This book illustrates operation and maintenance practices/guidelines for economic generation and managing health of a thermal power generator beyond its regulatory life. The book provides knowledge for professionals managing power station operations, through its unique approach to chemical analysis of water, steam, oil etc. to identify malfunctioning/defects in equipment/systems much before the physical manifestation of the problem. The book also contains a detailed procedure for conducting performance evaluation tests on different equipment, and for analyzing test results for predicting maintenance requirements, which has lent a new dimension to power systems operation and maintenance practices. A number of real life case studies also enrich the book. This book will prove particularly useful to power systems operations professionals in the developing economies, and also to researchers and students involved in studying power systems operations and control.

This book presents key recent developments in biofuel policy, products, processes, patents and innovative technologies. It presents several case studies, which maximize reader insights into how innovative green energy technologies can be implemented on an industrial scale, with illustrations, photos and new approaches. It also analyzes in detail several different technological aspects of the research into and production of green fuels from the first, second and third generation, such as, bioethanol, biogas, biohydrogen, biobutanol, biofuels from pyrolysis, and discusses their economic and environmental impacts. A new source of information for engineers, technicians and students involved in production and research in the biofuels sector, this book also provides a valuable resource for industry, covering the current and future status of biofuels.

This book provides an excellent overview of the legal issues surrounding climate change mitigation and international trade law. It surveys key observed and potential challenges posed by responses to climate change in terms of international trade law. By examining the controversial issues seen in legal cases in which domestic climate change or renewable energy measures conflicted with international trade regimes, this volume promotes and broadens the understanding and debate of the issues. Beyond the recognized challenges, this book uncovers potential areas of conflict between climate change responses and international trade promotion by exploring previous cases and current efforts to prevent climate change. Furthermore, this volume sheds light on the future direction of international trade law and climate change responses, pointing out that the development of climate change or renewable energy laws and policies must also consider international trade regimes in order to ensure the smooth implementation of said laws and policies and guarantee that international trade laws do not restrict environmental policy space.

This book is about the mechanisms of wealth creation, or what we like to think of as evolutionary "progress." The massive circular flow of goods and services between producers and consumers is not a perpetual motion machine; it has been dependent for the past 150 years on energy inputs from a finite storage of fossil fuels. In this book, you will learn about the three key requirements for wealth creation, and how this process acts according to physical laws, and usually after some part of the natural wealth of the planet has been exploited in an episode of "creative destruction." Knowledge and natural capital, particularly energy, will interact to power the human wealth engine in the future as it has in the past. Will it sputter or continue along the path of evolutionary progress that we have come to expect? Can the new immaterial wealth of information and ideas, which makes up the so-called knowledge economy, replace depleted natural wealth? These questions have no simple answers, but this masterful book will help you to understand the grand challenge of our time. Praise for Energy, Complexity and Wealth Maximization: "... people who run the modern world (politicians, economists and lawyers) have a very poor grasp of how it really works because they do not understand the fundamentals of energy, exergy and entropy ... those decision-makers would greatly benefit from reading this book ..." - Vaclav Smil, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Manitoba "... A grandiose design; impressive, worth reading and reflecting!" - Prof. Dr. Ernst Ulrich von Weizacker, Founder of Wuppertal Institute; Co-President of the Club of Rome, Former Member of the German Bundestag, co-chair of the UN's Resource Panel "... The book is a must read for concerned citizens and decision makers across the globe." - RK Pachauri, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and ex-chair, International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

This monograph adresses the challenge of the environmental assessment of leightweight electric vehicles. It poses the question whether the use of lightweight materials in electric vehicles can reduce the vehicles' environmental impact and compares the environmental performance of a lightweight electric vehicle (LEV) to other types of vehicles. The topical approach focuses on methods from life cycle assessment (LCA), and the book concludes with a comprehensive concept on the environmental assessment of LEVs. The target audience primarily comprises LCA practitioners from research institutes and industry, but it may also be beneficial for graduate students specializing in the field of environmental assessment.

