Since 2008, the Global Center of Excellence (COE) at Kyoto University, Japan, has been engaged in a program called "Energy Science in the Age of Global Warming-Toward a CO2 Zero-Emission Energy System." Its aim is to establish an international education and research platform to foster educators, researchers, and policy makers who can develop technologies and propose policies for establishing a CO2 zero-emission society no longer dependent on fossil fuels. It is well known that the energy problem cannot simply be labeled a technological one, as it is also deeply involved with social and economic issues. The establishment of a "low-carbon energy science" as an interdisciplinary field integrating social sciences with natural sciences is necessary. The Global COE is setting out a zero-emission technology roadmap and is promoting socioeconomic studies of energy, studies of new technologies for renewable energies, and research for advanced nuclear energy. It has also established the Global COE Unit for Energy Science Education to support young researchers as they apply their skills and knowledge and a broad international perspective to respond to issues of energy and the environment in our societies. Comprising the proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Global COE Program, this book follows on the earlier volumes Zero-Carbon Energy Kyoto 2009 and 2010, published in March 2010 and February 2011, respectively.

This book describes Smart Cities and the information technologies that will provide better living conditions in the cities of tomorrow. It brings together research findings from 27 countries across the globe, from academia, industry and government. It addresses a number of crucial topics in state of the arts of technologies and solutions related to smart cities, including big data and cloud computing, collaborative platforms, communication infrastructures, smart health, sustainable development and energy management. Information Innovation Technology in Smart Cities is essential reading for researchers working on intelligence and information communication systems, big data, Internet of Things, Cyber Security, and cyber-physical energy systems. It will be also invaluable resource for advanced students exploring these areas.

This book provides a practical description of the technology of pellet production on the basis of renewable sources as well as the utilization of pellets. The author explains what kinds of biomass are usable in addition to wood, how to produce pellets and how to use pellets to produce energy. Starting with the basics of combustion, gasification and the pelletizing process, several different technologies are described. The design, planning, construction and economic efficiency are discussed as well. The appendix gives useful advice about plant concepts, calculations, addresses, conversion tables and formulas.

Research for the development of more efficient photocatalysts has experienced an almost exponential growth since its popularization in early 1970 s. Despite the advantages of the widely used TiO2, the yield of the conversion of sun power into chemical energy that can be achieved with this material is limited" "prompting the research and development of a number of structural, morphological and chemical modifications of TiO2, as well as a number of novel photocatalysts with very different composition." Design of Advanced Photocatalytic Materials for Energy and Environmental Applications" provides a systematic account of the current understanding of the relationships between the physicochemical properties of the catalysts and photoactivity.

The already long list of photocatalysts phases and their modifications is increasing day by day. By approaching this field from a material sciences angle, an integrated view allows readers to consider the diversity of photocatalysts globally and in connection with other technologies. "Design of Advanced Photocatalytic Materials for Energy and Environmental Applications" provides a valuable road-map, outlining the common principles lying behind the diversity of materials, but also delimiting the imprecise border between the contrasted results and the most speculative studies. This broad approach makes it ideal for specialist but also for engineers, researchers and students in related fields.

Wind Energy Engineering: A Handbook for Onshore and Offshore Wind Turbines, Second Edition continues to be the most advanced, up-to-date and research-focused text on all aspects of wind energy engineering. Covering a wider spectrum of topics in the field of wind turbines (offshore and onshore), this new edition includes new intelligent turbine designs and optimization, current challenges and efficiencies, remote sensing and smart monitoring, and key areas of advancement, such as floating wind turbines. Each chapter includes a research overview with a detailed analysis and new case studies looking at how recent research developments can be applied. Written by some of the most forward-thinking professionals in the field, and giving a complete examination of one of the most promising and efficient sources of renewable energy, this book is an invaluable reference into this cross-disciplinary field for engineers.

More than two billion people worldwide have currently no access to grid electricity or other efficient energy supply. This is one third of humanity and the majority live in rural areas. The productivity and health of these people are diminished by reliance on traditional fuels and technologies, with women and children suffering most. Energy is the key element to empower people and ensure water, food and fodder supply as well as rural development. Therefore access to energy should be treated as the fundamental right to everybody. Renewable energy has the potential to bring power, not only in the literal sense, to communities by transforming their prospects.
This book offers options that meet the needs of people and communities for energy and engage them in identifying and planning their own provision. It describes updated renewable energy technologies and offers strategies and guidelines for the planning and implementation of sustainable energy supply for individuals and communities.

