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. Fossil fuels are widely used for electricity generation and heating, creating greenhouse gas emissions and other toxic pollutants, which should be minimised according to the most recent environmental legislation. The utilisation of solid fuels with biogenic origin could contribute to the minimisation of these emissions. Solid Biofuels for Energy presents the current status of the engineering disciplines in this specific area, providing an improved background on the energy exploitation options of solid biomass. Within this framework, all thematic priorities related to the solid bioenergy potential and standardisation, commercialised and emerging energy technologies, and quality of solid residues are presented. Special attention has been given to biomass co-firing with coal, since it has the highest potential for commercial application, while combustion and gasification are more promising for units of medium to small scale. This strong practical focus is evident throughout the book, particularly in discussions of: international standards for solid biofuel specifications; supply, cost and sustainability of solid biofuels; technical issues and non-technical barriers in biomass/coal co-firing; and biomass combustion and gasification characteristics.

According to available estimates, only .3% of the total fresh water is usable for the world's entire human and animal populations. Some experts have observed that in the near future, the earth will face severe scarcity of water, resulting in an insufficient amount of water to sustain our ever increasing future needs. Others believe that such pessimistic estimates are unwarranted.

Due to conflicting opinions and data-interpretations, the future levels of scarcity are difficult to accurately forecast. One fact, however, is above controversy: water resources are not evenly distributed. The world's 38 poorest countries are located near areas that lack ample water supplies. Even some areas, which seem to possess sufficient supplies, suffer zonal or regional shortages. In recent years there has been an increasing realization not only of the importance of water as a key factor for sustainable development, but also the impending strategies for water in the near future. The chapters in this collection examine this critical resource and the policies being pursued to meet the challenge of decreasing access to usable water by selected countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. A major study for students, researchers, and policymakers involved with environmental and development issues.

This eagerly awaited book on natural gas policy promises to be the major work on the subject. The result of the "Harvard Study on the Future of Natural GaS," conducted under the auspices of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center at the Kennedy School of Government, it is comprised of ten articles reflecting the ideas, discussions, and debates of recognized experts in the field of energy policy. The result is an in-depth analysis of the energy debate including past regulatory policy and its effect on the consumer industry, deregulation and its current and future impact, and other topics of serious concern to the industry. Policy recommendations are also made.

Winds of Change examines the global development of the wind energy industry from a political, social movements-based perspective. It argues the wind energy industry developed successfully in certain regions and countries in large part because the environmental movement influenced its growth. Vasi then defines and analyses the three main pathways through which the environmental movement has contributed to industry growth: it has influenced the adoption and implementation of renewable energy policies, it has created consumer demand for clean energy, and it has changed the institutional logics of the energy sector. The book uses quantitative analysis to present the big picture of the global development of the wind energy industry, then draws on qualitative analyses to understand why countries such as Germany, Denmark, or Spain are world leaders in wind energy, while other countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, or Canada have a somewhat underdeveloped wind power industry. It also analyzes how the environmental movement contributed to the recent growth of the market for renewable energy certificates in the United States. The book also examines the remarkable transformation of the electricity sector in different countries, showing how environmentalists in Germany, Denmark, United States and United Kingdom contributed to wind turbine manufacturing by becoming entrepreneurs, innovators, and/or advocates, and, furthermore, how environmental groups and activists formed new companies that specialize in wind-farm development and operation, and pressured utility companies to invest in renewable energy by using tactics such as protests, lawsuits, and lobbying for stricter regulation. In conclusion, Vasi presents the main implications for future studies on industry development and social movement outcomes, as well as for the future growth of the renewable energy sector.

