Approach for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Rail Freight Transport in Reducing Logistics Costs and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions

Online shopping habits and the potential for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from passenger transport

ConspectusGlobal climate change caused by the excessive emission of greenhouse gases has become one of the greatest threats to human survival in the 21st century. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas on earth and has brought about serious environmental problems nowadays. On the basis of the current situation, it is urgent to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emission and then achieve carbon neutrality via policy support and engineering strategies within advanced materials and technologies. Carbon neutrality requires an appropriate balance between the emission and reduction of carbon dioxide. The emission of carbon dioxide mainly comes from modern industries, and the reduction requires several steps, including capture, conversion, and application. On one hand, it can reduce carbon dioxide emission by promoting the transformation of industrial structure. On the other hand, it is necessary to remove high-level carbon dioxide existing in the atmosphere by physical and chemical methods such as adsorption capture and catalytic conversion.This Account showcases our recent progress on carbon neutrality for the reduction of carbon dioxide through capture and conversion methods within advanced materials and technologies. We mainly focus on the right side of the carbon scale and have made some advances such as moisture-swing chemisorption for carbon dioxide capture, the reduction of oxygen-containing carbon dioxide, and the photothermal catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide. Different from previous studies, our work is about developing materials and techniques for practical applications. First, we have made attempts to develop cheap sorbents with high stability and a high adsorption capacity. Second, we have reported a moisture-swing technique with the capability of directly capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by relying on the humidity variation with low energy consumption. This technique is promising for realizing real-time carbon dioxide capture and utilization, which avoids high-cost storage and transport processes. Third, our work on carbon dioxide utilization focuses on efficient conversion under practical conditions. For instance, we have developed perovskite catalysts for converting carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide in an oxygen-containing environment. Furthermore, core–shell catalysts have been reported for carbon dioxide conversion with a high selectivity of 83% driven by solar energy. In addition, practical applications of captured carbon dioxide have been explored with respect to carbon dioxide-assisted graphene exfoliation, keeping fruit fresh, and crop growth promotion with carbon dioxide gas fertilizer. A future perspective on the challenges and opportunities for carbon neutrality has been provided on the basis of our experimental studies and theoretical predictions. It is expected that this Account will promote tremendous effort in the development of advanced materials and engineering technologies toward the realization of carbon neutrality by the middle of this century.

Carbon dioxide emissions and growth of the manufacturing sector: Evidence for China

As the world’s largest emitter, China’s reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is crucial for the achievement of global temperature rise goals. In this paper, we employed input-output structural decomposition analysis and index decomposition analysis to assess the factors driving changes in China’s CO2 emissions from 2000 to 2018, with particular attention to the role of renewable energy development. Our results indicate that the slowdown of economic growth and rapid structural change, rather than the shifting fuel mix, were the major forces driving China’s recent slowdown of CO2 emissions ever since 2011. Despite the great importance attached to renewable energy development, non-hydro renewable has played negligible role in reducing China’s CO2 emissions. This suggests that China cannot simply rely on the large-scale development of renewable energies to achieve its Paris 2015 target and must make further drastic cuts that will help keep global temperature rise well below 2 °C above pre-industrial level. Major breakthroughs in scalable low carbon energy sources and technologies will be required, especially in the developing world.

The role of exogenous technological factors and renewable energy in carbon dioxide emission reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa

Driving forces of carbon dioxide emissions in China’s cities: An empirical analysis based on the geodetector method

