Given the economic growth and energy consumption patterns, most countries are striving to solve the problems of CO2 emissions reduction to achieve sustainable development. This paper employs an ...improved DEA model to measure energy and environmental efficiency for some selected countries in central and western Europe. In addition, the DEA window evaluation technique is applied to measure cross-sectional efficiency using two inputs (energy consumption, labor force), a desirable output (gross domestic product), and an undesirable output (CO2 emission) for the period from 2010 to 2014. The study finds that the UK ranks the highest position in term of energy and environmental efficiency. This shows that the UK has more effective policies regarding energy efficiency, consumption, production, import and energy intensity measures for sustainable economic growth as well as environmental protection. Ireland is the second-best country after the United Kingdom. The efficiency scores of the two countries are 0.99 and 0.89 respectively. On the empirical outcomes, this study suggests effective reforms in energy sector for countries with less energy efficiency that are still facing the problem of environmental degradation.
•There is an urgent need to balance sustainable development and economic growth.•DEA window technique was applied to measure cross-sectional efficiency.•Ireland is second best country after UK with energy and environmental efficiency.•The market-centric structure would be more useful and advantageous for the society.•We provide recommendations about emission reduction with moderate economic growth.
Latvia’s industrial energy efficiency policy imposes the implementation of mandatory energy audits and energy management systems in large industrial enterprises and large industrial electricity ...consumers to improve industrial competitiveness, to move towards a carbon-neutral economy and to increase the security of supply. Companies affected by this energy efficiency policy are obliged to report to the national energy efficiency monitoring system on energy efficiency measures indicated in energy audits or energy management systems with the highest savings or economical potential. The purpose of this study was to assess the initial outcomes of the first industrial energy efficiency program in Latvia, using data from the national energy efficiency monitoring system, including an analysis of individual energy audit reports, and benchmarking it with findings from a similar program, thereby revealing untapped energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction potential. Although the national monitoring system made it possible to ascertain results of the energy efficiency program, the statistical analysis of the data did not allow for a robust conclusion on the technical or economic industrial energy efficiency potential. This study suggests that Latvia’s energy efficient policy should continue its course in implementation and provides recommendations for improvements on the national energy efficiency monitoring system.
Energy audits in shipping companies von Knorring, Hannes
Transportation research. Part A, Policy and practice,
07/2019, Volume:
125, Issue:
July
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
An energy audit is a method for determining the most cost-effective measures that improve energy efficiency in an organisation. This article describes a longitudinal action-research case study of an ...energy audit performed in 2012 on a short-sea ship owner and operator and a follow-up study conducted three years later. The study showed that following the suggestions made in the audit would have had a significant economic impact but that few of the audit recommendations had been successfully implemented. An analysis of the qualitative and quantitative material collected during these two studies pointed in particular to the need to understand energy efficiency measures in their organisational context; many of the measures concerned redesigning organisational routines. It became obvious that more studies of practice are needed in order to evaluate policies and programmes aimed at achieving a transition to low carbon emissions in the maritime sector. Despite the failure of this particular audit, energy audits in shipping companies should be paid more attention because of their relative success in other sectors.
This article investigates the determinants of the adoption of energy efficiency technologies in European manufacturing firms and the role of product and process innovations in the adoption process. ...The empirical results show that product and process innovation are positively related to adoption of energy efficiency technologies. Moreover, there is a positive association between environmental performance measurement systems and adoption of the aforementioned technologies. Interestingly, product innovative firms are more likely to adopt additional energy efficiency technologies only if they have already introduced these technologies in the past.
The interconversion of charge and spin currents via spin-Hall effect is essential for spintronics. Energy-efficient and deterministic switching of magnetization can be achieved when spin ...polarizations of these spin currents are collinear with the magnetization. However, symmetry conditions generally restrict spin polarizations to be orthogonal to both the charge and spin flows. Spin polarizations can deviate from such direction in nonmagnetic materials only when the crystalline symmetry is reduced. Here, we show control of the spin polarization direction by using a non-collinear antiferromagnet Mn
GaN, in which the triangular spin structure creates a low magnetic symmetry while maintaining a high crystalline symmetry. We demonstrate that epitaxial Mn
GaN/permalloy heterostructures can generate unconventional spin-orbit torques at room temperature corresponding to out-of-plane and Dresselhaus-like spin polarizations which are forbidden in any sample with two-fold rotational symmetry. Our results demonstrate an approach based on spin-structure design for controlling spin-orbit torque, enabling high-efficient antiferromagnetic spintronics.
This study seeks to explore the firm' barriers of energy efficiency in a set of 28 Transition economies exploiting the enterprise survey data collected by the European Bank for Reconstruction and ...Development (EBRD) jointly with the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank Group (WBG). Based on the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model and on the construction of three different indicators to evaluate the energy efficiency, we find that the barriers to the adoption of energy efficiency measures mainly lack financial resources and profitability. Findings obtained from the interactions are also worthy of note. In particular, we find that the absence of profitability starts being stronger for non-EU countries. Instead, there is no evidence of heterogenous effects for industry sectors.