This book explores the dynamics and vibration properties of gearboxes, with a focus on geared rotor systems. It discusses mechanical theories, finite-element based simulations, experimental measurements and vibration signal processing techniques. It introduces the vibration-resonance calculation method for the geared rotor system in wind turbines and load sharing of the planetary gear train, and offers a method for calculating the vibrations of geared rotor systems under either internal excitations from gear sets or external loads transferred from wind loads. It also defines and elaborates on parameter optimization for planetary gear systems based on the torsional dynamics of wind-turbine geared rotor systems. Moreover, it describes experimental measurements of vibrations on the wind-turbine gearbox performed on the test rig and on site, and analyzes the vibration signals of different testing points, showing them in both time and frequency domains. Lastly, it lists the gear coupling frequencies and fault characteristic frequencies from the vibrations of the gearbox housing. The technologies and results presented are valuable resources for use in dynamic design, vibration prediction and analysis of gearboxes and geared rotor systems in wind turbines as well as many other machines.

District energy (DE) systems use central heating and/or cooling facilities to provide heating and/or cooling services for communities and can be particularly beneficial when integrated with cogeneration plants for electricity and heat. This book provides information on district energy and cogeneration technologies, and the systems that combine them, with a focus on their modelling, analysis and optimization. Topics covered include a brief introduction to district heating and cogeneration; background material on thermodynamics and exergy analyses; models for cogeneration, heating and district heating, and chilling and district cooling; descriptions and analyses of configurations for integrating cogeneration and DE technologies; economics of cogeneration and DE; environmental impact of cogeneration systems, including wastes and carbon dioxide emissions and their allocations; modelling and optimization of cogeneration-based district energy systems accounting for economics and environmental impact; developments and advances in technologies and systems for cogeneration and DE; and future directions. Examples and case studies are included throughout the book to illustrate the material covered, and to demonstrate the importance, benefits and value of cogeneration and district energy technologies in achieving sustainable and efficient energy systems.

The central theme of this book "Microbial BioEnergy: Hydrogen Production" is focused on the biological machinery that microorganisms use to produce hydrogen gas.The book summarizes the achievements over the past decade in the biochemistry, structural and molecular biology, genomics and applied aspects of microbial H2-production, including microbial fuel cells (MFC), by phototrophs such as purple sulfur and non-sulfur bacteria ("Thiocapsa" spp., "Rhodobacter "and "Rhodopseudomonas" spp.) microalgae ("Chlamydomonas")and cyanobacteria ("Anabaena spp.") along with anaerobes and thermophiles such as "Caldicellulosiruptor "and "Thermotoga." This is the first bookof this series entirely devoted to microbial bio-hydrogen production and is intended to be a precious source of information for PhD students, researchers and undergraduates from disciplines such as microbiology, biochemistry, biotechnology, photochemistry and chemical engineering, interested in basic and applied sciences."

Climate change, environmental impact and declining natural resources are driving scientific research and novel technical solutions. Green Energy and Technology serves as a publishing platform for scientific and technological approaches to "green" - i.e., environmentally friendly and sustainable - technologies. While the main focus lies on energy and power supply, the series also covers green solutions in industrial engineering and engineering design. Green Energy and Technology is a monograph series addressing researchers, advanced students and technical consultants, as well as decision makers in industry and politics. The level presentation ranges from instructional to highly technical. Gas hydrates are potentially one of the most important energy resources for the future. They represent one of the world's largest untapped reservoirs of energy and, according to some estimates, have the potential to meet global energy needs for the next thousand years. Methane Gas Hydrate examines this potential by focusing on methane gas hydrate, which is increasingly considered a significant source of energy. Methane Gas Hydrate gives a general overview of natural gas, before delving into the subject of gas hydrates in more detail and methane gas hydrate in particular. As well as discussing methods of gas production, it also discusses the safety and environmental concerns associated with the presence of natural gas hydrates, ranging from their possible impact on the safety of conventional drilling operations to their influence on Earth's climate. Methane Gas Hydrate is a useful reference on an increasingly popular energy source. It contains valuable information for chemical engineers and researchers, as well as for postgraduate students.

This edited volume establishes a forum for international experts to explore cutting-edge questions associated with the land use and biomass production. Topics include 'do we have enough land, either primary or marginal, to accommodate future production of biomass?', 'how are farming decisions made in response to biomass incentives?', 'is the current bio-mass production socially, economically and environmentally sustainable?', and 'what are the main constraints currently limiting biofuel deployment?' The expansion of biomass production is often at the cost of reduced land availability for food production and losses of areas with ecological functions such as forests and wetlands. This process often involves complex interplay of physical dynamics and human systems that are driven by numerous geographic and socio-economic factors at different scales. Thus, the state-of-the-art research on the land use issues surrounding the biomass production and its environmental impacts is important for informed land management decision making. This book will be of great use to researchers in land use management and biomass-based renewable energy, as well as practitioners.

