Offshore wind energy is increasingly becoming an important part of European and global low-emission power systems. The aims of this paper are to create a shared understanding on the major drivers of offshore wind development in Finland and to explore how these drivers, and opportunities for the entire industry, may develop over the twenty-first century, under different global futures. This research develops extended shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) narratives for the offshore wind industry by using a virtual participatory workshop with expert stakeholders. According to our results, the five key drivers shaping the prospects of offshore wind development are public acceptability of offshore energy, global and national demand for low-emission energy, technological development and relative competitiveness of offshore energy, availability of space and wind resources, and energy markets and transmission infrastructure. Nationally extended SSP narratives, building on these key drivers, describe a wide range of alternative future risks and opportunities for developing offshore energy. Under sustainable development (SSP1), offshore wind is likely to soon become a major source of energy in the area, if developed in a balanced manner alongside other uses of the marine space. Under fossil-fuelled development (SSP5), offshore wind grows slower and may experience rapid uptake only in the latter half of the century. Under the regional rivalry scenario (SSP3), the need for local energy sources drives the national energy policies and may create new opportunities for offshore wind. Under the inequality scenario (SSP4), local municipalities and the residents decide on locations of new wind turbines and the overall magnitude of future offshore wind.
Closely related to each other, food, energy, and water (FEW) restrict regional sustainable development as three basic needs for human survival. It is of great significance but rare to evaluate the long-term coordinated development of the FEW nexus in developing countries facing dual pressures of resources and population. By selecting 24 indicators from supply, demand, and ecology dimensions to construct an evaluation system of FEW security, we evaluated and predicted the coupling coordinated development of the FEW nexus in China from a regional perspective from 2002 to 2022. Moreover, based on multi-temporal land use data, the correlation between regional landscape ecological risk index (LER) and coupling coordination degree of the FEW nexus (D) was first quantified and analyzed. Results indicate that the interconnections of FEW systems were extremely strong with the coupling degree exceeding 0.92 in China from 2002 to 2017. With a substantial increase of 58.28% in the integrated evaluation index of the FEW nexus, China’s D increased from 0.66 in 2002 to 0.83 in 2017 and would continue to increase over the next five years according to the predictions of damping trend exponential smoothing method. There were obvious regional differences in both the temporal variation characteristics and the average level of the FEW nexus in China, as the mean value of D was the lowest in the east (0.66) and the highest in the west (0.69). However, a significant negative correlation with both direct and indirect aspects between LER and D was found in all three regions (Spearman’s rho ≤ − 0.609). Accordingly, more attention to the regional difference in the FEW nexus, enhanced interdepartmental cooperation and improved efficiency in resource supply–demand, as well as stable economic development and controlled population pressures are suggested for the comprehensive management of FEW resources in China.
In this study, six fast-growing invasive biomass species; Acacia mearnsii, Broussonetia papyrifera, Lantana camara, Mimosa pigra, Psidium guajava and Senna spectabilis were studied to determine their potential for fuel and biofuel production. Proximate composition, ultimate composition and heating values were determined using standard methods. The thermal analysis, chemical interactions, and morphology were studied using Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis respectively. Aspen Plus Version 11 was used to simulate slow, fast and flash pyrolysis of the biomass. Senna spectabilis had the highest heating value of 17.84 MJ/kg and the lowest ash content, making it the most suitable for thermochemical conversion. Based on the compositional analysis, Senna spectabilis also had the highest content of cellulose (48%), making it most suitable for biofuel production via enzyme saccharification. The Aspen Plus model for the pyrolysis process was used to predict the yields and products of pyrolysis of the biomass species for typical reactor conditions and feedstock composition. The highest yield of biogas, biochar and bio-oil was achieved at 650 °C for all the biomass species. Moreover, Lantana camara was the most suitable for biogas production and Senna spectabilis for biochar and bio-oil production. The influence of the pyrolysis temperature on the pyrolysis products, flue gases and gaseous emissions was also demonstrated in this study.
The heterogeneity in a household’s cooking fuel basket has been explained generally by multiple determinants. However, the implication of a household’s allocation of expenses on food and non-food requirements on cooking-fuel choices has not been adequately examined. Therefore, analysing the role of such resource allocations and their impact on household fuel choice is worthwhile. This study examines the multidimensional aspect of fuel choice behaviour of households in emerging economies such as India. In addition to socio-economic, demographic and geographical factors, we have considered State Gross Domestic Products (GSDP) and State Human Development Index (HDI). Our results suggest that the monthly allocation of expenditure under a household’s food and non-food outlays does have a bearing on the choice of cooking fuel. We find that a one-unit rise in the ratio between fuel and food expenditure leads to a 4.4% increase in the probability of using primitive fuels. Our analyses also find rural uptake of modern fuels to be lower than urban areas across the Indian states, irrespective of GSDP levels. However, states with higher HDI tend to adopt cleaner energy. From a household perspective, a female head with decision-making capabilities increases the likelihood of adopting cleaner fuel to 2%. In comparison, educated heads of the households increase the possibility of cleaner fuel adoption to 15%.