This book discusses the economic, political, and environmental issues surrounding the international exploration and exploitation of conventional and unconventional natural gas. Shale gas development in recent years has changed the energy discussion in the US as existing reserves of natural gas coupled with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing make exploitation of these reserves economically feasible; the discussion is quickly becoming international in scope. The potential expansion of natural gas development impacts many regions of the globe and spans multiple perspectives. In a volatile international climate, one of intense geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West, economic slowdowns in Europe and China, military conflicts in the Middle East and northern Africa, and widening income disparity in the U.S., a relatively inexpensive and plentiful energy source like shale gas could play a key role in mitigating such conflicts. In an energy interdependent global community, however, multiple factors such as oil prices, differing rates of exploration, environmental concerns, strategic initiatives, institutional changes, legal and regulatory issues, and actions of the nations involved all have the potential to influence future outcomes. This book discusses each of these in turn, detailing the issues most prevalent in each geographical area. The first volume to provide a comprehensive global view of the impacts of shale gas development, this book fills a gap in the current research literature, providing vital information for the scholarly community and the public alike. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of economics, energy policy, public administration, and international relations as well as policy makers and residents of the regions that are experiencing shale gas development.

This book provides an in-depth economic analysis of the challenges associated with bioenergy use and production. Drawing on New Institutional Economics and the theory of economic policy, it develops theory-based recommendations for a bioenergy policy that strives for efficiency and sustainability. Further, it shows how to deal with diverse uncertainties and constraints, such as institutional path dependencies, transaction costs, multiple and conflicting policy aims, and interacting market failures, while also applying the resulting theoretical insights to a case study analysis of Germany's bioenergy policy. As such, the book aims to bridge the gap between practical bioenergy policymaking on the one hand, and neoclassical theory-based concepts that strictly focus on a minimization of greenhouse gas mitigation costs on the other.

This book examines sustainable energy development in China, a non-liberal state, as a counterexample to conventional wisdom that effective policy outcomes are premised on the basis of decentralized governance. The use of sustainable energies as part of the solution for stabilising global warming has been promoted in industrialised countries for the past three decades. In the last ten years, China has expanded its renewable energy capacity with unprecedented speed and breadth. This phenomenon seems to contradict the principle of orthodox environmental governance, in which stakeholder participation is deemed a necessary condition for effective policy outcomes. Based upon policy documents, news report and interviews with 32 policy makers, business leaders, and NGO practitioners in selected subnational governments, this book examines the politics of sustainable energy in China. It engages debates over the relationships among democratic prioritisation, environmental protection, and economic empowerment, arguing that China's quasi-corporatist model in the sustainable energy field challenges Western scholars' dominant assumptions about ecopolitics.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of investment problems pertaining to electric energy infrastructure, including both generation and transmission facilities. The analysis encompasses decision-making tools for expansion planning, reinforcement, and the selection and timing of investment options. In this regard, the book provides an up-to-date description of analytical tools to address challenging investment questions such as: How can we expand and/or reinforce our aging electricity transmission infrastructure? How can we expand the transmission network of a given region to integrate significant amounts of renewable generation? How can we expand generation facilities to achieve a low-carbon electricity production system? How can we expand the generation system while ensuring appropriate levels of flexibility to accommodate both demand-related and production-related uncertainties? How can we choose among alternative production facilities? What is the right time to invest in a given production or transmission facility? Written in a tutorial style and modular format, the book includes a wealth of illustrative examples to facilitate comprehension. It is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of electric energy systems, operations research, management science, and economics. Practitioners in the electric energy sector will also benefit from the concepts and techniques presented here.

This book presents an analysis of why some large infrastructure projects are delayed or compromised and offers important insights into the better delivery of future projects. It provides an important reaction to the ambitious EURO315 billion investment plan devised by the European Commission, wherein Europe's infrastructure is a key investment target. Germany is adopted as a focus, as Europe's largest economy, and a nation that has seen significant delays and tensions in the delivery of key infrastructure projects. The contributions to this volume demonstrate various patterns for infrastructure assets and illustrate how factors such as poor project governance, early planning mistakes, inappropriate risk management and unforeseen technological challenges influence delivery. The in-depth case studies on the Berlin Brandenburg Airport, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and offshore wind parks show how project delivery can face massive problems, and illuminating solutions are offered to these problems. Overall, the case of Germany also offers the opportunity to assess various new forms of project delivery, such as public-private partnerships (PPP), and the risks and opportunities of ambitious first-mover 'pioneer' projects. The book will be of great interest for scholars and upper-level students of human geography, business and management, as well as policy makers.