This study investigates how changes in energy prices and payback periods can quantitatively change the level of energy efficiency investment. Using the contingent valuation method (CVM) and survey ...data from 2392 respondents in South Korea, we estimate consumers' acceptable payback period when they are willing to purchase four different types of home appliances: TVs, air conditioners, dehumidifiers, and air purifiers. The average of acceptable payback periods is six to seven years, which corresponds to the probability for consumers to purchase high-efficiency appliances ranging from 47% to 48%. Based on the estimated results, we simulate the purchase probability of high-efficiency appliances in response to changes in energy prices and payback periods. Overall, our findings indicate that consumers are highly sensitive to energy prices in adopting high-efficiency appliances. Therefore, incentive or rebate levels of energy efficiency programs needs to be adjusted according to changes in energy prices.
•Energy prices and payback periods affect consumer investment in energy efficiency.•Purchases of high-efficiency appliances are sensitive to changes in energy prices.•Incentives/rebates must be adjusted according to changes in energy prices.•Incentives/rebates adjustments need to differ based on the type of home appliance.
Since the early 1980s, most electronics have relied on the use of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistors. However, the principles of CMOS operation, involving a switchable ...semiconductor conductance controlled by an insulating gate, have remained largely unchanged, even as transistors are miniaturized to sizes of 10 nanometres. We investigated what dimensionally scalable logic technology beyond CMOS could provide improvements in efficiency and performance for von Neumann architectures and enable growth in emerging computing such as artifical intelligence. Such a computing technology needs to allow progressive miniaturization, reduce switching energy, improve device interconnection and provide a complete logic and memory family. Here we propose a scalable spintronic logic device that operates via spin-orbit transduction (the coupling of an electron's angular momentum with its linear momentum) combined with magnetoelectric switching. The device uses advanced quantum materials, especially correlated oxides and topological states of matter, for collective switching and detection. We describe progress in magnetoelectric switching and spin-orbit detection of state, and show that in comparison with CMOS technology our device has superior switching energy (by a factor of 10 to 30), lower switching voltage (by a factor of 5) and enhanced logic density (by a factor of 5). In addition, its non-volatility enables ultralow standby power, which is critical to modern computing. The properties of our device indicate that the proposed technology could enable the development of multi-generational computing.
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•Challenges and complexities in AD process of LWs were reviewed.•Effective strategies to improve the performance of AD process were evaluated.•Various physical, chemical and ...biological methods were discussed.•Biological treatment, particularly bioaugmentation can be advantageous for LWs.•Mechanisms and microbial interactions with LWs are yet to be explored.
Along with the growing energy demand and the rising concerns over the environmental impacts of fossil fuels, much attention has been recently drawn toward the possibility of exploiting organic or biodegradable wastes, including lignocellulosic wastes (LWs), as the sources of renewable energy. Notably, the anaerobic digestion (AD) of such wastes can mitigate environmental damage, and then produce biogas and bioenergy for low-income rural communities, which is particularly worthwhile in developing countries. Nevertheless, progress in this field has been hindered by a multitude of challenges, e.g., the floating of such wastes on the top of reactors, which typically obstructs gas flow, high carbon-to-nitrogen ratio (CNR), and brings about an almost complex structure of LWs as well as their poor degradability because of high lignin content. In spite of that, many problems can be tackled by adopting appropriate methods, including providing mixing in reactors, reducing CNR, balancing inoculum-to-substrate ratio (ISR), and performing chemical and biological pretreatments. Against this background, the present study aimed to review the related literature on the AD of LWs to identify the existing challenges, and reflect on the strategies to deal with them for the purpose of improving bioenergy production from this type of waste.
The promotion of industrial restructuring and technological innovation is the most important and realistic way of improving energy efficiency. This thesis uses the modified Super-SBM method to ...measure China’s total-factor energy efficiency and then uses the dynamic spatial panel model (DSPM) to verify the effect of industrial structure and technological innovation on total-factor energy efficiency. The study found that from 2003 to 2016, China’s total-factor energy efficiency showed a fluctuating trend of “falling first and then rising.” The inflection point appeared in 2012; total-factor energy efficiency in the Eastern region was significantly higher than the national average, while in the Central and Western regions, it was significantly lower. The results of the analysis show that both the service adjustment of the inter-industry structure and the productivity growth of the intra-industry structure significantly promote improvements in total-factor energy efficiency. However, due to the low conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements in China, the impact of technological innovation input on total-factor energy efficiency is not significant. This is in contradistinction to technological innovation output which does significantly improve total-factor energy efficiency. The above research conclusion is still robust and reliable after changing the measurement method and spatial weight matrix.
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