Carbon dioxide emission are major driver of global warming and climate change, hence one should urgently reduce carbon dioxide emission to avoid the impacts from climate change. With such a worldwide problem, the regulation and generalization have become a problem. When comparing each countries carbon dioxide emission data, mankind has missed lots of omitted variables including countries’ economics status, countries’ location etc. As the world enters the era of big data analysis, this study will mainly discuss why some developing countries cannot reduce carbon dioxide emission at the same rate as those developed countries. From the dataset, the research used 12 major carbon dioxide countries all over the world including both developing and developed countries. The research first performed explanatory data analysis to check if there is any association between carbon dioxide emission, GDP per capital, and life expectancy in all 12 countries. Then, the PCA classification is adopted to classify all the selected 12 countries, and one may see all the developing countries are classified in similar area. In the end, the study performed a SARIMA time series analysis on China’s future carbon dioxide emission, and the result showed a decline trend of China’s carbon dioxide emission in the future. This research will correct the misleading idea on simply compare with countries precisely carbon dioxide emission and help to understand the tradeoffs that many developing countries face during reduction of carbon dioxide.

Reduction in fossil fuels, contributing to greenhouse gases, and improvement of air quality from vehicle emissions is of growing concern worldwide. This has led to the introduction of several binding and non-binding agreements, such as the Renewable Energy Directive to increase the renewable content of fuel for transportation, the carbon dioxide emissions standards to limit the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles and the Euro Standards to limit the amount of emissions harmful to human health in the exhaust. However, the influence of the fuel composition on hazardous exhaust emissions is a complex, and often contradictory, relationship between factors such as the fuel properties, combustion characteristics and engine load. Therefore policy implemented to improve one aspect, such as a reduction in carbon dioxide, can have a detrimental effect on another such as increased NOx emissions.This paper analyses, in a holistic manner, the impact on carbon dioxide and harmful emissions from transient compression ignition engines when increasing the renewable content of the fuel to meet the renewable energy targets. The analysis is based on a model developed from a rigorous Design of Experiment methodology used to determine the complex relationship between renewable fuel content and exhaust emissions (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides). Unlike other studies, the results were collected from a transient engine cycle, the World Harmonised Light vehicle Test Procedure, rather than steady state conditions, thus the results are more applicable to the real world.The results generally show that as the amount of ethanol is increased then the NOx and CO emissions decrease compared to current pump diesel. Increasing the biodiesel content generally increases the CO and CO2 emissions from the engine. For practical reasons a ternary blend is required to minimise the diesel engine emissions whilst meeting the UK’s future renewable content target. A blend of B2.4E10 was found to be the optimum compromise between renewable content and engine emissions. However, for this to be achieved the UK will have to invest in second and third generation ethanol.

This study aims to analyze the influence of foreign direct investment, tourism, exports, and imports on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the High-Income State, Upper-Middle Income, and Lower-Middle-Middle Income in Asia during the period of 2010 to 2019. This study uses the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) method. The results of this study indicate that Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis (EKC) is valid in the country of High Income and Upper-Middle Income. In addition, there is a non-linear relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), tourism, Export, and imports on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The interaction variables, which are a foreign direct investment with tourism and foreign direct investment with Export. Each of them is reducing carbon dioxide emissions only in high-income countries. Meanwhile, the interaction variables between foreign direct investment and imports reduce carbon dioxide emissions in high-income countries. However, it increases the carbon dioxide emissions in the upper-middle-income country

Spatio-temporal evolution relationships between provincial CO2 emissions and driving factors using geographically and temporally weighted regression model

The transportation sector is the second largest contributor to human-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A key goal of the U.S. Department of Transportation is to implement environmentally sustainable policies that can reduce carbon emissions from transportation sources. Smart growth—characterized by compact, mixed use; greater network connectivity; and environments friendly to alternative modes—may encourage reductions in vehicle travel and emissions. A better understanding of travel behavior in conventional and smart growth communities is needed to inform policies. A behavioral data set is analyzed to determine whether smart growth developments are associated with lower CO2 emissions. Sample selection models are estimated from a 2009 travel behavior survey of 15,213 households to capture the conditionality of emissions on the decision to drive (or not) by household members on a given day. Results indicated that 12% of responding households used alternative modes or did not travel from home; the rest of the sample traveled in an automobile and therefore contributed to CO2 emissions. CO2 emissions were calculated from vehicle miles traveled and the fuel efficiency of the vehicle used for specific trips taken by household members. The developed framework models whether CO2 emissions are associated with land use, sociodemographics, and preferences for adopting information technology. Tailpipe CO2 emissions are lower for households that reside in mixed land use neighborhoods with good network connections (on the order of 9%). As a long-term strategy, CO2 emissions reductions from smart growth developments can be substantial.

