the water cut stabilized around 80.5%, and the cumulative oil increase from the 44 effective production wells reached 3,800,000 barrels, corresponding to a 4.27% increase in oil recovery. This cumulative increase translates to 28.9 tons of oil per ton of polymer injected, indicating the project's economic viability. Building on the success of CB22F, CEOR will be implemented on two newly sanctioned platforms with designs incorporating improvements learned from CB22F's experience. Bulk polymer delivery via pneumatic transfer will mitigate hoisting risks, improve occupational health, increase offshore storage capacity, and reduce delivery rotations, thus decreasing CO2 emissions associated with logistic operations. An integrated injection system will involve a centralized polymer injection system on the main platform, facilitating efficient distribution to both main and satellite platforms. The introduction of new Conical Pressure Reducer (CPR) skids, equipped with low shear valves, will regulate injection pressure, and adapt the polymer concentration for individual wells, minimizing polymer degradation and footprint compared to conventional methods. To address higher polymer/surfactant concentrations in produced fluids, concerns regarding emulsification are being managed through the development of new, high-efficiency water clarifiers. These improvements, guided by CB22F's experience, are expected to further optimize CEOR performance and efficiency on future platforms. This paper provides insights for engineers by demonstrating a successful CEOR implementation with concrete results and data, sharing practical improvements for future CEOR designs on offshore platforms, addressing potential challenges, and proposing viable solutions. Additionally, it contributes to knowledge on CO2 reduction strategies in oil and gas production, highlighting the environmental benefits alongside the financial gains. The reduction in CO2 emissions per barrel of oil produced underscores the broader impact of the project beyond immediate financial gains, contributing to the long-term sustainability of oil production operations.

RETRACTED: Calculating potential of solar energy and CO2 emissions reduction for cityscale buildings based on 3D remote sensing technologies

Climate Change and Health: Strengthening the Evidence Base for Policy

The influence of biopreparations on the reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions in shallow and deep soil tillage

From big hands to green fingers: it is time for a change

This paper gives a brief review of energy and CO2 emissions related topics resulting from the chemical and related industries. The main issues, challenges and opportunities are highlighted together with perspectives of process alternatives for more efficient energy consumption and CO2 emission management. Analysis of the data indicate that not all available energy resources are being utilized efficiently, while the energy resources causing the largest emissions of CO2 are being used in the largest amounts. Also, the chemical and related industries are among the largest consumers of energy, indicating that solutions for reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions in these industries need to be investigated. Information on promising alternatives for reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions are collected and a selection of them are evaluated. Also, two specific case studies involving energy intensive separation operations replaced by recently developed technologies that may achieve significant reductions in energy consumption, CO2 emissions and total annualized costs are presented. Through these examples issues of energy need versus CO2 neutral design, sustainable conversion, retrofit design, and process intensification for chemical and related industries are highlighted.

The possibility of using renewable feedstocks for biodiesel production and reducing gas emissions makes it an attractive large-scale substitute to traditional fossil diesel. Although renewability is one of the main driving forces in biodiesel use, traditional production routes employ methanol as the transesterification agent, a chemical generated from fossil carbon. Aiming at further improving biodiesel’s sustainable performance, the replacement of methanol by ethanol has been proposed. Use of the ethylic production route could further reduce CO2 emissions, energy consumption and generate more jobs. The objective of this study is to unveil whether substituting methanol for ethanol does indeed result in a less carbon and energy intensive production chain while also increasing job generation and decreasing social strife. To assess production chain performance a lifecycle approach was used composed by: (i) Data assemblage from literature to represent the ethylic/methylic biodiesel systems; (ii) Construction of quantitative indicators to compare material and energetic flows; and (iii) Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for data interpretation and relevance ranking of calculated social/environmental indicators. Focus was given to CO2 emissions, energy consumption and social aspects of sustainability. Results show that use of ethanol does indeed reduce CO2 emissions, due to extra agricultural carbon sinks in the production chain but increases energy consumption and energy loss. Methanol also resulted in a chain with higher average wages, more jobs generated and less forced labor cases but with a higher accident rate and a high salary disparity. PCA showed that carbon intensity is one of the most important environmental metrics while energy consumption was considered secondary, but the high correlation between these aspects highly impact chain sustainability. PCA also greatly differentiated agricultural and industrial links of respective production chains, with industrial links being governed by CO2 emissions and process safety and agricultural links by water consumption, land use and energy loss. A distinct tradeoff was seen between environmental and social considerations of sustainability and between carbon intensity and energy consumption reductions. As a result, substitution is only justified in scenarios in which CO2 emissions outweigh energy intensity and social aspects.