In this book, a number of long-term energy scenarios are developed for Nigeria considering the impact of vital factors that may influence energy policies in the country's future energy system. The energy scenarios were developed through the Long-Range Energy Alternatives Planning System (LEAP) model. The model identified the future energy demand and supply pattern using a least-cost combination of technology options while limiting the emission of greenhouse gases. The book presents four scenarios, and key parameters considered include GDP, households, population, urbanization and the growth rates of energy-intensive sectors. Further, it highlights the findings of the cost-benefit analysis, which reveal the costs of implementing selected policies and strategies in Nigeria, including those focusing on energy efficiency and fuel/technology switching. The book also discusses the application of the LEAP-OSeMOSYS Model in order to identify lowest-cost power plants for electricity generation. Some sustainable strategies that can ensure a low carbon development in Nigeria are also explored on the basis of successful country cases in relation to the Nigerian LEAP model. As such, the book will help policy makers devise energy and sustainable strategies to achieve low carbon development in Nigeria.

Several Asian cities have already invested in initiatives to build and promote Green Cities. Owing to the limited capacity of local governments, the funding of urban infrastructure has become a critical issue. Against this background, this book explores a new funding mechanism which demands the engagement of many stakeholders, including public-private partnerships. This book offers guidance on how cities in selected countries can play a key role in the green growth agenda, by stimulating growth through smart investment in urban infrastructure such as through building a physical infrastructure, offering financial and tax incentives, and heightening society's awareness of a sustainable lifestyle.

The authors offer a revolutionary solution to risk management. It's the unknown risks that keep leaders awake at night-wondering how to prepare for and steer their organization clear from that which they cannot predict. Businesses, governments and regulatory bodies dedicate endless amounts of time and resources to the task of risk management, but every leader knows that the biggest threats will come from some new chain of events or unexpected surprises-none of which will be predicted using conventional wisdom or current risk management technologies and so management will be caught completely off guard when the next crisis hits. By adopting a scientific approach to risk management, we can escape the limited and historical view of experience and statistical based risk management models to expose dynamic complexity risks and prepare for new and never experienced events.

This book examines the energy dimension of the smart city from the perspective of urban planning, providing a complete overview that ranges from theoretical aspects to practical considerations and projects. In addition, it aims to illustrate how the concept of the smart city can enhance understanding of the urban system and foster new forms of management of the metropolis, including with respect to energy supply and use. Specifically, the book explores the different dimensions of the relationship between energy and the city, discusses methodological issues with a special focus on ontological approaches to sustainability, and describes practices, tools, and good examples of energy-related urban planning. The authors represent the main Italian research groups working in the field, Italy being an excellent example of a country exposed to energy problems due to, for example, vulnerability to climate change and lack of primary energy resources. This book will be valuable for students of urban planning, town planners, and researchers interested in understanding the changing nature of the city and the challenges posed by energy issues.

This book adds a new dimension to the sustainability assessment of food waste reduction and valorisation: policy analysis. Featuring a transdisciplinary analysis by key experts in the field, it identifies the drivers of change in food-waste reduction and valorisation technologies by looking, for example, at the regulatory framework and at policy actions undertaken by local and global actors. The book explores the development of regulations and policies for food-waste prevention, management, and valorisation at a global as well as European Union level. It also discusses the notion of food waste in legal terms and investigates the effects of the lack of a standard, universal definition of food waste on the efficient use of by-products, promising processes and products for technological and commercial exploitation. Utilising mathematical mapping methods to assess food consumption impacts and providing supply chain models that allow the testing of consumption scenarios, the book goes on to discuss a series of emerging technologies (tested at lab scale and/ or pilot scale) and opportunities for the valorisation of food waste.