A study on carbon dioxide emissions of high-polymer road maintenance technology based on life cycle assessment evaluation

PurposeA program of shipment consolidation (SCL) is the purposeful intervention by management to regularly combine several small shipments so that a larger load may be dispatched on the same vehicle. SCL decisions traditionally have been based upon minimization of total logistics costs (inventory plus transportation). The paper aims to answer the following research question: given the environmental implications of vehicle emissions as a function of load weight, are the familiar SCL policies still optimal?Design/methodology/approachNonlinear expressions relating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to vehicle weight, and parameterized by trip length and average travel speed, were derived from published experimental data. Those expressions were included in a simulation model that assessed the environmental impact, in addition to the logistics cost, of the policies concerning when to release a consolidated load.FindingsFor short holding times, the quantity policy performs best in terms of both logistics cost and pollution reduction. In the case of low‐order arrival rates and long holding times, the time policy is best at reducing emissions and logistics costs. However, the best dispatch policy conflicts in terms of pollution reduction and logistics cost minimization for the following cases: moderate holding times and long holding times combined with high‐order arrival rates. In these cases, it is necessary to consider the speed of travel, trip length and unit cost of emissions when evaluating the policies.Research limitations/implicationsA carbon trading market appears to be on the horizon in several industries, which will establish a price per unit weight for CO2 emissions and make it beneficial to minimize the total cost (including emissions) of the network. This research only considers CO2 pollution, but future investigations could also consider other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic carbons.Practical implicationsSCL policies can include a “green logistics” component that is based on empirical data.Originality/valueOne undesirable consequence of transportation by truck is CO2 emissions. However, the impact can be lessened, while still emphasizing total logistics cost per load, with our simulation‐based results for shipment release policies.

A dynamic STIRPAT model used in the current study is based on panel data from the eight most populous countries from 1975 to 2020, revealing the nonlinear effects of urbanization routes (percentage of total urbanization, percentage of small cities and percentage of large cities) on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Using “Dynamic Display Unrelated Regression (DSUR)” and “Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS)” regressions, the outcomes reflect that percentage of total urbanization and percentage of small cities have an incremental influence on carbon dioxide emissions. However, square percentage of small cities and square percentage of total urbanization have significant adverse effects on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The positive relationship between the percentage of small cities, percentage of total urbanization and CO2 emissions and the negative relationship between the square percentage of small cities, square percentage of total urbanization and CO2 emissions legitimize the inverted U-shaped EKC hypothesis. The impact of the percentage of large cities on carbon dioxide emissions is significantly negative, while the impact of the square percentage of large cities on carbon dioxide emissions is significantly positive, validating a U-shaped EKC hypothesis. The incremental effect of percentage of small cities and percentage of total urbanization on long-term environmental degradation can provide support for ecological modernization theory. Energy intensity, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), industrial growth and transport infrastructure stimulate long-term CO2 emissions. Country-level findings from the AMG estimator support a U-shaped link between the percentage of small cities and CO2 emissions for each country in the entire panel except the United States. In addition, the Dumitrescu and Hulin causality tests yield a two-way causality between emission of carbon dioxide and squared percentage of total urbanization, between the percentage of the large cities and emission of carbon dioxide, and between energy intensity and emission of carbon dioxide. This study proposes renewable energy options and green city-friendly technologies to improve the environmental quality of urban areas.

Energy Benefits of Electronic Controls at Small and Medium Sized U.S. Manufacturers