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Energy, environmental, and economic efficiency in fossil fuel exporting countries: A modified data envelopment analysis approach

Study on Energy and Environmental Efficiency for Coal-fired Power Units: A Non-parameter Approach

Study of energy strategy by evaluating energy–environmental​ efficiency

Recent Developments and Future Directions at Energy Policy

Due to growth of energy consumption by HPC servers and data centers many research efforts aim at addressing the problem of energy efficiency. Hence, the use of low power processors such as Intel Atom and ARM Cortex have recently gained more interest. In this article, we compare performance and energy efficiency of cutting-edge high-density HPC platform enclosures featuring either very high-performing processors such as Intel Core i7 or E7 yet having low power-efficiency, or the reverse i.e. energy efficient processors such as Intel Atom, AMD Fusion or ARM Cortex A9 yet with limited computing capacity. Our objective was to quantify in a very pragmatic way these general purpose CPUs using a set of reference benchmarks and applications run in an HPC environment, the trade-off that could exist between computing and power efficiency.

Energy and environmental efficiency evaluation based on a novel data envelopment analysis: An application in petrochemical industries

China has made huge economic achievements based on industry. Heterogeneity, resulting from the industrial structure, energy endowment, and infrastructure among regions, has always been neglected on industrial performance evaluation. This paper focuses on provincial industrial heterogeneity to make a study. Firstly, meta-frontier slack-based measure is employed to rate industrial energy and environment efficiency of China. Besides, spatial evolution characteristics of efficiencies are described by global Moran's I and local Moran's I index. Taking the spatial correlation effect of efficiency into consideration, factors driving Chinese industrial energy and environment efficiency are analyzed and distinguished by quantitative regression and spatial Durbin model. It finds that (1) technical inefficiency and managerial inefficiency mainly attribute to the inefficiency of industrial energy and environment. (2) Chinese industrial energy and environment efficiency presents a stable spatial agglomeration as "high aggregation, low aggregation." It is necessary and indispensable for provinces and regions to cooperate to enhance efficiency. (3) Each province has a distinct driving mechanism of efficiency. The improvement policy of efficiency should be diversified for different provinces.

Rapid economic growth caused lots of energy consumption and environment problems, growing researches began to pay attention to energy and environment efficiency. This study conducted a study on the spatial disparity of the regional energy and environment efficiency in China, using data envelopment analysis (DEA), we selected 30 provinces/cities in China and applied DEA model to analyze the regional energy/environment efficiency in the period of 2005 to 2010. Furthermore, the spatial analysis for the efficiency was conducted. Results highlighted that as a whole, the energy/environment efficiency in China was low. and the efficiency was decrease from the eastern to western areas. A high spatial clustering effect was identified between neighboring provinces, which presenting significant regional correlation. Finally, appropriate policy design and subsidies strategies are raised by considering the local realities.

How public environmental concern affects the sustainable development of Chinese cities: An empirical study using extended DEA models

Appropriate financing of programs, projects and other measures in the field of environmental protection, energy efficiency and renewable energy sources (RES) is one of major barriers to their realization. The existing financial sources, including state budget, local self-government budgets, commercial banks, international investment projects in environmental protection and international aid programs, are often insufficient or unattractive from the investors' viewpoint. Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund (EPEEF) is a relatively new player in Croatian investment market and it is basically first and only extra-budgetary fund dedicated to financing preparation, implementation and development of programs, projects and similar undertakings in the field of preservation, sustainable use, protection and improvement of the environment, financing in the field of energy efficiency and use of RES. EPEEF is a legal person vested with public authority in which, on behalf of the Republic of Croatia, founder’ s rights are exercised and duties discharged by the Government. EPEEF is established in 2003 according to the Act on Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund which founds its basis in Environmental Protection Act and Energy Act. It became operational in the summer of 2004. EPEEF's financial resources are secured from charges levied in accordance with the Act on EPEEF (emission and waste charges), bilateral and multilateral cooperation, revenues from management of available monetary assets of the Fund, budgets of units of regional and local self-government, in accordance with jointly defined programs and grants. Allocation of the Fund’ s resources related to environmental protection and energy efficiency is following: implementation of national energy programs, promotion of use of RES, sustainable construction models, cleaner transport, protection, preservation and improvement of air, soil, water and sea quality, moderation of climate change, waste management, cleaner manufacturing processes, protection and preservation of biological and landscape diversity, promotion of sustainable use of natural resources, sustainable development of rural areas, sustainable economic development, enhancement of the system of information, monitoring and assessment of the state of the environment, introduction of environment management system, promotion of educational, research and development studies, programs, projects and other activities. Financial resources of the Fund shall be allocated to units of local self-government, legal and natural persons, on the basis of the public invitation of applications announced by the Fund. The resources shall be disbursed as soft loans, subsidies (of interest rate), grants and financial aid. In the year 2005 it is planned to disburse almost 300 million HRK.

