Renewable Energy to Cover Losses at HV/MV Substations

PurposeThis research paper aims to examine the asymmetric impact of income and price on household consumption of kerosene in Cameroon.Design/methodology/approachThe methodological approach consists of testing for stationarity using the augmented Dickey–Fuller and Andrews and Zivot tests, determining cointegration using nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) test approach and finally examining asymmetry using the Wald test.FindingsResults of the stationarity tests reveal that variables are all integrated of order less than two I(2). The NARDL approach indicates that the (positive and negative) income shock and the positive price boom negatively influence consumption in the long- and short-run. The same is true for the negative price shock, but the latter remains insignificant. Furthermore, the Wald test carried out in the study confirms that the cumulative effects of the positive and negative income and price shocks are asymmetric.Originality/valueThe increase in the price of kerosene due to the lifting of subsidies has led to a decrease in household consumption and an unfortunate increase in the loss of tree cover in Cameroon. According to the results, this phenomenon will persist even if the price is reduced. Actions aimed at reducing its production at the expense of liquefied petroleum gas, electricity and renewable energy should be encouraged to limit the loss of vegetation cover. Thus, this study could contribute to solving the problem of deforestation and desertification in Cameroon.

In Mali, approximately 92% of household and small industry energy needs are met with wood and charcoal. In peri-urban regions, where small farmers supply cities with food products, wood resources are especially over-exploited. Bamako, Mali’s capital, has doubled in size in the past 20 years, and has placed a huge strain on the wood resources of this area. Loss of vegetation cover, leading to desertification in a country that is already one-third desert, is a major problem in this area. Biogas offers one possible solution to this energy problem in farming regions, since it converts livestock waste into a combustible gas, and also produces high-quality fertilizer. However, prior to this project most efforts to promote biogas systems have failed. This was primarily because these biodigestor models were made of metal, which requires skilled metalworkers and access to electricity to operate the tools, needed to produce them. In addition, the metal would rust in due to the wet weather. The government has made numerous efforts to address the situation since 1970, but these projects were not well coordinated. In 1990, the government formulated a new, National Domestic Energy Strategy, and gained international financial backing. It is in this context that the Mali Folkecenter, an offshoot of the Danish renewable energy organization called the Folkecenter, began its biogas project