Agriculture and industry are the two most important economic sectors for various countries around the globe, providing millions of jobs as well as being the main source of income for these countries. Nevertheless, with the increasing demand for agricultural and industrial produce, huge amounts of waste are also being produced. Without proper management, this waste (both liquid and solid) poses a serious threat to overall environmental quality, mainly due to its toxicity and slow degradation processes. Current approaches are effective but would normally require huge capital investments, are labour intensive and generate potential hazardous by-products. As such, there is a need for alternative approaches that are cheaper, easier-to-handle and have a minimum potential impact on environmental quality. This book presents up-to-date approaches using biological techniques to manage the abundance of waste generated from agricultural and industrial activities. It discusses techniques such as bioconversion, biodegradation, biotransformation, and biomonitoring as well as the utilization of these wastes. A number of chapters also include individual case studies to enhance readers' understanding of the topics. This comprehensive book is a useful resource for anyone involved in agricultural and industrial waste management, green chemistry or biotechnology. It is also recommended as a reference work for graduate students and all agriculture and biotechnology libraries.

This volume presents a collection of contributions dedicated to applied problems in the financial and energy sectors that have been formulated and solved in a stochastic optimization framework. The invited authors represent a group of scientists and practitioners, who cooperated in recent years to facilitate the growing penetration of stochastic programming techniques in real-world applications, inducing a significant advance over a large spectrum of complex decision problems.

After the recent widespread liberalization of the energy sector in Europe and the unprecedented growth of energy prices in international commodity markets, we have witnessed a significant convergence of strategic decision problems in the energy and financial sectors. This has often resulted in common open issues and has induced a remarkable effort by the industrial and scientific communities to facilitate the adoption of advanced analytical and decision tools. The main concerns of the financial community over the last decade have suddenly penetrated the energy sector inducing a remarkable scientific and practical effort to address previously unforeseeable management problems. This proposal aims to include in a unified framework for the first time an extensive set of contributions related to real-world applied problems in finance and energy, leading to a common methodological approach and in many cases having similar underlying economic and financial implications.

During the spring and the summer of 2007 the School of Stochastic Programming held in Bergamo (www.unibg.it/sps2007), and the eleventh symposium on Stochastic Programming in Vienna (http: //www.univie.ac.at/spxi), offered two venues for the presentation of the chapters included in the volume. After the two events, during the fall of 2007, all the invited contributors enthusiastically accepted the invitation to present their original work in the projected volume, from which this proposal was developed.

The volume is structured in three parts, devoted to contributions related to financial applications - Part I, with 7 chapters; energy applications - Part II, with 8 chapters; and to specific theoretical and computational issues - Part III, with 6 chapters -- recently developed in the scientific community and explicitly related to the applied problems presented.

Seeking clarity about the conflict in Ukraine and responding to the urgent need to analyze Europe's energy prospects outside of Russia, Kandiyoti links analysis of real energy infrastructure with analysis of the political and economic dynamics unfolding at local, national, regional, and global levels.

Sustainable Biotechnology; Sources of Renewable Energy draws on the vast body of knowledge about renewable resources for biofuel research, with the aim to bridge the technology gap and focus on critical aspects of lignocellulosic biomolecules and the respective mechanisms regulating their bioconversion to liquid fuels and other value-added products. This book is a collection of outstanding research reports and reviews elucidating several broad-ranging areas of progress and challenges in the utilization of sustainable resources of renewable energy, especially in biofuels.