Hybrid Hydrogen Systems for Stationary and Transportation Applications presents an original, comprehensive approach to hybrid energy system optimization and provides a much-needed systems approach to hydrogen energy applications. This textbook will be bought by graduate and senior undergraduate students studying renewable energy and the design and optimisation of hydrogen energy systems as well as the lecturers who teach these subjects. Hybrid Hydrogen Systems for Stationary and Transportation Applications will also be bought by researchers and practitioners working with hydrogen and fuel cells as well as policy makers and advocates of renewable energy.

This book describes methods for adaptive control of distributed-collector solar fields: plants that collect solar energy and deliver it in thermal form. Controller design methods are presented that can overcome difficulties found in these type of plants: they are distributed-parameter systems, i.e., systems with dynamics that depend on space as well as time;their dynamics is nonlinear, with a bilinear structure;there is a significant level of uncertainty in plant knowledge.

Adaptive methods form the focus of the text because of the degree of uncertainty in the knowledge of plant dynamics. Parts of the text are devoted to design methods that assume only a very limited knowledge about the plant. Other parts detail methods that rely on knowledge of the dominant plant structure. These methods are more plant specific, but allow the improvement of performance.

"Adaptive Control of Solar Energy Collector Systems" demonstrates the dynamics of solar fields to be rich enough to present a challenge to the control designer while, at the same time, simple enough to allow analytic work to be done, providing case studies on dynamics and nonlinear control design in a simple and revealing, but nontrivial way.

The control approaches treated in this monograph can be generalized to apply to other plants modelled by hyperbolic partial differential equations, especially process plants in which transport phenomena occur, plants like dryers, steam super-heaters and even highway traffic.

An important example, used repeatedly throughout the text, is a distributed-collector solar field installed at Plataforma Solar de Almeria, located in southern Spain. The control algorithms laid out in the text are illustrated with experimental results generated from this plant.

Although the primary focus of this monograph is solar energy collector, the range of other systems which can benefit from the methods described will make it of interest to control engineers working in many industries as well as to academic control researchers interested in adaptive control and its applications.

This book focuses on the impacts of the built environment, and how to predict and measure the benefits and consequences of changes taking place to address sustainability in the development and building industries. It draws together the best treatments of these subjects from the Leeds Sustainability Institute's inaugural International Conference on Sustainability, Ecology, Engineering, Design for Society (SEEDS). The focus of discussion is on understanding how buildings and spaces are designed and nurtured to obtain optimal outcomes in energy efficiency and environmental impacts. In addition to examining technical issues such as modeling energy performance, emphasis is placed on the health and well-being of occupants. This holistic approach addresses the interdependence of people with the built and natural environments. The book's contents reflect the interdisciplinary and international collaboration critical to assembly of the knowledge required for positive change.

In this global wake-up call, nuclear physicist Jeff Eerkens explores remedies for the impending energy crisis, when oil and natural gas are depleted. The Nuclear Imperative demonstrates that solar, wind, and biomass power are incapable of supplying the enormous quantities of electricity and heat needed for manufacturing portable synthetic fuels to replace our current use of fossil fuels. It offers a fresh look at uranium-produced energy as the optimal affordable solution.

This book presents state-of-the-art research and case studies on new approaches to the design, construction and planning of our cities. Emphasis is placed on the role of alternative and renewable energy in the development of urban infrastructures that enable sustainable futures. Reflecting the multi-faceted efforts required to successfully meet sustainability challenges, this book is a collaboration between practitioners and academics across a broad spectrum of specializations. Compelling research findings are explained in the context of practical implementation, enhanced by case studies from industry leaders in order to create a pragmatic reference across policy areas where environmentally aware decision making is required.

Today s highly parameterized large-scale distributed computing systems may be composed of a large number of various components (computers, databases, etc) and must provide a wide range of services. The users of such systems, located at different (geographical or managerial) network cluster may have a limited access to the system s services and resources, and different, often conflicting, expectations and requirements. Moreover, the information and data processed in such dynamic environments may be incomplete, imprecise, fragmentary, and overloading. All of the above mentioned issues require some intelligent scalable methodologies for the management of the whole complex structure, which unfortunately may increase the energy consumption of such systems. An optimal energy utilization has reached to a point that many information technology (IT) managers and corporate executives are all up in arms to identify scalable solution that can reduce electricity consumption (so that the total cost of operation is minimized) of their respective large-scale computing systems and simultaneously improve upon or maintain the current throughput of the system.

This book in its eight chapters, addresses the fundamental issues related to the energy usage and the optimal low-cost system design in high performance green computing systems. The recent evolutionary and general metaheuristic-based solutions for energy optimization in data processing, scheduling, resource allocation, and communication in modern computational grids, could and network computing are presented along with several important conventional technologies to cover the hot topics from the fundamental theory of the green computing concept and to describe the basic architectures of systems. This book points out the potential application areas and provides detailed examples of application case studies in low-energy computational systems. The development trends and open research issues are also outlined. All of those technologies have formed the foundation for the green computing that we know of today."

