High Energy Resources Research Articles

How to strive for balance of coastal wind energy development with waterbird conservation in the important coastal wetlands, a case study in the Chongming Islands of East China

Wind farms are a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels and may mitigate the effects of climate change. However, they have complex ecological consequences, especially their negative effects on birds. The East China coast is a key part of the East Asian-Australasian flyway (EAAF) for migratory waterbirds, and numerous wind farms have been or will be built in this region owing to high electricity demand and wind energy resources. However, little is known regarding the effects of large-scale wind farms of the East China coast on biodiversity conservation. The negative effects of wind farms on waterbirds that overwinter here could be reduced by understanding waterbird distribution and movement around wind turbines in these areas. From 2017 to 2019, we selected the Chongming Islands as our study area, which are one of the most important hot spots for migratory waterbirds of the East China coast and have sufficient wind generation potential to achieve energy sustainability, to study how to coordinate coastal wind farm development (existing and planned wind farms) and waterbird conservation (important waterbird habitats and buffer zone due to characteristic of waterbird activity). We identified four coastal natural wetlands of international importance for waterbirds according to 16 field surveys in 2017–2018. We found that over 63.16% species and 89.86% of waterbirds flew regularly across a dyke in Chongming Dongtan, where the wind farms are generally located, and used the natural intertidal wetland as a feeding ground and artificial habitat behind the dyke as a supplementary habitat for foraging and roosting. Additionally, with 4603 locations of 14 GPS/GSM tracked waterbirds (seven shorebirds and seven ducks) in Chongming Dongtan in 2018–2019, we further demonstrated that more than 60% of waterbird locations were within a distance of 800–1300 m from the dyke, and this distance could be defined as a buffer zone to protect waterbirds. Finally, we found that 67 existing wind turbines adjacent to four important coastal habitats on the Chongming Islands may influence waterbirds based on our finding of the buffer zone for waterbird conservation. We concluded that the settlement of wind farms should be avoided not only in important coastal natural wetlands for waterbird conservation but also in a proper buffer zone covering the artificial wetlands, such as aquaculture ponds and paddy fields adjoining these important natural wetlands.

Valorisation of organic fraction municipal solid waste via anaerobic co-digestion of Malaysia tropical fruit for biogas production

The acceleration of MSW generation is one of the world’s critical challenge that contributed to the serious environmental and socio-economic problems involving pollutions and shortage of waste disposal area. The population growth, economic growth and urbanization are the key contributors to the MSW generation. Precisely, organic waste is the world highest contributor of MSW compared to other inorganic waste. This massive amount of putrescible waste consumption has a great global warming potential through the unutilized methane gas released from the landfill. In this regard, the waste treatment method through energy recovery Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) via Anaerobic Digestion (AD) has become the best way to utilize the high valuable energy (methane) resource potential and sustaining the environment. Moreover, AD process could be further enhanced through co-digestion process with various of substrates. Malaysia tropical fruit are among the potential of substrate for the anaerobic co-digestion that receiving extensive attention. This short article reviewed the potential of the selected Malaysia tropical fruit residues as substrates for anaerobic co-digestion with OFMSW.

Sustainability assessment in construction industry supply network: a review

Construction industry plays important role to support human welfare by providing access for living and moving. Developed countries are characterized by having good infrastructures such as roads, bridges, office towers, residential buildings, seaports and airports. To have these infrastructures, massive construction projects must be implemented by construction industry. This industry consists of several activities such as extracting raw materials, manufacturing construction’s materials, construction projects, infrastructure operational, and after operational activities that are run by different organizations and companies. These organizations and companies configure construction industry supply networks. Despite of the positive impact of these supply networks in improving human and product mobility, these supply networks also responsible for significant negative impacts such as consuming high energy and material resources, producing greenhouse gas emission and creating waste. To monitor and maintain these negative impacts, a sustainability assessment process is required. This paper aims to review sustainability assessment process in construction industry supply networks. It was found that different indicators are required for assessing activities in each stage of supply networks.

Heat energy conversion on applied technology of geothermal energy direct utilization

Indonesia has a high geothermal energy resource, preserved in many fields. But not all geothermal fields are potential for indirect utilizations such as for electric power generation. A direct utilization of a low potential geothermal energy resource has been performed at Batukuwung geothermal field, Serang, West Java. A simple design of vegetable grain dryer has been created and constructed using galvanized metal pipes. A reduction of temperature from 63,1 degrees Celsius at the heat source to 41,5 degrees Celsius at the dryer tool through galvanized metal pipes is quite adequate for vegetable grain drying purposes. It is quite a prospect simple technology to be applied and developed in Indonesia as a geothermal energy country having various vegetable grain products from various plants such as coffee, corn, peanut and many other tropical plantations.

