Availability Of Non-renewable Resources Research Articles

Practicing Green Behaviors in the Manufacturing Sector: The Impact of Environmental Knowledge, Environmental Consciousness, Attitude, Motivation and Subjective Norm

The availability of non-renewable resources has been steadily decreasing worldwide, while the demand for energy has been increasing at an exponential rate. To address this issue, firms globally have been making efforts to acquire knowledge and implement environmentally friendly practices to ensure their own sustainability and contribute to the well-being of society. The present study seeks to assess the influence of environmental knowledge, environmental consciousness, attitude, motivation, and subjective norm on the adoption of green behavior among persons employed in the manufacturing sector in Bangladesh, a developing nation. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from a convenience sample of 262 people working in various manufacturing enterprises located around Bangladesh. The findings revealed a positive and substantial relationship between environmental knowledge, environmental consciousness, attitude, subjective norm, and employees' desire to engage in green activity. The findings also indicated that motivation did not have a statistically significant effect. The results of this study emphasize the crucial variables to consider while formulating forthcoming policies. Furthermore, this research serves as a foundation for future researchers to assess other industries and geographic locations in comparable circumstances, enabling them to make comparisons and pinpoint areas that may be enhanced.

Optimal allocation of solar and wind distributed generation using particle swarm optimization technique

<span lang="EN-US">Power demand in the current days is increasing more and more where the conventional power generation systems are failing to meet these power demands due to less availability of non-renewable resources. Hence, many of the researchers are working on the distributed generation (DG) by using renewable resources like wind and solar. The penetration towards wind, solar DG faced challenging situations during power generation due to uncertainty in the wind speed and solar radiation. Recent studies have predicted that the combination of both solar and wind can lead to better performance. However, the sizing and placement of DG systems is necessary to achieve efficiency otherwise the systems may lead to adverse effects in distribution networks. This paper introduced the solar DG, wind DG and hybrid (solar and wind) DG system. The particle swarm optimization technique is used to size and place the DG because of its parallel search capability. Also, the combination of wind-solar DG gives better DG sizing in the respective DG location. The voltage profile of these DG systems has shown better results for the efficient power system. In comparison to conventional DG systems, the suggested hybrid DG system is capable of minimizing power loss and maintaining voltage profile.</span>

Design and Development of Hybrid Converter for Marine Applications

Abstract Recently, there has been an increase in the growth and advancement of electric propulsion in marine electrical drives. A maximum amount of energy is utilized by ships for propulsion drives. To be aware of it and develop an optimized structure to improve the effectiveness of the propulsion system with power consumption is necessary. The proposed paper aims to develop a model and perform functional analysis as per the above understanding and requirements. The factors considered include greenhouse gas emissions, CO2 emissions, environmental aspects, and the availability of non-renewable resources, which leads to the introduction of renewable energy as a replacement method of power generation. For this work, two different renewable sources, such as solar and wind energy, were chosen. The combination of these two resources can manipulate the voltage and satisfy the load in a desirable way. For voltage improvement, a high gain converter with a minimal number of active and passive components is selected. This system adopts a storage system to meet the needs in the future. The inverter switches are controlled by the recommended control algorithm, which can balance and provide adequate power towards the drive by a feedback control loop. The speed of propulsion in the drive is adjusted by the induction motor coupled with the propeller. The analytical study of the proposed system is carried out in MATLAB software. The simulation study revealed the effectiveness of this modern optimization technique.

Design, Operation, Control, and Economics of a Photovoltaic/Fuel Cell/Battery Hybrid Renewable Energy System for Automotive Applications

Meeting rapidly growing global energy demand—without producing greenhouse gases or further diminishing the availability of non-renewable resources—requires the development of affordable low-emission renewable energy systems. Here, we develop a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) for automotive applications—specifically, a roof-installed photovoltaic (PV) array combined with a PEM fuel cell/NiCd battery bus currently operating shuttle routes on the University of Delaware campus. The system’s overall operating objectives—meeting the total power demand of the bus and maintaining the desired state of charge (SOC) of the NiCd battery—are achieved with appropriately designed controllers: a logic-based “algebraic controller” and a standard PI controller. The design, implementation, and performance of the hybrid system are demonstrated via simulation of real shuttle runs under various operating conditions. The results show that both control strategies perform equally well in enabling the HRES to meet its objectives under typical operating conditions, and under sudden cloud cover conditions; however, at consistently high bus speeds, battery SOC maintenance is better, and the system consumes less hydrogen, with PI control. An economic analysis of the PV investment necessary to realize the HRES design objectives indicates a return on investment of approximately 30% (a slight, but nonetheless positive, ~$550 profit over the bus lifetime) in Newark, DE, establishing the economic viability of the proposed addition of a PV array to the existing University of Delaware fuel cell/battery bus.