14 - Graphene-based polymer composites for photocatalytic applications

Angela Merkel received her degree in physics from the University of Leipzig and her Ph.D. from the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences, in East Berlin. Since 1990, she has been a member of the German Parliament, and since 1994, she has been the Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. She is the author of Der Preis des Uberlebens. Gedanken und Gesprache uber zukunftige Aufgaben der Umweltpolitik (Deutsche Verlangsanstalt, Stuttgart, 1997). ![Figure][1] G lobal change is creating enormous challenges for humanity. The world's population is expected to grow from nearly 6 billion today to 8.5 billion by the year 2025. Global energy requirements will continue to increase. The newly industrialized countries of Asia and Latin America are experiencing very rapid economic growth that is bringing modern society's environmental problems, including air and water pollution and waste problems, to wider areas of the globe. The ecological problems caused by human economic activity are worsening and taking on global dimensions. Climate change, ozone-layer depletion, and loss of forest cover are important examples. At the same time, social conditions continue to worsen in many developing countries. It is estimated that more than 1 billion people now live in poverty without sufficient food, adequate educational opportunities, or any possibility of political participation. Although financial and economic markets are becoming more and more interconnected and we like to think in terms of a “global village,” our efforts to enshrine environmental protection and development as the common task and responsibility of all countries have just begun to make headway. The key aim for the 21st century is “sustainable development,” which the international community embraced at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development. Sustainable development seeks to reconcile environmental protection and development; it means nothing more than using resources no faster than they can regenerate themselves, and releasing pollutants to no greater extent than natural resources can assimilate them. If we are to move toward sustainable development, the industrialized countries will have to accept special responsibility—not only because of their past ecological sins, but also because of their present technological know-how and financial resources. Yet, one must keep in mind that sustainable production and consumption involve not merely technical progress, but also cultural patterns of individual behavior and values. The German government has chosen the socio-ecological market economy (okologische und soziale Markwirtschaft) as the framework for shaping production and consumption in keeping with sustainable development, while at the same time encouraging innovation in industry and society. The key is to sever the traditional link between economic growth and the consumption of resources, which increasingly threatens the natural basis for life and the preservation of natural and landscape diversity. There are several possible ways to achieve environmental compatibility in lifestyles and economies. Technical and scientific innovations provide excellent prospects for environmental protection. As we approach the end of the 20th century, industrial society is becoming a knowledge-based society. It is vital that we use our growing knowledge and capabilities responsibly, and that we use them in the interest of environmentally appropriate development. Science must play an important role in the pursuit of sustainable development, especially in the following categories: ![Figure][1] Energy use. The key technologies of sustainable development include new energy and propulsion technologies that will help reduce emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases. Simply to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations at twice their preindustrial levels, we will have to reduce current global greenhouse emissions by over 50%. Germany has set a goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 25% by the year 2005, with respect to the 1990 level. Achieving this goal involves focusing on improved thermal insulation in buildings, on the use of heat/power cogeneration, and on efficient support for the use of renewable energies. Currently the most progress is found in the area of wind energy; in the medium term, the use of solar energy, with photovoltaic technology, will continue to grow in significance. An honest consideration of our options indicates that we cannot afford to discontinue peaceful use of nuclear energy. Closure of substance cycles. Modern microsystems and control technologies are also providing new opportunities to design environmentally friendly production processes. While filter and wastewater-treatment technologies have considerably enhanced air and water quality in recent years, they are never more than the second-best solution, and have been surpassed by integrated environmental technology, that is, technology that optimizes the use of materials and energy. This involves material-efficient, energy-efficient production processes as well as the manufacture of environmentally compatible products, especially those that generate little waste. We have created the necessary framework for this with the Closed Substance Cycle and Waste Management Act, which came into force in 1996. Instruments such as eco-audits, which help identify the saving potentials from environmental protection investments, also promote development of such “clean” technologies. Environmentally compatible mobility. Environmentally compatible traffic concepts are a particularly important category for innovation. In Germany, the automobile industry now accounts for about 20% of all industrial investments in research and development. “Three-liter cars” (that is, cars consuming less than 3 liters of gasoline per 100 km), natural-gas engines, electric cars, hydrogen engines, and fuel-cell engines can all play a role in eliminating motor-vehicle emissions. Telematics can enable traffic to move more efficiently. Information and communication technologies can eliminate the need for physical transports in some areas, and computerized logistics in goods transports can reduce total transport distances. Biotechnology. Biotechnology is expected to bring important advances in medical diagnosis and therapy, in solving food problems, in energy saving, in environmentally compatible industrial and agricultural production, and in specially targeted environmental protection projects. Genetically altered microorganisms can break down a wide range of pollutants by being used, for example, in bio-filters and wastewater-treatment facilities, and in the clean-up of polluted sites. Genetically modified organisms can also alleviate environmental burdens by reducing the need for pesticides, fertilizers, and medications. Sustainability, as a strategic aim, involves optimizing the interactions between nature, society, and the economy, in accordance with ecological criteria. Political leaders and scientists alike face the challenge of recognizing interrelationships and interactions between ecological, economic, and social factors and taking account of these factors when seeking solution strategies. To meet this challenge, decision-makers require interdisciplinary approaches and strategies that cut across political lines. Environmental discussions must become more objective, and this includes, especially, debates about the risks of new technologies, which are often ideologically charged. In light of the complex issues involved in sustainable development, we need clearer standards for orienting and assessing our environmental policies. In this context I consider the current work on indicator models as a means to assess and monitor the success of sustainability strategies, to be of great significance. Sustainable development can succeed only if all areas of the political sector, of society, and of science accept the concept and work together to implement it. A common basic understanding of environmental ethics is needed to ensure that protection of the natural foundation of life becomes a major consideration in all political and individual action. A dialogue among representatives of all sectors of society is needed if appropriate environmental policies are to be devised and implemented. In the long term, “progress” works against us if it continues to be detrimental to nature. This realization will find increasing acceptance. Environmental protection will play a central role in the 21st century and will be a major challenge for politicians and scientists alike. [1]: pending:yes