Impact of long-term resource variations on wave energy Farms: The Icelandic case

Four decades (between 1979 and 2018) of the wave energy resource around Iceland are analysed in the present paper via the ERA5 reanalysis, the newest reanalysis of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. While the overall long-term wave trend observed is unremarkable, particularly between the last two decades, in the northern area, near Greenland, a substantial increase of the wave energy resource is detected. In addition, an exceptional decade (between 1989 and 1998) with an extraordinarily high wave energy resource (increasing over 15% with respect to the previous decade) is observed, which emerges due to high values of the indices corresponding to teleconnection patterns, such as the Arctic Oscillation or the East Atlantic pattern. This increase of the total wave energy resource results in more frequent extreme events (up to 35% of the total resource) and, as a consequence, the exploitable wave energy (excluding these extreme events) does not increase proportionally. However, a substantial impact on WEC average power generation is observed, with over 500 kW of difference between two subsequent decades in a WEC farm of 45 devices, meaning that the analysis of long-term resource variations is crucial for an accurate design of different components in the WEC farm.

The importance of energy efficient in wireless sensor networks

Mobile Node-based routing is an efficient routing technique compared to traditional approaches. Due to this FERP majorly data isolation is provided for sensor nodes, and the network is more energy efficient. The Mobile data collector collects data from only Family heads and forwards to the cluster head. The Node level energy saving scheme is proposed in this work. The performance of this routing protocol is assessed based on Energy consumption, Throughput, Lifetime, Packet Delivery Ratio, Energy efficiency. Most of the Energy is saved due to the introducing of mobile nodes for data collection. Apart from this, we are reducing the load for mobile data collectors also. In general, mobile data collectors have high energy resources. But it is not possible in all terrains. This FERP gives better results in military and plateaus, and irregular terrains where multihop communication is complex. This work is further enhanced by Trust node based routing to improve the lifetime of the network.

One-dimensional study on gas production characteristics of methane hydrate in clayey sediments using depressurization method

As a new kind of clean and high-energy resource, natural gas hydrate possesses promising prospects in exploitation and utilization. The characteristic of gas production in clay-rich sediments need to be further clarified for developing hydrates more safely and efficiently. To study the dissociation behaviors of methane hydrates in clayey sediments, a novel pressure retention system was applied to create both confined and unconfined environments using a one-dimensional visual hydrate simulator. Two types of methane hydrate deposits were simulated, of which were characterized by excess gas and excess water, respectively. Direct depressurization results showed that in confined environment, the increase of clay content in sediments will result in the decrease of gas phase permeability and gas production rate, but have negligible effect on the final gas recovery ratio. In unconfined environment, the infiltration of overlying seawater will result in the migration of fine-grained particles and extremely low gas recovery ratio. Moreover, the build-up of vertical pressure gradient was observed due to the occurrence of sediment compaction during depressurization process in clayey sediments. It is of significance to improve the effective permeability of the reservior and suppress water seepage for exploiting hydrate safely and efficiently.

Siliceous Concrete Materials Management for Sustainability Using Fuzzy-TOPSIS Approach

Concrete manufacturing, a high energy and natural resources demanding process, can play a vital role in sustainable development by offering solutions to environmental and socio-economic issues. Concrete manufactured with siliceous materials can extend concrete life and reduce costs, and judicious management of siliceous utilization can make concrete manufacturing sustainable. A number of industrial and agro-based by-products, waste products, and new engineered materials are being use as siliceous material in concrete. The present research aims to implement the Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach, a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique, for the orderly management of siliceous materials based on sustainable criteria, namely, technical, environmental, social, and economic aspects. The present research adopts twenty indicators of sustainability to evolve a comprehensive model for a sustainability ranking of concrete siliceous materials and to provide siliceous materials management. The present research also provides a methodology for the systematic ranking of sustainable criteria and indicators along with a siliceous materials sustainability order for enhanced sustainable development and management. It can be concluded that the proper material management of siliceous concrete materials, especially nano-engineered materials in construction industry, will help in the conservation of basic concrete materials and environmental protection without direct impact on social development.