In its second volume, this book aims to link the academic research with development in the real world and provide a historical and institutional background that can enrich more formal research. The first section will include an assessment of the evolution and the state of the nascent second-generation biofuel as well as a perspective on the evolution of corn ethanol and sugarcane ethanol in Brazil. It will also include a historical and institutional background on the biofuel industry in Brazil that has global lessons, and later, provide a technical overview of major analytical tools used to assess the economic, land use and greenhouse gas implications of biofuel policies at a regional and global level. Additionally, the book analyzes the various drivers for land use change both at a micro-economic level and at a macro-economic level. It presents studies that apply regional and global economic models to examine the effects of biofuel policies in the US, EU and Brazil on regional and global land use, on food and fuel prices and greenhouse gas emissions. These papers illustrate the use of partial and general equilibrium modeling approaches to simulate the effects of various biofuel policies, and includes studies showing the effects of risk aversion, time preferences and liquidity constraints on farmers decision to grow energy crops for biofuel production. By presenting the tools of lifecycle analysis for assessing the direct greenhouse gas intensity of biofuels, this handbook investigates the types of indirect or market mediated effects that can offset or strengthen these direct effects. It will include tools to assess the direct and indirect effects of biofuel production on greenhouse gas emissions in the US and Brazil, and ultimately provide a comprehensive background to understand the state of biofuel in the present and how to analyze their implication.

While oil price fluctuations in the past can be explained by pure supply factors, this book argues that it is monetary policy that plays a significant role in setting global oil prices. It is a key factor often neglected in much of the earlier literature on the determinants of asset prices, including oil prices. However, this book presents a framework for modeling oil prices while incorporating monetary policy. It also provides a complete theoretical basis of the determinants of crude oil prices and the transmission channels of oil shocks to the economy. Moreover, using several up-to-date surveys and examples from the real world, this book gives insight into the empirical side of energy economics. The empirical studies offer explanations for the impact of monetary policy on crude oil prices in different periods including during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008-2009, the impact of oil price variations on developed and emerging economies, the effectiveness of monetary policy in the Japanese economy incorporating energy prices, and the macroeconomic impacts of oil price movements in trade-linked cases. This must-know information on energy economics is presented in a reader-friendly format without being overloaded with excessive and complicated calculations. enUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>

This resource is the first-ever compilation of industry-authored case studies on how power companies are making strides toward achieving sustainable electricity in North America. The book features recent game changing efforts, candid insider stories about challenges and process, and forecasts for the next decade of innovation. Each chapter shares topic-focused case studies regarding the reality of implementing operational changes and strategies that will lead to sustainable electricity. Key technical staff and managers from top companies candidly report on failures, insights, trade-offs, internal process, resulting improvements to operational efficiencies, and natural resource and stakeholder benefits. Electric power company managers seeking to identify specific opportunities and understand the process for advancing sustainability in their own organizations will discover solid paths forward through potentially treacherous terrain. Educated stakeholders, agencies, and regulators will benefit from the greater understanding of the reality of realizing change in the electric power industry engendered by this unique strategic resource.

This volume of Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics focuses on latest results from research in Banking and Finance, Accounting and Corporate Governance, Growth and Development, along with a focus on the Energy sector. The first part on Accounting and Corporate Governance features articles on environmental accounting, audit quality, financial information, and adoption of governance principles. The Banking and Finance part looks at risk-behavior in banks, credit ratings during subprime crisis, stakeholder management, and stock market crises. The book focuses then on the energy sector and analyzes macroeconomic impacts of electricity generation, risk dimensions in wind energy, the latest EU energy reforms, and discusses prediction models.