The impact of climate change on our society is both real and immediate. With rising sea levels, ocean acidification, loss of arctic ice cover, record high temperatures, and severe and lengthening droughts, ignoring CO2 emissions is a risk that we simply cannot afford to take. To combat climate change, we seek ways to both reduce and remediate anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. For example, one method of reducing atmospheric CO2 emissions is utilizing clean, renewable energy to electrochemically convert the effluent from carbon-intensive processes such as steel mills and cement factories into a more reactive form of carbon. The resulting reactive form of carbon can then be used as a feedstock to existing industrial hydrocarbon syntheses, preventing the CO2 from otherwise venting into the environment and providing a source of valuable raw materials. Traditionally, the electrochemical reduction of CO2 has required an overpotential on the order of 1.0 V to run efficiently owing to a very high-energy barrier intermediate. In 2011, Dioxide Materials developed an ionic liquid-based helper catalyst that greatly lowered the overpotential required for electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO with high selectivity1. 3M subsequently partnered with Dioxide Materials in a joint effort, largely funded by ARPA-e, to further develop this nascent technology into an industrial-scale process with the ultimate goal of finding less expensive routes of producing carbon-based fuels from CO2. This collaboration so far has yielded three different electrolyzer cell designs: an all liquid-based cell; an all solid-state (gas phase products and reactants) cell; and a hybrid liquid/solid design. The solid state cell provides a number of advantages over the liquid cell, primarily owing to the reduced device complexity and thus lower overall operating costs; however, liquid-phase CO2 reduction products (such as formic acid) are more difficult to isolate in such a system. Each cell design has been tested in a number of configurations, including constant-current and constant-voltage, using a variety of ionic liquids and operating conditions, including liquid and gas flow rates, temperature, and electrolyte pH. It was found that the product selectivity of the output gas stream depends upon all of these conditions. Initially, our liquid-based cell gave us the best overall performance in terms of both selectivity and current density, achieving >99% CO selectivity (with H2 being the dominant side product) at a current density of 50 mA/cm2. However, performance degradation was a serious drawback owing to a number of design challenges. A follow-up study to the initial report on ionic liquid helper catalysts from Rosen et al. found that the ionic liquid anion (tetrafluoroborate in this case) played an important role in the overall product selectivity and faradaic conversion efficiency of the device2. While 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMIM-BF4) showed excellent results at suppressing water electrolysis, we found that BF4 - readily hydrolyzed under standard operating conditions yielding HF acid which severely corroded the current collectors in the liquid cell design. Utilizing an alternative ionic liquid such as EMIM-Cl exhibited similar results at water electrolysis suppression, giving high selectivity; however, the Cl- anion was easily oxidized at the anode, yielding Cl2 gas, resulting in a sharp pH gradient across the cell and a steady loss of selectivity over time. More recently, we have made substantial progress on our solid-state design and have achieved >90% CO selectivity for more than 23 hours of continuous operation which represented a major breakthrough for the project (see Figure 1). The realization of this design required the fabrication of new materials which will be discussed in greater detail in our presentation. Our report will focus on our efforts at optimizing cell design and operating conditions in order to maximize CO production at a high selectivity and low cell voltage. Included will be a discussion of studies into ionic liquid anion effect, pH dependence, and catholyte and anolyte flow conditions on device performance. Acknowledgement. The information, data, or work presented herein was funded in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-e), U.S. Department of Energy, under Award Number DE-AR000345. References (1) Rosen, B. A.; Salehi-Khojin, A.; Thorson, M. A.; Zhu, W.; Whipple, D. T.; Kenis, P. J. A.; Masel, R. I. Science., 2011 , 334, 643. (2) Rosen, B. A.; Zhu, W.; Kaul, G.; Salehi-Khojin, A.; Masel, R. I. J. Electrochem. Soc. 2013, 160(2), H138. Figure 1

Most of the developed and developing countries economy is depended on agriculture. Due to variations in climate and by unsustainable land management practices in dry land environment makes the desertification. It causes the crop failures, loss of perennial plant cover, reduced woody biomass and scarcity of fuel wood etc. To overcome the desertification, it should be sustain the agriculture across the country. To enhance the agriculture sector, the utilizing of renewable energy sources came into account for irrigation and water pumping. Solar water pumping system minimizes the dependence of conventional based electricity; there is a huge scope to utilize PV pumping system for water supplies, irrigation and agriculture in rural areas. The initiation of the work is to create the awareness about the solar PV water pumping system and design analysis for irrigation at rural area based on the type of irrigation, land area and cost. Keywords: Irrigation, pump, solar, latitude, longitude, asparagus