Reactive Power Optimization for Transient Voltage Stability in Energy Internet via Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach

The existence of high proportional distributed energy resources in energy Internet (EI) scenarios has a strong impact on the power supply-demand balance of the EI system. Decision-making optimization research that focuses on the transient voltage stability is of great significance for maintaining effective and safe operation of the EI. Within a typical EI scenario, this paper conducts a study of transient voltage stability analysis based on convolutional neural networks. Based on the judgment of transient voltage stability, a reactive power compensation decision optimization algorithm via deep reinforcement learning approach is proposed. In this sense, the following targets are achieved: the efficiency of decision-making is greatly improved, risks are identified in advance, and decisions are made in time. Simulations show the effectiveness of our proposed method.

Cost feasibility and performance assessment of expanded polystyrene sheet over conventional method: a case study in Bhubaneswar

Urbanization is taking place in India at a faster rate which leads to high housing demand. The same is achieved by conventional construction method which consumes time, material and high energy resources. The world is also facing natural resources and energy crisis. Hence, for better natural resource optimization, it is imperative to adopt such construction methodologies and materials which reduce the construction cost, CO2 emission, and at the same time speedy construction with least energy needs. To overcome given problems, researches have been done throughout the world in recent past, and many advanced materials and technologies are developed. One such advanced construction methodology is developed using expanded polystyrene sheet, i.e., EPS. This research paper aims at exploring all the possible selection indicators contributing to sustainability and evaluation of EPS core panel system with wire mesh and chipping concrete, based on a real-time case study of a housing project in Bhubaneswar, Odisha (India), based on various parameters such as structural safety and durability, seismic analysis, cost effectiveness and ease in construction and maintenance.

Assessment of Decentralized Electricity Production from Hybrid Renewable Energy Sources for Sustainable Energy Development in Nigeria

Abstract This paper presents technical and economic assessment of a hybrid energy system for electricity generation in rural communities in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The study was based on a 500 rural household model having an electric load of 493 kWh per day. To simulate long-term continuous implementation of the hybrid system, 21 years (1992 – 2012) hourly mean global solar radiation and wind speed data for the selected sites were used. The mean annual wind speed and solar radiation for the locations ranged from 2.31 m/s for Warri to 3.52 m/ s for Maiduguri and 4.53 kWh/m2 for Warri to 5.92 kWh/m2 for Maiduguri, respectively. These weather data were used for simulation with the Micro-power Optimization Model software HOMER. From the optimum results of the hybrid system,Warri has the highest NPC and COE of $2,441,222 and $0.721/kWh, respectively while Maiduguri has the least NPC and COE of $2,225,387 and $0.658/kWh, respectively for the 21 years project lifespan. The high value of COE for Warri is due to its low renewable energy resource while low COE for Maiduguri is due to its high renewable energy resource. The Northern part of the country has ample renewable energy resource availability and with a strong political will, optimal utilization of these renewable resources (solar and wind) can be actualized. Researchers, Industrialists, Policy Makers and the Nigerian government should therefore seize this opportunity in developing a sustainable energy through utilization of abundant renewable energy resources in the country.

High Temperature Superconducting Devices and Renewable Energy Resources in Future Power Grids: A Case Study

Recent developments in high temperature superconducting (HTS) materials have made superconducting cables and energy storage systems promising alternatives for use in future power systems. High temperature superconducting coils based superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) can be integrated to other commercially available battery systems to form a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) to mitigate the potential issues caused by a large-scale penetration of distributed generation, such as the midday voltage rise, the reverse power flow, and the voltage unbalance in the distribution system. The rapid response of the HTS SMES system in the HESS can be used to mitigate the high ramp rate of the photovoltaic (PV) output fluctuation during passing cloud events. This paper has performed a case study for a future low loss distribution grid with a high penetration of renewable energy (RE), such as solar PV, fitted with superconducting cables or superconducting power lines, where issues associated with the large-scale penetration of the RE can be mitigated.