The UK has been one of the few countries that has successfully decoupled final energy consumption from economic growth over the past 15 years. This study investigates the drivers of final energy consumption in the UK productive sectors between 1997 and 2013 using a decomposition analysis that incorporates two novel features. Firstly, it investigates to what extent changes in thermodynamic efficiency have contributed to overall changes in sectoral energy intensities. Secondly, it analyses how much of the structural change in the UK economy is driven by the offshoring of energy-intensive production overseas. The results show that energy intensity reductions are the strongest factor reducing energy consumption. However, only a third of the energy savings from energy intensity reductions can be attributed to reductions in thermodynamic efficiency with reductions in the exergy intensity of production making up the reminder. In addition the majority of energy savings from structural change are a result of offshoring, which constitutes the second biggest factor reducing energy consumption. In recent years the contributions of all decomposition factors have been declining with very little change in energy consumption after 2009. This suggests that a return to the strong reductions in energy consumption observed between 2001 and 2009 in the UK productive sectors should not be taken for granted. Given that further reductions in UK final energy consumption are needed to achieve global targets for climate change mitigation, additional policy interventions are needed. Such policies should adopt a holistic approach, taking into account all sectors in the UK economy as well as the relationship between the structural change in the UK and in the global supply chains delivering the goods and service for consumption and investment in the UK.

Recycling fly ash (FA) and furnace bottom ash (FBA) help with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving natural resources, and minimizing waste accumulation. However, research on recycling FBA is progressing more slowly compared to FA. This research aims to investigate the combined use of FBA as a replacement for both fine aggregate and cement and its influence on the performance of mortar. The findings indicated that incorporating 25% FBA as a fine aggregate replacement and 10% or 20% ground FBA (GFBA) as a cement replacement significantly enhanced compressive strength after 28 and 56 days. Flexural strength was comparable to control mortar at 28 days and superior at 56 days. However, increasing the FBA content beyond 25% as a fine aggregate replacement reduced workability and increased porosity, which negatively affected mechanical performance and water absorption. Microstructural analyses revealed denser and more compact structures in the mortar with combined FBA replacement for both fine aggregate and cement, specifically 25% as a fine aggregate replacement and 10% and 20% as cement replacements. Optimal performance was noted in mixtures with Ca/Si and Ca/Al ratios within the ranges of 1.8-1.5 and 0.24-0.19, respectively. Trace element leaching analysis has not shown significant differences between GFBA, FA, and OPC. Regarding environmental impact assessment, using FBA as a fine aggregate replacement did not show a significant reduction in CO2 emissions, but replacing cement with FBA reduced emissions remarkably. Generally, using FBA as a replacement for both fine aggregate and cement in mortar enhances compressive and flexural strengths at optimal levels, promotes sustainability by reducing landfill waste and CO2 emissions, and supports cleaner production practices despite some workability challenges.

Air pollution and climate change are key global challenges for cities and both have large impacts on human health and economic development. Although there are many long term opportunities to address these issues with integrated policies, the immediate needs of addressing air pollution and climate change mitigation are not the same for all countries in the short run. We examined the relationships between greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, outdoor air pollution, and levels of socioeconomic development to identify specific near-term mitigation policy responses to climate change and air pollution for countries with different levels of human development. Human development index, as defined by The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a measure of achievement in the basic dimensions of human development across countries, which combines the gross national income index, an education index and a life expectancy index (http://hdr.undp.org/en/humandev). Country-level data were collected on indicators of socioeconomic development, emissions of GHG, and outdoor levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from the World Bank, the UNDP, and the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution. Differences in GHG emissions and air pollution concentrations, as well as socioeconomic development indicators, were assessed at national, sub-national, and global scales. Countries were divided into four categories based on CO2 emissions per capita and an estimation of outdoor PM2.5: Group A was characterized by high CO2 emissions per capita and low PM2.5 concentrations, Group B by high CO2 emissions per capita and high PM2.5 concentrations, Group C by low CO2 emissions per capita and low PM2.5 concentrations, and Group D by low CO2 emissions per capita and high PM2.5 concentration. Per-capita emissions of CO2 were strongly correlated with the level of socioeconomic development, while differences in non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions per capita across the groups were not correlated. Atmospheric PM2.5 concentrations were not correlated with either CO2 emissions per capita or levels of socioeconomic development. Energy and environmental policies focused on CO2 emission reductions may not inherently lead to development pathways that sufficiently reduce population exposure to air pollution. Countries with low CO2 and high air pollution levels should pursue short-term policies to reduce air pollution and increase human development, beginning to address GHG emissions after critical human health and development needs are met.

Modeling a clean energy standard for electricity: Policy design implications for emissions, supply, prices, and regions

Global warming has been recognized as a problem requiring urgent attention. COP3, held in Kyoto in December 1997, decided that within the specified time frame of 2008 to 2102, developed countries must undertake legally binding control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions with numerical targets. For Japan, the CO2 emission reduction target is - 6% from the 1990 level. To clear the target, several countermeasures have been thought and their effectiveness must be measured quantitatively. We compared the effect of the CO2mitigation options relatively by using NIRE CO2 Emission model (NICE). NICE is a domestic energy model, which can evaluate the various scenarios about energy demand and supply. We estimated future CO2 emission of Japan in a short term until the year 2010 and in a long term until the year 2050. As for 2050-year long term, the industrial division countermeasure or the power generation division countermeasure was effective and the considerable amount of CO2emission reduction was possible. On the other hand in short term until the year 2010, it was impossible to achieve the CO2 emission reduction target committed by COP3, even though countermeasures in the industry including the power generation were applied.

Urban passenger transport energy saving and emission reduction potential: A case study for Tianjin, China