Novel tannin-based Si, P co-doped carbon for supercapacitor applications

Increasing environmental pollution and population compounded by a decrease in the availability of non-renewable resources and fossil fuels has propelled the need for sustainable alternate energy storage technologies particularly in the last two decades. An attempt to meet this crisis was carried out by a unique, microwave-assisted method which has enabled the generation of a novel Si, P co-doped carbon (SiPDC) for supercapacitor applications. The microwave-assisted method is useful in developing SiPDC at a rapid and economical fashion that does not employ any inert or reducing gases, but is high yielding. Varying proportions of precursor materials were utilized to generate four SiPDCs (SiPDC-1, SiPDC-2, SiPDC-3 and SiPDC-4) with varying contents of dopants as evidenced by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) results. Surface area and pore size analysis revealed that SiPDC-2 has a surface area of 641.51 m2 g−1, abundant micropores, mesopores and macropores which are critical for electrical double layer capacitance (EDLC). Of all the SiPDCs, SiPDC-2 exhibited highest capacitance of 276 F g−1 in 1 M H2SO4 and 244 F g−1 in 6 M KOH at a scan rate of 5 mV s−1. Galvanostatic charge–discharge studies performed in 6 M KOH establish the high capacitance of SiPDC-2. SiPDC-2 also exhibited excellent electrochemical stability in 1 M H2SO4 and 6 M KOH.

Microbial Fuel Cells in Waste Treatment: Recent Advances

The increasing awareness that there are limits to the availability of nonrenewable resources, as well as that there are limits to the biosphere’s ability to absorb wastes, are at the basis of the growing interest about Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) technology, with particular regards to their application to wastes treatment. MFCs, in fact, couple the direct electric power production to the degradation of organic compounds, liquid and solid wastes included. From municipal wastewater, to landfill leachate and solid waste, the application of MFCs to waste treatment achieved important results both in COD removal and power output. Unlike traditional Fuel Cells (FC), MFCs don't require chemical catalysts neither high working temperatures. Moreover, there is no net production of CO2. In the course of 20 years, the performances of MFC increased significantly and scaled prototypes were realized. The constant progresses achieved make a wide-scale application of MFC to waste treatment more reliable.

VinylPlus, the new European PVC industry’s voluntary programme toward sustainability

Over the past 10 years, the Vinyl 2010 programme has been highly effective in assisting the European PVC industry tackling various stakeholder concerns related to PVC sustainability. The Vinyl 2010 partners decided in 2009 to launch a follow-up programme, VinylPlus. Vinyl 2010’s success was to a large extent due to the close cooperation of the entire PVC value chain, and to clear targets and deadlines allowing transparent progress monitoring. These key features have been retained. Climate change and availability of non-renewable resources are now widely recognised as major challenges. Health and safety concerns about chemical substances are increasingly prevalent. In this context, a fundamental assessment of the sustainability features of PVC as material and as industry was carried out. An in-depth reflection involving scores of business managers and industry experts, stakeholders and NGOs took place. It produced collective insights and a credible pathway for progress over the next 10 years. Both the reflection process and its results are described, with particular emphasis on recycling. The issue of “legacy additives”, a potential major hurdle of recycling, is given particular attention.

Addressing Environmetal Issues for the Automotive Industry

AbstractThe integration of environmental, social, and economic (ESE) objectives into business decisions and future planning is the path towards sustainable development. The goal of this paper is to address the environmental component of sustainable development within the automotive industry based on the Life Cycle Analysis and Well-to-Wheels approach.Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is very relevant for making the concept of environmental sustainability operational because environmental impacts have to be examined from a 'cradle-to-grave' perspective. Life cycle analysis is an analytical tool that quantifies energy consumption and emissions associated with the raw material extraction, processing of materials, manufacturing, use phase, and end-of-life (reuse, recycling, and disposal) of products. The potential impact of current production and consumption patterns, on the future availability of non-renewable resources, can also be evaluated within the LCA framework. Thus, LCA provides an effective way for industry to support better management of natural resources, in order to maximize economic benefits and minimize environmental burdens.Well-to-Wheel (WtW) analysis is a subset of a complete LCA because it quantifies the environmental burdens associated only with the fuel production and its consumption during the driving time of a vehicle. Well-to-Wheel studies mainly provide energy use and air emissions inventories.This paper provides the results obtained from two major studies conducted at General Motors R&D Center. The first is a LCA study that assesses the environmental emissions associated with four alternative automotive paint processes and seven different paint formulations. The second is a WtW study that addresses 18 different combinations of alternative fuels and vehicle engines.Considering that the use phase of the vehicle contributes more than 80% of its life cycle energy consumption, and that the automotive paint process is the most energy intensive component of the manufacturing phase in any given vehicle, the results presented in this paper are noteworthy for environmental sustainability considerations relevant to the automotive industry.