The ever-faster transformation of road vehicles from traditional fuel engines to electric motors, is leading to increasingly widespread research on and development of electric vehicles and related infrastructures. In this context, this article addresses the cost aspect of batteries from the owner’s perspective. Specifically, it proposes an analysis of the optimal usage cost of batteries in order to maximize the benefit-cost ratio and battery replacement intervals. In order to analyze battery degradation, various tests were utilized for both a full-battery electric vehicle (BEV) and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). The results demonstrate greater wear of the PHEV battery when the vehicle is under charge-sustaining mode, that is, when using the combustion engine, while driving with frequent starts and stops. On the other hand, the degradation costs of the BEV battery are generally close to optimal in every scenario, in which the main parameter affecting battery wear is average daily mileage.
The construction of a ‘zero-waste city’ is a flagship policy to accelerate the development of a green, low-carbon circular economy system in China. Enhancing social participation is an important dimension to evaluate the effect of ‘zero-waste city’ policy construction and an effective way to promote the full achievement of correct waste classification, management, and supervision of solid waste. Based on policy communication theory, this paper aims to take advantage of social media to quantitatively measure the environment policy communication effect and provide a comprehensive panoramic measurement from dynamic characteristics and trend, communication scope, attributes of communicators, and contents dimensions. Based on post data related to ‘zero-waste city’ on Weibo platforms from June 2018 to November 2020, this paper innovatively constructs a measurement system of environmental policy communication that combines social media data with social network analysis and text topic analysis. Results show that from the angle of communication trend, a ‘zero-waste city’ public environment policy is continuously promoted on social media with an increasingly growing volume and is a subject of wide concern for the public. This study confirms the value of social media data in assessing environment policy communication effect and presents several policy implications: Government departments should strengthen environmental policy communication by using Weibo and other social media tools to improve the public’s attention toward the policy and increase their participation in environmental governance; focus on people’s livelihood interest in policy communication content; strengthen the interaction of the public with the content of policies by using a popular and understandable public discourse system and encourage multiple social subjects to participate in policy communication and strengthen the communication of the ‘zero-waste’ cultural concept.
This study offers a comprehensive investigation into the efficiency of the degradation of acid blue 80 (AB80) dye by utilizing a system that uses ultraviolet (UV) radiation combined with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and persulfate (PS) oxidants (UV/PS/H2O2). The degradation reactions were performed under different PS and H2O2 concentrations, initial AB80 dye concentrations, pH values, UV intensities, and contact times. The results revealed that the UV/H2O2 system provided the best performance at a pH of 5, while the best performance for the UV/PS and UV/PS/H2O2 systems was obtained at a pH of 7. In addition, 15 mmol was found to be the optimum concentration for both oxidants. The efficiency of the combined process of UV/PS/H2O2 was higher than those of the other two processes, UV/PS and UV/H2O2, which was 98.2% for a dye concentration of 25 mg/L. Furthermore, the five-day biochemical oxygen demand/chemical oxygen demand (BOD5/COD) ratios at the beginning and end of the UV/PS/H2O2 process were 0.19 and 0.52, respectively, indicating the conversion of nonbiodegradable dye molecules to biodegradable compounds. A toxicity test was performed using the bioassay method with Daphnia magna, with a 90% reduction in toxicity was observed for the effluent. The 50% lethal concentration (LC50) was found to be 4.7 mg/L for the dye solution. The results also revealed that the degradation data adhere to pseudo-first-order kinetics, and the reaction rate constant was higher for the UV/PS/H2O2 system than for the other systems. The rate of mineralization by this process was 0.92. Scavenging studies also showed that both sulfate ( ) and hydroxyl (·OH) radicals played an important role in the degradation process. The energy consumption in the UV/H2O2, UV/PS, and UV/PS/H2O2 processes was 61, 47.8, and 20.8 kWh/m3, respectively. In conclusion, UV/PS/H2O2 is an effective and applicable process for the treatment of dyes in wastewater, particularly when the medium is neutral.