A sustainable rural energy supply is one of the ways of reacting to the increasing global, national, and local environmental problems. Dissemination of biogas plants as an alternative rural energy ...

This article examines the effects of oil revenue and institutional quality on economic growth in Nigeria using annual data from 1984 to 2014. The ARDL model employed shows the existence of long-run equilibrium among oil revenue, institutional quality, and economic growth. The short-run analysis indicates that institutional quality measured by corruption index promotes economic growth, while institutional quality retards economic growth in the long run. Also, oil revenue promotes economic growth in the short run and reduces it in the long run, thereby confirming the existence of the resource curse hypothesis in Nigeria. The impulse response analyses further support the ARDL results. The article, therefore, concludes that institutional quality is important in explaining the relationship between oil revenue and economic growth in Nigeria. We recommend that the government should institute anti-corruption policies to mitigate corruption and to improve institutional quality in the country in order to ensure sustainable growth per capita, to protect existing investment, and to attract new investment in the country at large.

The design of a preheating chamber for a safe flow of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or liquid fuel in a pressurized burner is investigated. In developing economies with an incessant scarcity of coo...

The coastline rural communities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria have long suffered from the consequences of poor rural electrification, environmental degradation, and health challenges. There is an urgent need to provide an optimal sustainable and environment-friendly energy system for the coastline rural communities in Nigeria, which has the potential of ameliorating the climate change in this country. The HOMER hybrid optimization software and the estimated domestic energy demand of the coastline rural communities were used to determine the best PV solar energy system. The NASA SEE database with monthly averaged values for global horizontal radiation over a 22-year period was considered in the current analysis. The daily energy demand of a typical household in the communities was estimated for the existing energy demand (EED), future electric energy demand (FEED), and future base energy demand (FBED) scenarios as 5.640, 8.830, and 7.233 kWh, respectively. The suggested best energy system has a cost of electricity of 0.651, 0.653, and 0.674 $/kWh for the EED, FEED, and FBED, respectively. The best energy system gives the best components with an appropriate operating strategy to provide an efficient, reliable, cost-effective, and environment-friendly system. It is shown that both positive energy policies of the Federal Government of Nigeria toward renewable energy penetration and the support from the oil-producing companies toward their operational areas would see the cost of electricity being significantly reduced. It is envisaged that the implementation of the suggested energy system with other environmentally responsible interventions would support the Niger-Delta’s coastline rural communities, whose livelihoods have been impaired by gas and oil exploration, to attain their full environmental and socioeconomic potentials.

The consumption pattern in the energy sector could be modified by adopting innovative strategies on both sides of energy supply and energy demand. The energy consumption could be given a great cut by relying on research-based strategies, target-oriented investments, and modern technologies. Also an effective way to reduce the energy consumption is efficient management of energy demand, which has many implications including fair pricing. By fair pricing or fairer pricing we mean each consumer to pay according to their amount of consumption on a progressive trend—the more energy the unit uses, the more it has to pay on average. A way to get closer to fair pricing is applying the nonlinear reward functions. The present article seeks to calculate, the mean of consumption cost till the time t, and , the mean time of passing from a certain price level to the next price level of z, with as a reward process and as the nonlinear reward function.

ABSTRACTThe use of vegetable oil as feedstock for biodiesel production is controversial as a result of the challenges of a food-fuel crisis associated with the use of edible oils for biodiesel production and use of arable land for energy feedstock generation. This work, therefore, focused on the extraction of oil from non-edible seed such as sandbox seed using a solvent extraction method, evaluation of optimal conditions for oil extraction from sandbox, and testing the fuel properties of extracted sandbox oil. A Box-Behnken design of response surface methodology (RSM) with 17 experimental runs was used to investigate the optimum conditions for the extraction, and the selected variables were effective seed/solvent ratio (0.04, 0.06, 0.08 g/ml), extraction temperature (65, 60, 75oC), and extraction time (3, 5, 7 h). Selected fuel properties (specific gravity, viscosity, cloud point, pour point, density, and refractive index) of the extracted oil were determined according to American Society for Testing Mate...

In 2012, 32% of Kazakhstan’s population nationwide, including 70% of rural households, used coal as a primary source of space heating energy. Equally dramatic is the statistic that the average hous...

ABSTRACTConventional production of biodiesel employs the use of alkaline catalysts because they are cheaper and less corrosive, and they use minimal energy when compared to other acidic catalysts. Heterogeneous catalysts have also shown significant effects on biodiesel production with its ease of recovery and reusability. Three reaction variables—temperature, time, and molar ratio of alcohol to oil—were optimized for biodiesel production from milk bush oil using snail shell as a catalyst. The catalyst was prepared by calcinating waste giant African land snail in an electric oven for 3.5 hours at 900°C. Also, a control transesterification experiment was carried out using potassium hydroxide (KOH) as a catalyst. Catalyst concentrations of 3.0 wt % of calcined snail shell (CSS) and KOH were used for the transesterification of the oil. A response surface analysis of biodiesel production using CSS as a catalyst showed that all reaction variables were significant. Biodiesel yield of 81% was recorded experimenta...

An organic material is proposed as a sustainable sensitizer and a replacement for the synthetic sensitizer in a dye-sensitized solar cell technology. Using the liquid extract from the leaf of a plant called Mimosa pudica (M. pudica) as a sensitizer, the performance characteristics of the extract of M. pudica are investigated. The photo-anode of each of the solar cell sample is passivated with a self-assembly monolayer (SAM) from a set of four materials, including alumina, formic acid, gelatine, and oxidized starch. Three sets of five samples of an M. pudica–based solar cell are produced, with the fifth sample used as the control experiment. Each of the solar cell samples has an active area of 0.3848cm2. A two-dimensional finite volume method (FVM) is used to model the transport of ions within the monolayer of the solar cell. The performance of the experimentally fabricated solar cells compares qualitatively with the ones obtained from the literature and the simulated solar cells. The highest efficiency of 3% is obtained from the use of the extract as a sensitizer. It is anticipated that the comparison of the performance characteristics with further research on the concentration of M. pudica extract will enhance the development of a reliable and competitive organic solar cell. It is also recommended that further research should be carried out on the concentration of the extract and electrolyte used in this study for a possible improved performance of the cell.

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to compare gaseous emissions from the combustion of conventional fuels (methane and gasoil) and biomass fuels (wood and peat) by the application of the CFD code FLUENT software in a furnace combustion chamber. According to the results, the combustion temperature obtained for conventional fuels was higher than it obtained for biomass fuels. Results also showed significantly lower emissions of CO2, NOx, and soot with the combustion of biomass compared to the methane and gasoil, but SO2 emissions from combustion of the conventional fuels were higher than that of biomass fuels. Also, results showed that the quantity of gaseous emissions is closely related to combustion temperature, molecular structure, and fuel characteristics.