Prior to Mexico's entry to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), predictions of the consequent impact on the environment in that country ranged from the dire to very optimistic. This article investigates NAFTA's outcomes in terms of energy use and the emission of atmospheric pollutants. Specifically, has entry into NAFTA led to a convergence or divergence in indicators of emissions, environmental efficiency, and emissions‐specific technology in Mexico, the United States, and Canada? A battery of tests is applied to these indicators for energy use and carbon, sulfur, and NOx emissions in the three countries. The results show that the extreme predictions of the outcomes of NAFTA have not materialized. Rather, trends that were already present before the introduction of NAFTA continue and, in some cases, improve post‐NAFTA, but not yet in a dramatic way. There is strong evidence of convergence across the three countries toward a lower intensity of energy use and emissions per unit of GDP. Although intensity is rising initially for some variables in Mexico, it eventually begins to fall post‐NAFTA. Per capita emissions of sulfur and NOx also show convergence, but this is not the case for energy and carbon, and the latter variables also drift moderately upwards. The state of technology in energy efficiency and sulfur abatement is improving in all countries, although there is little, if any, sign of convergence and NAFTA has no effect on the rate of technology diffusion. However, total energy use and carbon emissions increase both pre‐ and post‐NAFTA and total NOx emissions increase in Mexico. Only total sulfur emissions are stable and falling in all three NAFTA partners.

Retrofitting strategies for improving the energy and environmental efficiency in industrial furnaces: A case study in the aluminium sector

China is experiencing a high speed economic development which may exert great pressure on the environment and energy systems. To measure the environmental and energy performance during the economic development process, this paper selected 30 provinces, cities or autonomous regions as the decision making unit (DMU), and proposed a Green GDP index (GGI) in view of energy intensity and pollution intensity using the generalized Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method, and the developing trends of integrated energy and environment efficiency of DMUs from 2006 to 2010 are also demonstrated by the Malmquist index. Results show that the integrated energy and environment efficiency varies for each DMU. GGI were both 1 in Beijing and Shanghai. GGI values for the developed cities in Eastern China, such as Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Tianjin, Jiangsu, and Hainan, ranked high, while those in the Northeast and Middle China remained relatively low. Moreover, there is a positive relationship between the GGI and per capita GDP with a correlation coefficient of 0.75. Increases in GGI are also observed in the results, representing great achievements are acquired in energy conservation and emission reduction. However, the GGIs do not converge to the green frontier across the provinces.

Energy and environmental efficiency of OECD countries in the context of the circular economy: Common weight analysis for malmquist productivity index

Energy efficiency has been the subject of discussion throughout the world, not only for optimization of process costs, but also by some crises identified in the energy matrix. On this context, a research agenda for energy efficiency can take assist effect in finding solutions to reduce energy consumption (or smart consumption) in industrial environments. Therefore, the main objective of this paper was to create a research agenda for energy efficiency in industrial environments, using, for this, systematic review of the literature as a fundamental methodology in the search for material that could enhance our understanding of the subject under study, identifying relevant texts to it. Once selected a portfolio of reading, it was possible to outline a statistical look around the literature, proposing indicators for analysis, as authors, countries, institutions, journals, keywords and topics and the development of the research agenda with major authors, themes and magazines. A research agenda on energy efficiency can be the start point for the studies of management practices focused on efficient use of energy. In this study, however, was limited to work only eitgh databases, given the importance in the engineering area.