This is the first book entirely devoted to providing a perspective on the state-of-the-art of cloud computing and energy services and the impact on designing sustainable systems. Cloud computing services provide an efficient approach for connecting infrastructures and can support sustainability in different ways. For example, the design of more efficient cloud services can contribute in reducing energy consumption and environmental impact. The chapters in this book address conceptual principles and illustrate the latest achievements and development updates concerning sustainable cloud and energy services. This book serves as a useful reference for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and practitioners interested in the design, implementation and deployment of sustainable cloud based energy services. Professionals in the areas of power engineering, computer science, and environmental science and engineering will find value in the multidisciplinary approach to sustainable cloud and energy services presented in this book.

As power systems develop to incorporate renewable energy sources, the delivery systems may be disrupted by the changes involved. The grid's technology and management must be developed to form Smart Grids between consumers, suppliers and producers. Conducted Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) in Smart Grids considers the specific side effects related to electromagnetic interference (EMI) generated by the application of these Smart Grids.
Conducted Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) in Smart Grids presents specific EMI conducted phenomena as well as effective methods to filter and handle them once identified. After introduction to Smart Grids, the following sections cover dedicated methods for EMI reduction and potential avenues for future development including chapters dedicated to:

potential system services,
descriptions of the EMI spectra shaping methods,
methods of interference voltage compensation, and theoretical analysis of experimental results.

By focusing on these key aspects, Conducted Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) in Smart Grids provides a concise and comprehensive coverage of an extensive subject matter. It constitutes a key resource for any industry practitioners, researchers or system designers with interest in Smart Grids, particularly their electromagnetic compatibility in the conducted EMI frequency range.
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The book provides an overview on various microorganisms and their industrialization in energy conversion, such as ethanol fermentation, butanol fermentation, biogas fermentation and fossil energy conversion. It also covers microbial oil production, hydrogen production and electricity generation. The content is up to date and suits well for both researchers and industrial audiences.

This book presents recent studies on the power electronics used for the next generation wind turbine system. Some criteria and tools for evaluating and improving the critical performances of the wind power converters have been proposed and established. The book addresses some emerging problems as well as possibilities for the wind power conversion, and may be useful as an inspiring reference for the researchers in this field.

Optimization techniques offer immense potential for the improvement of performance-driven design, since they allow the adoption of an holistic approach. This can lead to great advantages: optimal design solutions can be properly identified only if all criteria are considered at the same time, rather than separately. There are two barriers which obstruct optimization from being applied to building design: a technological barrier (applying the algorithms is not easy and can be quite time-consuming) and a cultural one (architects and engineers are required to change their perspectives as the design process has to be handled in a new way). This book explores these barriers from the perspective of both engineers and architects, and proposes a change in the attitudes of these two "actors": an engineer and an architect develop a dialog which helps them understand each other's perspective; in this way they find how they must both make a step forward.

This book emerges from the recognition that energy, environment and ecosystems are dynamically and inextricably connected. The energy environment system must be addressed in its totality, so that we can devise sustainable solutions that incorporate both economic growth and environmental conservation. No single clean energy source will sustain long-term energy security, and fossil fuels will remain prominent in the mix of energy sources for several decades to come. Energy solutions, therefore, must employ a broad and diverse range of approaches, including cleaner fossil fuel technologies, and an affordable transition to greener power generation employing waste, water and renewable resources. Moreover, adapting to this changing global energy picture will require a transformational shift in the ways we use and deliver energy services. The authors begin with a broad introductory chapter on sustainable energy and the environment, classifying energy resources, cataloging environmental degradations, and outlining the concepts and practices of sustainability. In Chapters Two and Three, they summarize the basic constituents of the environment, the biosphere and its natural cycles, and offer a model of Earth's planetary temperatures and the greenhouse effect. Chapters Four and Five outline conventional energy and power systems, and related environmental degradations. The next several chapters cover clean coal technologies for power generation, and discuss sustainable energy and power technologies based on both thermal and photovoltaic solar energy, along with biomass and wind. The final chapters examine in depth the management of waste and water, pollution control and energy conservation. The book introduces a unique approach to sustainability and energy conservation which emphasizes the relationships between underlying scientific principles and practical applications employed in engineering solutions. All this is offered in a form that matches the requirements of college-level environmental science and engineering courses.

This authored monograph provides in-depth analysis and methods for aligning electricity demand of manufacturing systems to VRE supply. The book broaches both long-term system changes and real-time manufacturing execution and control, and the author presents a concept with different options for improved energy flexibility including battery, compressed air and embodied energy storage. The reader will also find a detailed application procedure as well as an implementation into a simulation prototype software. The book concludes with two case studies. The target audience primarily comprises research experts in the field of green manufacturing systems.