This book examines the physical and economic characteristics of the global oil resource to explain why peak oil has been so poorly understood. The author draws on information held in oil industry datasets that are not widely available outside of the specialist literature, and describes a number of methods that have been successfully used to predict oil peaks. In contrast to the widely-held view that 'all oil forecasts are wrong', these methods correctly predicted the current peak in global conventional oil production. Current oil forecasts are then compared to evaluate the expected dates for regional and global oil peaks for conventional oil, all-oils, and all-liquids. The dates of global peaks in the production of all-oil and all-liquids appear to be reasonably soon, while the oil price that is needed to support these global production levels continues to rise. The world faces serious constraints in its oil supply, which accounts for about one-third of total world energy use, and over 90% of the fuel used for transportation. Readers of this book will gain a thorough understanding of the critical, but poorly understood, phenomenon of peak oil that has already had significant impacts on society in terms of high oil prices, and which will place increasing constraints on mankind's supply of energy and economic well-being in the coming years.

This volume offers a comprehensive and empirically rich analysis of regional maritime disputes in the South China Sea (SCS). By discussing important aspects of the rise of China's maritime power, such as territorial disputes, altered perceptions of geo-politics and challenges to the US-led regional order, the authors demonstrate that a regional power shift is taking place in Asia-Pacific. The volume also provides in-depth discussions of the responses to Chinese actions by SCS claimants as well as by important non-claimant actors.

This book introduces the issues and problems that arise when implementing smart energy management for sustainable manufacturing in the automotive manufacturing industry and the analytical tools and applications to deal with them. It uses a number of illustrative examples to explain energy management in automotive manufacturing, which involves most types of manufacturing technology and various levels of energy consumption. It demonstrates how analytical tools can help improve energy management processes, including forecasting, consumption, and performance analysis, emerging new technology identification as well as investment decisions for establishing smart energy consumption practices. It also details practical energy management systems, making it a valuable resource for professionals involved in real energy management processes, and allowing readers to implement the procedures and applications presented.

This book provides an up-to-date, rigorous analysis of the state of the art of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation. It focuses on the economic analysis of solar PV generation technologies as well as the policies that have been devised and implemented around the globe to support it. It provides the main theoretical tools for understanding the cost of these technologies, and discusses them from both a historical and comparative perspective with respect to other competing technologies (both conventional and renewable). In addition, it presents the conceptual rationale to maximize reader insights into whether and how public support for these technologies is justified as well as the consequences for the economy of different promotion measures. Integrating concepts from different economics disciplines (environmental economics, innovation economics, industrial economics and public economics) into a coherent basis for the analysis of the costs and policies for solar PV electricity, it provides an update to the literature to reflect recent advances in and deployments of solar electricity and the drastic reduction in associated costs.

Economic diversification remains at the top of the agenda for hundreds of regions around the world. From the single commodity economies of African countries and the Caribbean, to the many single industry regions of Europe and North America, as well as the oil and gas rich but volatile hydrocarbon economies. Economic diversification policies have been around for almost a century with varying degrees of success and failure. Economic Diversification Policies in Natural Resource Rich Economies takes a special interest in the policy experiences of a set of different countries that have extractive industries representing significant drivers of their economies and subsequently are significant contributors to government revenues. It explores twelve cases including upper-middle to high income economies such as Canada, Australia, Iceland and Norway, emerging economies such as Latin America, the GCC (Saudi and UAE), Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Russia, as well as the developing economy of Uganda. Each chapter provides a review of economic diversification experiences including policy environment, diversification strategies, desired outcomes, the role of government, and a critical evaluation of achievements. This book is suitable for those who study environmental economics, development economics and resource management.

This book explores sustainability within manufacturing enterprises and examines the concepts and principles of this field. It also reviews the quantitative and qualitative tools available for analytic assessment. It presents a new framework for sustainable manufacturing requirements and discusses the implementation of sustainable manufacturing in terms of practices, indicators, and sustainability level assessments. The book also details the important conditions necessary for the conversion of existing traditional plants to ones with more sustainable processes. Chapters explore topics including the assessment of economic sustainability, social sustainability, environmental sustainability, sustainable manufacturing practices, and sustainability optimization. Serving as a reference for engineers, managers, and practitioners involved in manufacturing, this book will also be a valuable resource to students and researchers of industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, systems engineering, and operations management.