De la Pena, LizetteGuo, RuCao, XiaojingNi, Xiaojing...
12页
查看更多>>摘要：Shifting from fossil-fuel (FF) to renewable energy systems, a process known as energy transition (ET), is crucial for developing countries as the ET brings new opportunities to accomplish leapfrog development for achieving carbon neutrality. Parallel to climate change, developing countries face energy security and independence issues with extra pressures such as the Covid-19 pandemic and increasing inequality. Taking Mexico as a case, four ET scenarios under "gradual" or "rapid" narratives are developed with the Kaya Identity. Gradual Transition Scenarios (GTS) present a business-as-usual scenario with natural gas as the most significant fuel in the supply mix due to economic and social concerns. Rapid Transition Scenarios (RTS) propose a combination of FF and renewables or a full deployment of Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The results show that GTS reach 491 similar to 501 Mt CO2 emissions in 2050, risking a carbon lock-in, stranded assets and economic losses. RTS reach 87 similar to 103 Mt CO2 in 2050 with RES prioritization, energy efficiency improvements and coal phase-out. In particular, following GTS would mean failing to join global efforts to limit warming temperature to 1.5. C. Alternatively, following RTS brings Mexico closer to achieve carbon neutrality. Several strategies are proposed, including reducing the carbon intensity of the energy supply mix, increasing energy efficiency, prioritizing environmental protection, improving actions based on science, and promoting environmental education and awareness. This paper presents a consistent methodology to encourage ET in developing countries where the role of science is still not fully exploited under the goal of carbon neutrality.
查看更多>>摘要：Large household appliances contain substantial amounts of plastics. At their end of life, these appliances are processed in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) treatment plants where a mixed plastic fraction is generally obtained after mechanical processing. This paper presents the results of a study conducted to investigate whether the practice of recycling these plastic streams without decontamination can be continued after the introduction of the 1000 mg/kg threshold value for the sum of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in the 2019 recast of the European POP regulation. 25 samples of shredded mixed plastics from large household appliances were collected and analysed by two independent chemical laboratories with regard to various Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs), heavy metals and tracers of common plastic additives. Results show that the currently applicable threshold values for recycling regarding heavy metals and BFRs are not exceeded in any of the analysed samples. However, relevant amounts of PBDEs (up to 791 mg/kg), tetrabromobisphenol-A (up to 1470 mg/kg) and antimony (up to 1200 mg/kg) were detected, all of which are currently under consideration for more stringent regulation in the EU. Results further show that due to limitations in analytical precision and representative sampling, the quantification of legacy substances in mixed WEEE plastic fractions is very challenging and the level of confidence with which decisions regarding legal compliance for recycling are taken is limited. It is strongly recommended that these challenges are taken into account when new threshold values are defined in order to enable a clean circular economy.
查看更多>>摘要：Today's societies consider the transportation sector as a key component of the economy that contributes significantly to sustainability and global economic development. However, the challenges resulting from transportation are expected to increase more seriously in the years to come in light of socioeconomic growth and increasing living standards. One of the most unfavorable outcomes of the transportation industries is climate change, which necessitates sustainable strategies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses. Although the use of electric vehicles (EVs) has obvious social advantages, including improvements to air quality along with beneficial effects of reducing CO2 emissions, EVs are being adopted quite slowly as a clean and green alternative form of transportation in Malaysia. Therefore, the present study has focused on the factors which affect consumers' intention to use EVs in the Malaysian context. An extensive review of previous studies was carried out to identify the determinants of adopting EVs in the prior literature. The survey questionnaire was designed with reference to the decision-making trials alongside the Decision-Making Trials and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method, after which questionnaires were distributed to Malaysian consumers of EVs. According to the results of the data analysis, environmental concern, trust in EVs, personal norms, price value, attitudes regarding EVs, and subjective norms are the most important factors influencing the adoption of EVs in the Malaysian context. The findings of the study provide directions for policymakers and automotive manufacturers.
查看更多>>摘要：Uncontrolled emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from various industries, which poses a severe threat to the environment and induces climate change, CO2 electroreduction is an advanced technology for converting waste CO2 and closing anthropogenic carbon cycle. However, developing novel, affordable and high-performance electrocatalysts for converting CO(2)to value-added hydrocarbons remains highly challenging. Herein, a carbon dots-decorated, N-doped hierarchical biocarbon material is developed from municipal sludge, which can work as an effective and robust carbocatalyst for the electrochemical reduction of CO2. More importantly, such hierarchical biocarbon catalyzes the electrochemical conversion of CO2 to value-added organic products, including methane, methanol and ethanol, with excellent stability and total Faraday efficiency of 90.14% at about -0.71 V vs. RHE. Reasons for the carbocatalyst electroactivity toward efficient and selective production of ethanol is proposed to be the carbon dots and the doped N sites (especially pyridinic-N and pyrrolic-N), which is also validated by density functional theory calculations (DFT). A possible route for the electrochemical reduction of CO2 is also unraveled. This study is a significant step forward to the exploitation of biomass wastes for harvesting greenhouse gasses and electrochemical energy conversion.