Time Frequency Spectral Decomposition for Determination of Bottom Simulating Reflector of Gas Hydrate Seismic Data

Gas hydrate, a complex compound, formed in the special condition of low temperature and high pressure, has been considered as very high potential new energy resources. In the gas hydrate exploration, bottom simulating reflector (BSR), defined as the boundary between gashydrate and free gas zone, is considered as the most important indicator for the gas hydrate exploration by seismic reflectivity method. Additionally, the location of BSR can help to estimate the thermo-dynamic parameters for gas hydrate stability zone. Spectral decomposition methods such as STFT (Short Time Fourier Transform), CWT (Continuous Wavelet Transform) and MPD (Marching Pursuit Decomposition) for seismic data has been proposed and applied in the various rock reservoirs to characterize hydrocarbon indicators as positive anomalies in the spectrum. Because the BSR has several specific characteristics that create strong reflectivity pattern in the seismic section, the time-frequency decomposition could be used to distinguish this boundary in the gas hydrate seismic data by taking the high energy position at the frequency gather slice. The output of seismic data processing for gas hydrate exploration in the Ulleung basin, Korea, will be used for time-frequency analysis and integrated to the well logging data in order to locate the BSR in seismic data. These results showed the high energy position at the time of 0.25-0.30 second below the sea floor reflector at the frequency gather slice of 60 Hz that would indicate to the position of BSR

Leaching of alkali-activated tungsten mining waste materials by electrical conductivity and DRX

The production of Portland cement leads to high energy and natural resource consumption, as well as relevant emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. Thus, this research work intends to contribute to the study of Portland cement alternative alkali activated binders, which utilization can contribute to counteract to this status. Different samples of alkaline activated binders using different combinations of tungsten mining waste from Panasqueira Mines, milled glass and metakaolin were made. Compression tests were performed at 3, 7, 14 and 28 days of curing. For evaluating reactivity chemical leaching was measured. For such, conductivity tests were carried out simultaneously with pH measurement, SEM-BSE and ATR-FTIR analysis. Electrical conductivity tests enabled to preliminary identify the chemical leaching for different precursors. Additionally, by SEM-BSE it was possible to observed reacted and nonreacted particles, and the reactivity extend was confirmed by ATR-FTIR.

Control scheme for multi‐terminal VSC‐based medium‐voltage DC distribution networks

With the development and application of voltage source converter (VSC) high voltage direct current (HVDC) technology, DC distribution is gradually attracting the attention of researchers in recent years. However, many studies are still in the theoretical and exploratory stages. Compared with DC transmission networks, medium-voltage DC (MVDC) distribution networks are more sophisticated with respect to the complex operation modes, high penetration of renewable energy resource, and use of diverse power electronic devices. Therefore, master–slave control strategy which has been widely used in HVDC transmission projects may not be the first choice for DC distribution networks. In this study, a three-terminal DC distribution dynamic simulation platform is initially established and droop control strategy is adopted due to its flexible scalability. Secondly, plug and play solutions for key equipment such as VSCs and DC solid-state transformers are proposed. Thirdly, the response characteristics of a droop control system under high renewable energy resource penetration and frequent transition of operation mode are studied. Fourthly, the system fault isolation and recovery strategy under DC pole-to-pole fault is proposed. Finally, the whole control scheme is validated through experiments using the dynamic simulation platform. In the future, this proposed scheme can be used in the control of VSC-based MVDC distribution networks.

The charger positioning problem in clustered RF-power harvesting wireless sensor networks

Wireless charging brings forward several new challenges in designing energy efficient wireless sensor networks. In a wireless charging scenario, a number of chargers with high energy resources are placed in the network to recharge power constrained nodes. Nevertheless, due to the fading effect of the signals, a few only nodes can remarkably benefit from the charger power emission. For this reason we examine whether the organization of the nodes in clusters may extend the network lifetime. In this paper, we compute the maximum size of the cluster and we propose an efficient localized algorithm as well as a centralized one to compute the charger position so as to maximize the cluster lifetime. We compare to other solutions in the literature and we present both theoretical and simulation results to show the effectiveness of our approach. The results show an up to 360% increase in lifetime in comparison with the traditional 1-hop communication method between the nodes and the sink.