Margot P. C. Weijnen, Zofia Lukszo and Geert Deconinck Abstract The infrastructures for electric power and information and telecommunication services are critical enablers for all economic activity. Both of these infrastructure systems evolved over time as networks-of-networks in an institutionally fr- mented landscape. In understanding and steering the emergent behaviour of these infrastructure systems both their physical network complexity and their social n- work complexity pose a formidable challenge. On top of the socio-technical c- plexity of the electricity infrastructure and the information and telecommunication infrastructure as such, the two infrastructure systems show unprecedented mutual interdependency. Unravelling this multi-level interdependency and identifying strategies to curb the new risks and vulnerabilities it implies for the reliability of electric power services is the goal of this book. It clearly shows that technical so- tions alone will not suffice to ensure the future reliability and security of electricity infrastructure operations. Keywords Cybersecurity * infrastructure vulnerability * infrastructure depend- cies * power systems 1. 1 Infrastructures Are Critical Infrastructures are the backbone of the economy and society. Especially the network bound infrastructures operated by public utilities and network industries provide essential services that are enabling for almost every economic and social activity. M. P. C. Weijnen (*) and Z. Lukszo Technology Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P. O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands e-mail: M. P. C. Weijnen@tudelft. nl; Z. Lukszo@tudelft. nl G. Deconinck K. U.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of US policy from the perspective of an analyst and scholar from the region. This volume discusses the US energy diplomacy in the Caspian Sea region since 2001. It compares the foreign policy of the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, following the changing role of energy in the behavior of the US toward states in the energy hubs of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea. The chapters employ historical analysis, regional analysis, interviews, and case studies to trace the evolution of US interests in the area and posits likely trends for future policy. Topics discussed include: China's massive Belt and Road Initiative the energy and foreign policies of the Caspian littoral states in comparison with those of China, India, the European Union, and Turkey the escalation of differences among key OPEC members during the Trump era the impact of the oil price war on the US shale industry the spread of COVID-19 and its impact on the oil market Russian and U.S. competition in the EU energy market the US-China trade war and the role of energy in the first phase of the US-China trade deal the energy policy of the incoming US President, Joe Biden Shedding light on the complex geopolitics of the US-Caspian Sea Energy diplomacy, this volume will be of interest to researchers of foreign policy, diplomacy, international relations, and energy policy as well as policymakers and analysts working in related areas.

This book is a study of the actors and institutions that shaped decision-making on privatization in the Russian oil industry between 1992 and 2006. Li-Chen analyzes the origins of privatization as a policy on a macro, industry-wide level, as well as presenting three in-depth case studies of privatization on a company level.

This book explores effective environmental impact mitigation for petroleum-based lubricants to reduce their negative persistence during usage and upon end-of-life disposal. The book reviews the basic tribology of lubricants as well as initiatives that may enhance the environmental and economic effectiveness of lubricating oils from the composition design perspective across industries. Considering the blending, application, and disposal of petroleum lubricants in a holistic manner, the book presents and extends current best practices that minimize or eliminate adverse environmental impact throughout the product's life cycle. The book reviews methods including: raw material substitution, minimizing oil losses during and after manufacturing, raw material and energy consumption reduction, and environmentally friendly applications of oil disposal as ways forward for cleaner and more effective production. This book provides readers with strategies for incorporating cleaner production practices into their operations - a benefit to both environmental legal compliance and business competitiveness - all the while preserving the environment for sustainable development. The book is therefore of interest to both manufacturers and consumers in the lubricants industry.

This book discusses the strategic shift in ownership of Aramco, the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, and its potential impact on Aramco's role in a post- privatized world. Scheduled to become an IPO in 2018, Aramco is on the verge of becoming the largest IPO on the market. As the world's largest oil and gas company, Aramco's impending privatization has important implications for the world's petroleum market. This book, therefore, undertakes an analysis of Aramco, examining its history, its current role in Saudi Arabia's economy, and its future role as an IPO. The chapters highlight the likely outcomes for Aramco in proceeding with its planned IPO and privatization, as well as the various policy options and models available to it by drawing on the privatization of other national oil companies in Norway , Russia, Brazil, and China. The book also explores the complexities that will be involved in transforming Saudi Aramco to a privatized company-albeit with significant government oversight and control-and addresses key questions on the issues likely to be faced, such as IPO pricing, the listing, domain, and market capacity, and potential stakeholders. As such, this book will be of interest to academic researchers studying energy economics, energy policy, and the political economy of the Middle East, as well as private sector decision makers in energy related fields, international organizations, international oil companies, energy commodity traders, and public sector energy policy makers with interest in Saudi Arabia and Aramco's IPO.