Household biogas systems are a renewable energy technology with the potential to provide sustainable development benefits by reducing pressure on forest stocks and by shifting household time allocation towards higher value activities or long-term investments in human capital. We estimate the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of biogas expansion in Nepal using an instrumental variables approach that exploits conditional variation in access to biogas installation companies. We confirm prior evidence that biogas use significantly reduces collected fuelwood, estimating changes of approximately 800–2000 kg per year per household. We find new evidence that biogas saves time in fuelwood collection (23–47%), and results in reallocation of time away from home production and wage labor towards agricultural labor and education. We find that biogas reduced forest cover loss in the Hill region and when combined with other forest protection policies. Together the results suggest that biogas can contribute modestly to sustainable development, particularly in combination with complimentary opportunities or policies.

The political will to reduce global GHG emissions has largely contributed to increased global biofuel production and trade. The expanding cultivation of energy crops may drive changes in the terrestrial ecosystems such as land cover and biodiversity loss. When biomass replaces fossil energy carriers, sustainability criteria are therefore crucial to avoid adverse impacts and ensure a net positive GHG balance. The European Union has set mandatory sustainability criteria for liquid biofuels in its Renewable Energy Directive (RED) 2009/28/EC to ensure net positive impacts of its biofuel policy. The adoption of sustainability criteria in other world regions and their extension to solid and gaseous biomass in the EU is ongoing. This paper examines the effect of the EU RED sustainability criteria on the availability of biomass resources at global and regional scale. It quantifies the relevance of sustainability criteria in biomass resource assessments taking into account the criteria's spatial distribution. This assessment does not include agricultural and forestry residues and aquatic biomass. Previously unknown interrelations between sustainability criteria are examined and described for ten world regions. The analysis concludes that roughly 10% (98.5 EJ) of the total theoretical potential of 977.2 EJ occurs in areas free of sustainability concerns.

This study examines the impact of entrepreneurship and renewable energy on environmental indicators across 89 countries from 2006 to 2020. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach, we find that entrepreneurship consistently reduces CO2 emissions and tree cover loss across all income groups. However, effects on service, agricultural, industrial emissions and PM2.5 exposure vary significantly by economic background. Integrating renewable energy into entrepreneurial ventures generally reduces CO2 emissions, enhancing environmental sustainability. The impact on agricultural emissions varies by income group, indicating a context-specific interplay. The study emphasizes the need for tailored policies considering unique regional economic and environmental contexts to foster sustainable entrepreneurship.

Land cover changes and hydropower in Bhutan: Analyzing trade-offs in economic and ecosystem impacts

Background : This study is the first step of a project addressing the under-researched human-nonhuman primate competition for forest resources. Methods : Ethnobotanical surveys conducted in Lukafu and Mulenga, two villages adjacent to the Kundelungu National Park (K.N.P.), Democratic Republic of Congo, involved 139 purposively selected informants. With a particular emphasis on baboon ( Papio kindae Lonnberg)-edible fruit trees, we collected and analyzed information on the most utilized indigenous trees of the area. These included used parts, types of utilizations, acquisition, and perceptions of availability. Results : A total of 26 indigenous tree species, nine of which are baboon-edible, were utilized the most by respondents. Tree products are collected from surrounding miombo woodlands of the K.N.P. mainly for energy (firewood and charcoal) supply and medicinal purposes. Of the nine baboon-edible species, four are used for two or more purposes and three do not have alternative resources. Conclusions : We conclude that the local people: (i) depend on indigenous trees, mainly for energy supply and medicinal uses, and (ii) observe a multipurpose and indispensable character, as well as decreasing tendencies in the main fleshy-fruited trees of food interest for baboons. Therefore, tackling tree cover losses in such a context implies the improvement of access to both non-wood renewable energy sources and quality health services. Towards the alleviation of the anthropogenic pressure on forests resources at the periphery of the K.N.P., two species of both multipurpose status for humans and high food interest for Kinda baboons deserve a particular attention. As an alternative to wild fruits collection, the domestication of the Wild loquat tree Uapaca kirkiana and the Monkey orange tree Strychnos cocculoides will not only improve households’ livelihoods, but also contribute to mitigating the competition for forest resources between humans and baboons. Keywords : Miombo woodlands, Indigenous trees, Wild fruit trees, Ethnobotanical uses, Kinda baboon, Human-Wildlife Conflicts, Park-adjacent Communities, Kundelungu National Park.