Steel Joint Consortium (Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, China, India and Germany) in Herat, and the Economic, Political and Security Impacts in the Region, by Futuristic Approach with an Emphasis on SWOT

Geopolitical weight has a direct relationship with the geopolitical prestige of the country in the global and regional system, which can increase the dignity and public reputation of the country among other larger, equal or smaller countries. The more credibility and dignity increases, the more provide new opportunities for visible or invisible power, to objectively and subjectively influence processes, decisions, actions and behaviors at different local, regional and global scales. The geopolitical position of eastern Iran, due to its proximity to the countries of central Asia and Afghanistan and its access to high-energy resources; its domination on the world's most important energy and commodity transfer pathways; the strategic location for the land locked countries in Central Asia, Caucasus and Afghanistan to access free waters, connecting China and the countries of Southeast Asia to Europe; and the formation of the KhafHerat-China triangle and the region as a gateway for east of the country. The formation of this consortium between relevant countries, particularly five powerful countries in the steel industry in Herat can be considered as a factor in the emergence of Iran's geopolitical power and expanding Iran's influence in the region and Central Asia. Generally, the presence of regional and trans-regional economic powers and the convergence of these countries in the formation of a joint consortium can create a massive geopolitical weight to prevent US threats .Although, this project shows a clear horizon, but there are definitely problems with this process to assess the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the swot model, to better recognize the partnership environment. The research method in this paper is descriptiveanalytical and data collection is based on documentary-library method. In this research quantitative and qualitative resources are simultaneously used relative to the problem under discussion which is called mixed research method.

Authentication and overhearing to prevent internal and external attacks in WSN

Wireless Sensor Networks are usually the assortation of sensors, which are versatile in sensing the data based on multihued exertions. The cardinal bulge with the sensor networks is its dispersed nature. Since they are spread over, they sense and forward data from their dispersed areas. They consume high energy resources and vulnerable to various attacks. To prevail this bulge, source identity (signature) based authentication scheme is proposed on ECC to prevent external attacks and a neighbor monitoring scheme is proposed by overhearing to prevent internal attacks. Now the cardinal strike with the sensor networks are its bounded energy resources, they have a very limited / less energy resources, they cannot have a hefty application assignment. To prevail this strike and to improve the energy efficiency, a low energy consumption MAC protocol is acquainted called the IEEE 802.15.4 / ZigBee standards un the MAC layer, through which the data forwarding among the networks devours very low energy when compared to all other traditional methods. The main objective of the proposed work is to perform broadcast after authentication, to prevent resource consuming attacks through authentication externally and to construct a monitoring table for each node by overhearing and detecting them based on their activities if they are malicious to provide internal security to the network. The proposed work attains a minimal energy wastage along with security integrated in WSN communication. The ratio of efficiency comparisons of the broadcasting authentication scheme and monitoring scheme for the traditional and the proposed works for the factors secure authentication / monitoring and energy consumption is resulted to be as 7:2. Thus the proposed system has a higher endorsed based on the generated results.

Performance analysis of low temperature heat source of organic Rankine cycle for geothermal application

Indonesia has a high potential energy resources from geothermal activities. Base on the report of Asian Development Bank and World Bank, the estimated of Indonesian hydrothermal geothermal resource considered to be the largest among the world. If it’s can be utilized to produce the electric power, it’s can contribute to increasing the electrification rates in Indonesia. In this study, an experimental studied of electric power generation, utilizing the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system to convert the low level heat of hydrothermal as an energy source. The temperature of hydrothermal was modelled as hot water from water boiler which has a temperature range from 60 °C – 100 °C to heat up the organic working fluid of ORC system. The system can generated 1,337.7 watts of electricity when operated using R134A with hot water inlet temperature of 100 °C. Changing system working fluid to R245fa, the net power obtained increase to 1,908.9 watts with the same heat source condition. This study showed that the ORC system can be implemented to utilize low temperature heat source of hydrothermal in Indonesia.

A multi‐stage transition toward high renewable energy penetration in Queensland, Australia

This study deals with new challenges in the long-term planning of power systems in the presence of high variable renewable energy resources (VRE). To this end, a stochastic multi-stage planning model is proposed, through which the investment decisions on the new generation and transmission systems are made in several stages of the planning horizon considering the attributes of VRE resources. The model takes into account both long-term and short-term uncertainties through their plausible scenario realisations. The proposed model is formulated as a mixed-integer programming approach that co-optimises generation and transmission investments under uncertainty for alternative renewable policy targets. The model is applied in a realistic case of Queensland, Australia in which an equivalent network of the state is driven to accurately capture the existing and new generation candidates. The model results demonstrate that a 50% renewable energy target may increase the system costs - mostly through an increase in capital costs of cleaner technologies - by three to four times. The analysis also shows that the complementarity of solar photovoltaic and wind and their locations in the power system are important factors in deciding the optimal renewable-based investments.