Biomass is a continuously renewed source of energy formed from or by a wide variety of living organisms. Through biochemical and thermochemical processes, it is converted into gaseous, liquid or solid biofuels, which already meet a significant share of the current world energy needs. Because of their contribution to the sustainability of energy supply, reduction of green house gas emissions as well as local employment and energy self-reliance, research interest and activity in enhancing biofuel energy output, efficiency and performance remain strong. The first part of this volume comprises five articles mainly concerned with biomass resource potential and management. More specifically, the reported investigations assess grass and lawn substrates, rapeseed straw and microalgae from Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor effluents as possible sources of biogas, bioethanol and biodiesel, respectively. The emphasis in the subsequent group of eleven articles is on biomass conversion processes, aiming at assessing performance as well as output quality and diversity.Biodiesel, a fluid biofuel produced from biomass with high lipids such as rapeseed oil, sunflowers and soy beans, is the focus of two articles: the first investigates the effect of biodiesel blending with diesel fuel on diesel engine performance and emissions; the second assesses the efficiency of catalytic reforming of biodiesel into a gaseous mixture, used directly as Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) fuel. In the last three articles, the prospects of biofuels as viable sources of energy are examined within European contexts. This volume addresses a significant number of important themes and thus combines subject breadth and density with in-depth study of biomass resourcing and processing as well as the issue of biofuel and renewable energy sustainability.

Detailed and comprehensive, "Waste Management in the Oil Industry" deals with strategies required to manage wastes emanating from oil exploration, development, refining, storage, and distribution in an ecologically friendly manner. Drawing on his extensive experience in the environmental engineering industry and pollution control, Dr. Aloysius A. Aguwa takes an in-depth look at the dilemmas facing the oil industry today.

Dr. Aguwa discusses key strategies needed to effectively control and manage waste associated with the oil and gas industry. These strategies can be grouped into the following categories:

Input substitution Product reformulation Production process redesign/modernization Improved operation and maintenance of production Recovery/recycle Waste treatment Drawings, figures, and tables also help support Dr. Aguwa's research. Those responsible for implementing environmentally sound disposal activities in the oil industry will find "Waste Management in the Oil Industry" an invaluable resource.

This volume is the latest in an annual series, published in association with the Institute of Economic Affairs and the London Business School, which provides an up-to-date review of the state of utility regulation in Britain, with some relevant overseas comparisons. The book, edited and with an introduction by Colin Robinson, covers many of the major issues and significant developments in the field of regulation and competition policy. In each case, essays by expert contributors are followed by the views of the sector regulator. This volume will prove invaluable to practitioners, policymakers and lawyers involved in monopoly regulation, regulatory reform and deregulation.

The German abandonment of nuclear power represents one of the most successful popular revolts against technocratic thinking in modern times-the triumph of a dynamic social movement, encompassing a broad swath of West Germans as well as East German dissident circles, over political, economic, and scientific elites. Taking on Technocracy gives a brisk account of this dramatic historical moment, showing how the popularization of scientific knowledge fostered new understandings of technological risk. Combining analyses of social history, popular culture, social movement theory, and histories of science and technology, it offers a compelling narrative of a key episode in the recent history of popular resistance.

Energy insecurity is not normally associated with the Middle East. However, away from the oil-rich Persian Gulf, the countries of the eastern Mediterranean are particularly vulnerable. Their fossil fuel endowments are low, while their fractious relationships with each other have long fostered wider political insecurities. Focusing on the Jordan Basin (Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Jordan), this timely volume addresses the prospects for the adoption of renewable energy in the oil-poor Middle East. Featuring regional energy experts, it offers an invaluable survey.

After outlining the regional security context, this book first reviews renewable energy policy and practices in the Jordan Basin. It then considers options for greening energy use, including promising pilot projects in North Africa. The initiatives discussed encompass renewable energy finance, energy-efficient rural communities, and solar and wind energy. There is significant potential for an increase in the uptake of renewable energy technologies in the eastern Mediterranean. This window of opportunity has been created by high oil prices, energy infrastructure investment opportunities, and the UN climate change regime. In conclusion, the book considers the institutional conditions for collaborative decision-making on renewable energy. Such cooperation would deliver substantial security and human development benefits to the region, and indeed the world.