查看更多>>摘要：Mitigating carbon emissions from the coal-fired power system is at the core of China's carbon neutrality target. In this paper, we tracked the carbon footprint of coal-fired power plants from 2000 to 2020 in China, considering both construction and various operating processes. We linked an inventory of three types of plants (350MW, 660MW, and 1000MW) to an input-output database. The spatial distribution of the carbon footprint, carbon emissions per capita, and carbon emissions per unit economic output was used to show provincial gaps and regional imbalances. The results showed that the annual carbon emissions from China's coal-fired power plants increased by 2360.04 Mt from 2000 to 2020. Annual carbon emissions from the construction of coal-fired power plants peaked at 142.35 Mt in 2006 and decreased gradually after that. The carbon footprint gaps that existed between western and eastern provinces have narrowed with rapid growth of the annual carbon emissions per unit economic output and per capita in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia over the past 20 years. The variation in the carbon footprint highlights the need for tailored, spatially balanced measures for continued decarbonization of the coal-fired power system in each province beyond 2020.
查看更多>>摘要：The rise of emerging economies has changed the production structure of the global industrial chain, which in turn has had a significant impact on global industrial CO2 emissions. As the most representative countries among the emerging economies, the developing countries in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have become the leading supplier for global industrial chain over the past decade. To study the impact of the rise of emerging countries in RCEP on global industrial CO2 emissions, we proposed a new structural decomposition analysis method using the global environmentally extended multi-regional input-output table. A quantitative analysis using a multi-regional input-output table shows that if the emission intensities remain unchanged in 2010, the increase in these countries' proportion of supply of final demand and supply of intermediate input resulted in an increase of 2,068 and 87 million tons (Mt) in global CO2 emissions, respectively. The counterfactual analysis shows that China and the Association of Southeast Asia's (ASEAN) participation in the global value chains would increase global CO2 emissions in 2010-2015, but the emissions from Chinese energy and raw material production has gradually slowed or reversed. Simultaneously, the emissions embodied in global industrial chains from ASEAN have increased. Emerging economies should pursue a low-carbon way in consumption patterns and production technologies, and global mitigation efforts should prioritize support to the emerging emitters with green technology.
查看更多>>摘要：Electric cable heating (ECH) system is a promising pavement snow-melting technology. However, the long-term operation of such systems entails considerable energy consumption, and results in energy waste and high economic cost. Relevant studies lack design strategies that simultaneously ensure optimal energy conservation, snow-melting performance, and mechanical performance of ECH systems. Moreover, the long-term performance of this pavement remains to be verified. Therefore, this study investigated comprehensive energy conservation design strategies for ECH systems. The effects of various parameters on an ECH system's snow-melting, energy consumption, and mechanical response were investigated using the finite element method. On the basis of the simulation results, a recommended design strategy was proposed which can conserve energy and ensure the system's snow-melting function and long-term structural safety. With this strategy, an ECH system was designed and constructed. The calculation results demonstrate that this strategy can reduce energy waste significantly while ensuring the snow-melting function. Moreover, in a field experiment, a one-third scale model mobile load simulator was adopted. After continuous loading 400,000 times, the average rutting depths of all test sections were less than 3 mm, which verified the long-term mechanical performance of the ECH system designed using the developed strategy.
查看更多>>摘要：Today, sustainability has gained significant importance in supply chain management due to its strategic business advantages. Concurrently, industries are facing supply chain sustainability risks emanated from diversified sources. So far, however, literature is scarce regarding sustainability risk assessment. To fill this research gap, this paper presents a real-life case study of the textile industry to identify and quantify supply chain sustainability risks. In this paper, the fuzzy synthetic evaluation method is applied to compute the likelihood of occurrence, amount of impact, risk criticality of each risk factor group, and the total risk. This study finds five risk groups along with twenty sustainability risk factors. The risk groups are listed as 'supplier', 'financial', 'social', 'transportation', and 'environmental', based on their respective risk criticality values. The top three sustainability risk factors are 'poor product transportation system', 'air, water, and soil pollution', and 'factory fire'. The overall risk criticality value of sustainability risks of the case industry is found as approximately high. An objective of this study is to guide practitioners to take the required strategic steps to assess and manage sustainability risks in their supply chains.
NSTL
Elsevier