This book describes green photocatalysts and their diverse applications in the fields of environmental sciences and energy. It especially takes a closer look at the removal of air and water pollutants, the generation of hydrogen, photo fuel cells, electrophotocatalysts, solar energy conversions, and green biophotocatalysts. Furthermore it also discusses on the role of catalysts along with their chemical reactions, challenges, past developments and directions for further research on photocatalysts. It includes recent developments of quantum dots (QDs) and photocatalytic applications of QDs such as carbon materials like carbon and graphene based QDs, metal, metal sulfide and metal oxide based QDs as well as a detailed review on various types of templates used for the preparation of porous g-C3N4 and its applications in detail. This is done with special reference to dye degradation, reduction of hexavalent Cr, and reduction of CO2 and for the evolution of H2 photocatalytically. This book offers an intriguing and useful guide for a broad readership in various fields of catalysis, material sciences, environment and energy.

Building Corporate IQ - Moving the Energy Business from Smart to Genius gives a clear outline of organizational intelligence and provides a framework for practitioners of good leadership. The synthesis starts with an overview of the fundamental skills and competencies mastered by leaders and team members in organizations. Building Corporate IQ - Moving the Energy Business from Smart to Genius also includes a corporate IQ test that is designed to help leaders gain insight into how their organization can stay at the competitive frontier. Illustrated with case studies from the energy sector, Building Corporate IQ - Moving the Energy Business from Smart to Genius explains the guiding principles of organizational learning, with the goal of developing better organizational intelligence. It is intended as an indispensable guide for managers at all levels to help them meet and recognize new challenges in the corporate innovation process. For the third millennium, with the increase in depersonalized electronic communication, business leaders, especially in the energy industry, must quickly develop organizational intelligence in their organizations to survive. This book sets out the modus operandi. (Crispian McCredie, former Managing Director and Publisher, The Petroleum Economist). MBA graduates and seasoned professionals will find this executive guide a powerful reference during their careers. (Ken Graham, former Head Global Leadership Development, Shell).

Energy and environmental security are major problems facing our global economy. Fossil fuels, particularly crude oil, are confined to a few regions of the world and the continuity of supply is governed by dynamic political, economic and ecological factors. These factors conspire to force volatile, often high fuel prices while, at the same time, environmental policy is - manding a reduction in greenhouse gases and toxic emissions. Yet incr- sed growth and demand for welfare by developed and developing countries are placing higher pressure on energy resources. In particular, a large fraction of "new consumers" in developing countries already reached a purchasing power high enough as to be able to access to commodity and energy markets worldwide, thus boosting energy consumption and competition for all kinds of resources. Such a trend, although in principle may represent a progress towards diffuse welfare and wealth as well as much needed equity, is at present contributing to a rush for the appropriation of available resources which are directly and indirectly linked to energy and may contribute to planetary instability if it is not adequately understood and managed. A coherent energy strategy is required, addressing both energy supply and demand, security of access, development problems, equity, market dy- mics, by also taking into account the whole energy lifecycle including fuel production, transmission and distribution, energy conversion, and the impact on energy equipment manufacturers and the end-users of energy systems.

This book is a compilation of case studies from different countries and covers contemporary technologies including electric vehicles and solar thermal power plants. The book highlights the real-world situations facing individual projects and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the underlying business propositions. It also sheds light on the factors that are routinely ignored during project formulation and risk assessment, namely coordination among public and private agencies, confirmed availability of relatively minor but essential components, possibility of concurrent demand for inputs from different project proponents, etc. The book provides a systematic 'guided tour' of renewable energy (RE) projects for potential project analysts and includes the development of financial models. It concludes with an evaluation of risk and the design of risk-mitigation measures. It is designed to simultaneously appeal to business school students and to serve as a guide for practicing executives, policy makers and consultants. The cases cover several countries, currencies, policy environments, technologies and resources and will help policy makers, consultants and project analysts and proponents view RE projects in a new light.

This book covers available approaches to improving the performance and impact of long-term projections of the national energy sector development. In turn, it introduces an original multi-stage approach to narrowing down the uncertainty range of the input data and resulting projections. Its unique contribution is that it limits the scope for each of the projection timeframe segments step-by-step. This is done in the course of iterative calculations, which employ dedicated methods and other tools to elucidate and solve top-priority problems specific to each time segment. In closing, the book provides a detailed treatment of two essential research problems: 1) long-term forecasting for regional energy markets, and 2) the quantitative assessment of a) the barriers that are likely to hinder energy sector development and b) strategic-level energy security threats.